Managing post-conflict recovery in Africa: An overview

The papers in this volume deal with some aspects of the process of development in post-conflict countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely, policy framework for transiting from post-conflict to sustainable development; mechanisms for financing post-conflict recovery; poverty reduction strategies during post-conflict recovery and distinctive features of post-conflict recovery strategies. It is remarkable that even though the four papers were independently written, three common themes run through them. The first is that post-conflict countries, in order to transit from recovery to sustainable development, need a planning framework with a fairly long-time horizon and an overarching objective of poverty reduction. The second is that economic and social policy-making in such countries is expected to be distinct from that usually undertaken in non-conflict countries, thus signaling the need for each country, given its circumstances, to articulate policy benchmarks that may, or may not, overlap with those proposed by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and donors. The third major is the need for high volumes of aid flows to these countries; a controversial issue in the specialised literature on the effectiveness of aid. All of these major themes open up a vast area of research especially research based on country case studies.