From Conflict to Recovery in Africa

Establishing peace and reconstructing Africa's war-damaged economies are urgent challenges. For Africa to recover, communities must reconstruct, private sectors must revitalize, and states must transform themselves. Thus, unless communities rebuild and strengthen their livelihoods, neither reconstruction nor growth can be poverty-reducing. But communities cannot prosper unless private investment recreates markets and generates more employment. And neither communitiesnor entrepreneurs can realise their potential without a development state-one that is democratically accountable and dedicated to poverty-reducing development. The international community can do much to assist-through more aid, debt relief, and peacekeeping-but ultimately the future lies in thehands of Africans themselves.This book examines these themes in a selection of African countries that have gone through intense and prolonged conflict, and its policy conclusions are important for understanding the prospects for peace and recovery not only in Africa, but also in other 'post-conflict' societies across the world. It also discusses the cross-cutting issues of how economic and political reform interact with conflict resolution and 'post-conflict' reconstruction. This interaction is often neglected by bothgovernments and donors. However, reform and reconstruction cannot be kept separate if conflict is to be halted and poverty reduced.The book is one of the first to undertake a thorough examination of the economic dimensions of recovery from war. It places particular emphasis on designing a recovery in which the poor participate, so that the benefits of reconstruction from war do not just flow to a narrow élite. In highlighting the tensions and opportunities that exist in achieving recovery from war, it contributes not only to the debate on economic policy making in Africa, but also to the design of betterreconstruction and reform programmes.

The present hot topics of security discourse have tended to shift attention away from Africa: a big mistake. This continent has been fated to play the role of proving-ground both for conflict's cruellest variants and for the most forward-looking solutions. It strongly illustrates the interweaving of various dimensions of human security, so vital for finding the answers to new threats like mass-impact terrorism. Tony Addison's edited volume focuses on the economic damage invariably done by conflict and the policy challenge of how to repair it, concluding that only an early and sustained effort to address structural reforms can do the trick., This very timely book should be widely welcomed by social scientists and policy practitioners with an interest in development in post-conflict societies, especially in Africa ... Addison pulls together a clear set of policy recommendations that resonate well beyond the handful of countries on which this intensively researched collection was based., It is sad that a book such as this must be written, but conflict is a tragic fact of life in the sub-Saharan region. This book brings hope for the future, through its sound, professional research. Again, WIDER demonstrates that it is on the 'cutting edge' of development economics., I am confident that this book will serve as an excellent handbook for all those engaged in matters relating to poverty reduction, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants in Africa., From Conflict to Recovery in Africa is an admirable work. In a painstaking and succinct manner the contributors have satisfactorily examined the whole array of difficult factors and variables that must be tackled if a broad-based recovery from conflict can be achieved ... In my capacity as Minister of Finance, Development and Economic Planning and later as Minister of Finance (1998-2001) in Sierra Leone I was in charge of efforts to manage the country's ruined economy to post conflict development. My regret is that this book was not available at that time, as the case studies would have provided many lessons for countries like Sierra Leone.

Tony Addison is Deputy Director of the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) of the United Nations University. He was previously Director of the Programme in Quantitative Development Economics at the University of Warwick, UK, and has been on the economics faculties of the universities of Warwick and London (School of Oriental and African Studies). He has also been a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London, and hasacted as consultant for DFID, ILO, UNICEF, and the World Bank. His current interests are in reconstruction from conflict, fiscal policy in low-income countries, and the debt problems of poor countries.