Sudan Research Group
Public Lecture
Assessing the Peace-building in Darfur
The Case for a DPA-plus
Dr Ibrahim Elbadawi
Lead Economist, The World Bank
Friday 30 May 2008 6:30- 8:30 pm
St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
London, UK
For more information see abstract below.
Venue:
St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, 78 Bishopsgate,
London, EC2N 4AG (fully accessible for wheelchair users). Map location:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=533192&Y=181358&A=Y&Z=1
Public Transport:
The Centre is five minutes walk from both Bank and Liverpool Street
stations. Buses no 8, 26, 35, 47, 48, 149, 242, 344, and 388 stop
outside the door. By Car: Parking is difficult near the Centre. If you
want to use a car the nearest car park is the NCP - London Rodwell
House in Strype Street, London E1 7LF
This event is free of charge. To book a place and for more information
please contact Dr Gamal Ibrahim [log in to unmask] Tel 07990
658588 or Dr A Azim El-Hassan 07887 7511819
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What are the prospects of successful peace-building in Darfur given the
current levels of degree of hostility in society; the local competency
in society; and the extent of international competency and commitment to
peace-building?
Does the current Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) provide a sufficient and
an enabling framework for achieving sustainable peace even if signed by
all rebel groups?
Are there viable alternatives that provides long lasting transformative
changes which go beyond just securing regional economic and political
entitlements for Darfur in an otherwise unstable and conflictive polity,
as likely to be the case under the DPA?.
What’s the role of the various stakeholders, including SRG and other
sister organizations in Sudan and in the Diaspora, in promoting a DPA
plus alternative?
see overleaf for the author’s abstract
Abstract
Assessing the Peace-building in Darfur: The Case for a DPA-plus
Dr Ibrahim Elbadawi
World Bank
This paper assesses the prospects of successful peace-building in
Darfur; where success is measured by sustained and peaceful political
contestation of power even after the peacekeeping force leave the
country in question.
The probability of peace-building success is modelled as proportional to
an area of the so called the “peace triangle”, which is determined by
three set of factors: degree of hostility in society; the local
competency in society; and the extent of international competency and
commitment to peace-building. For the case of Darfur, greater hostility
(ethnic conflict within Darfur; a major rift between ruling elites at
the centre and their Darfurian counterparts; low social capital; and
many deaths and displacements) and low local competencies (reflected by
low indicators of socio-economic development) all make peace-building
success less likely. Therefore, the role of a strong UN mission,
defined as being a multi-dimensional and “transformational” peacekeeping
operation, is critical for ameliorating the low local competency and
high level of hostility currently prevailing within Darfur and between
elites across the country. However, our empirical simulations suggest
that the current Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) will not be enough for
achieving this goal, even if signed by all remaining rebel groups.
Instead, we show that much higher prospects for success can be delivered
by our proposed DPA-plus, which would engage all stakeholders in Darfur
and enfranchise all national political and civil society organizations
in a context of a genuine democratic transformation in the country.
This would lead to higher prospects for sustained peace because it would
provide incentives for Darfurian elites and popular forces in the region
to engage in, and hence shape, the emerging democratic national
political discourse, beyond just securing regional economic and
political entitlements for Darfur in an otherwise unstable and
conflictive polity, as likely to be the case under the DPA. Only in the
context of a DPA-plus democratic peace, we would argue, can the
conflictive and unsustainable struggle over the increasingly fragile
natural resource base in Darfur be contained. This is because a
democratic polity that assigns high priority to peace-building and
prevention of future civil wars will spare no effort to exploit
economically viable growth opportunities in Darfur, including by
investing in the restructuring and diversifying of the Darfurian
economy. Moreover, with the likely substantial influence of populous
Darfur in the national democratic politics, the political process should
permit the adoption of the principle of “unequal growth but equal
development”, which is increasingly observed in democratic countries
characterized by large regional economic inequalities. The implication
of this for Darfur is that even if the “landlocked” Darfurian economy
could not grow as high as other regions in the country, sufficient
national resources will be allocated for the equitable provision of
social services (such as in the areas of safe drinking water, education
and health) as well as ensuring access by the people of Darfur to
economic opportunities generated in other regions (such as in the
irrigated agriculture or the coastal regions of the Red Sea).
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