Capacity building in post conflict countries in Africa: A summary of lessons of experience from Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda.

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) is pleased to publish the third in the series of its Occasional Papers. Occasional Paper No.3 presents a summary of a report of a study on reconstruction and capacity building efforts in four post-conflict African Countries, namely, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda. The main objective of the study has been to draw lessons of experience that could provide a guide to policies, strategies and instruments for post-conflict capacity-building initiatives by the Foundation. The four country studies highlighted the fact that root causes of conflicts are different in different countries at different times and that they require country-specific approaches to return to the path of peace and development. The four studies established that the ability to prevent conflict is a function of the level of understanding of the dynamics of conflicts, the underlying stakes and appropriateness of tools to address them. The special needs of societies emerging from the traumas of conflict have shortened the development planning cycle in such a way as to demand more flexibility of programs and resources and greater responsiveness to emergencies that have up to now been handled only through humanitarian and relief assistance. The lack of in-depth knowledge of the historical, political, social and economic context of the conflict of Rwanda undermined, in many important ways, the effectiveness of regional and international interventions in the country. Although the promotion of reconciliation and peace building in the four countries was an often-stated aim of most donor programs, there was an obvious lack of technical know-how on how to implement and evaluate such activities in a post-conflict environment. While acknowledging that interventions in post-conflict societies are a special case, most donors in the four country studies seemed to have been more comfortable with planning and undertaking reconstruction projects based on "conventional models" of development rather than adopting approaches that responded to the peculiar exigencies of the moment. The ponderous procurement procedures, which, while designed for maximum transparency under normal conditions do not lend themselves to the conditions of post-conflict emergency situations. In post-conflict reconstruction, peace and security are essential for sustainable development. Broad-based development, important in its own right, also contributes to sustainable peace. The centrality of the peace objective implies one important corollary: the importance of appreciating the political environment and sensitivities of capacity building interventions.