Aiding Recovery: The Crisis of Aid in Chronic Political Emergencies

Worldwide more and more governments have begun to buckle under a variety of strains, including the ongoing pressures of economic crisis, followed by structural adjustment programmes, and the impact of declining legitimacy, often resulting in the outbreak of civil war. In this study of aid policy, Joanna Macrae argues that the disintegration of state authority and civil order has created acute problems in aid management. Largely ignored by major aid organizations, insecurity and failures of governance are now the major obstacles to aid reaching those in most need. International aid has traditionally assumed the existence of stable, sovereign states capable of making policy. In a number of developing countries, including post-conflict regimes like Cambodia, Uganda or Kosovo, this is no longer the case. The big donor agencies have usually responded by suspending development aid and substituting some kind of emergency or relief assistance. Now, as the author shows, there are calls to make relief more development-oriented and for it to address the underlying conflicts which causes these crises. But she concludes from her investigations on the ground in a number of countries that relief and development aid are very distinct processes. In the absence of public policy-making authorities, aid becomes highly fragmented, often inadequate in scale, and certainly not capable of building local sustainability for particular programmes. The international aid system, she concludes, faces real dilemmas and remains ill-equipped to respond to the peculiar challenges of quasi-statehood that characterize chronic political emergencies and their aftermath. An important book for policy makers, scholars and students of the development process wrestling with 'real world' issues of aid delivery.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction and overview 2. Aid, war and the state: 1945-1989 3. Aid beyond the state: the emergence of a 'new' aid orthodoxy? 4. The context of recovery: an overview of war and its impact in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Uganda 5. Aid in a vacuum: the legitimacy dilemma 6. The Sustainability Dilemma 7. Conclusion

About the Author :
Joanna Macrae is a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute. Over the past decade she has conducted a wide range of research and evaluations looking at how aid works in conflict settings, and how these responses reflect wider changes in international relations. In addition to extensive work on donor policy in this area, she has also conducted fieldwork in the Balkans, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Sudan and West Africa. She is Co- Editor, with Anthony Zwi of War and Hunger: Rethinking International Responses to Complex Emergencies, and with Helen Young of Disasters: the journal of disaster studies, policy and management.

Review :
'Basing her analysis on extensive fieldwork in Africa and Asia, Joanna Macrae challenges the emerging orthodoxy that international aid should play a role in the management of conflict, and that it should promote development in the midst of war. An important new book that provides a sobering reassessment of the role and impact of aid in unstable states.' - Jeff Crisp, Head of Evaluation and Policy Analysis, UNHCR 'The provision of aid to ensure recovery from conflict and a durable peace has become a central issue in debates about human security and development. Joanna Macrae has written an important book that promises to inform thinking and action in this field and encourages us to think deeply about new ways of responding in these complex emergencies.' - Shepard Forman, Director, Center on International Cooperation, State University of New York 'Macrae has successfully brought clarity to one of the most complex challenges the humanitarian community now has to face: the role of ostensibly neutral humanitarian assistance in a world of social upheaval and uncertain sovereignty. She has done so with remarkable insight and persuasiveness.' - Randolph Kent, UN Resident Coordinator for Somalia, and author of Anatomy of Disaster Relief: the International Network in Action 'Anyone wishing to understand the new humanitarianism and the growing use of aid as a strategic tool of conflict resolution and social reconstruction in zones of instability will find this book a comprehensive and provocative guide...essential reading for academics and practitioners alike.' - Professor Mark Duffield, Institute for Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds