07.10.10
Learning to Build a Sustainable Peace
Ownership and Everyday Peacebuilding
Bergen, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) | 49 sider | CMI Report R 2010:4
Lack of local ownership is seen as a central explanation for why peacebuilding efforts often fail to yield sustainable peace dividends. But how is local ownership understood and acted upon by those who are engaged in peacebuilding efforts at the country level? Based on research in four countries – Afghanistan, Haiti, Liberia and Sudan – this study finds that the way ownership is operationalized by external actors at the country level is quite different from how it is defined in policy documents. The most prevalent operationalization is ownership as a conditional right with external actors seeing ownership as theirs to give to local actors when certain conditions (such as capacity or responsibility) are met. The result is often that reform efforts are unsustainable. This report suggests some concrete steps that can be taken to render ownership an operational principle.
>> Summary
Summary of key findings
- The discourse and practice of “local ownership” vary significantly according to country context.
- As a rule, external actors do not seem to regard promotion of local ownership as a fundamental aspect of their job.
- How local ownership is interpreted and acted upon by external actors is often antithetical to how ownership is defined and used in policy documents.
- Local actors tend to understand ownership as a right, above all as a right to control externally initiated policies. External actors tend to understand ownership as a conditional right.
- In claiming that ownership is a conditional right, external actors typically refer to lack of local responsibility, capacity or political will. By implication, external actors often assume that ownership is theirs to grant to local authorities or local stakeholders.
- Ownership is in some cases not central in the frames of understanding and action that international staff use in seeking to build peace. Often it appears as a “problem” to be resolved or a challenge to overcome.
- Incentives for promotion and careers within the UN system are heavily linked to measurable results and outputs, and not to local processes and the sustainability of reform efforts.
- International staff often have limited knowledge of the society, language, culture and politics of the country where they serve, making it difficult to navigate among competing local claims of ownership.
- Donor efforts to promote ownership typically face the dilemma of aligning with one sectional interest in the short run, while broad consensus on a national strategy only develops, if at all, over the long run.
- International rules and administrative procedures that structure relations between the UN and national actors can place external actors in a superior position (e.g. in most multi-donor trust funds). In these cases, the UN acts within the framework of ownership as a very conditional right..
- With respect to justice sector reforms, external actors and national authorities have until recently given priority to rebuilding the formal justice sector. This has often meant sidelining customary and local justice institutions. Increasing shift to incorporate institutions of informal justice, on the other hand, raises difficult questions regarding which local actors should be privileged in the promotion of local ownership, particular in matters regarding women’s rights.
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