Minister of International Development and Human Rights Hilde F. Johnson

The Norwegian Association for Development Research (NFU) Annual Conference

16-17 September 1999

Ladies and gentlemen,

The prevalence of conflict in poor regions of the world can no longer be seen merely as a strategic issue, or even simply as a moral issue – though it is both. It is also, and just as importantly, a development issue. Some 20 of the world’s 36 poorest countries are conflict-ridden. Hundreds of millions of dollars which would be better spent on long-term development are being poured into humanitarian relief and the reconstruction of devastated communities.

Peace is a precondition for development. The struggle for peace is surely the most basic and important development challenge of all. Efforts at peacemaking are efforts at development promotion. Unless we can devise approaches to prevent conflict and foster reconciliation, development efforts will be wasted, undermined or even reversed - again and again. This is pretty obvious, I know, but very often we overlook the interlinkages.

Politicians are manoeuvring in an environment that demands fast action and quick results. Can we deliver? Well, we have to. We cannot sit idle while conflicts create new suffering. At the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of the causes of conflicts. When people are drowning, just organising swimming lessons is no good. Yes, we have to take immediate remedial action, but pre-emptive action, too. And short- and long-term measures have to go hand in hand. If you keep afloat for a while but drown after the first few laps, you couldn’t really swim after all, could you?

According to statistics, every second peace accord breaks down, and the conflict starts all over again. We – meaning all stakeholders - need to do a better job than that! Fostering lasting peace solutions is a sine qua non for sustainable development. We must improve our ability to use development assistance to tackle the deep-rooted causes of conflict. We must get better at facilitating democratic and peaceful development in heterogeneous and complex societies and cultures. We need long-term perspectives, combined with short-term flexibility in the way we provide our assistance. Development aid can be a stabilising instrument in an unstable political environment, and it may prevent outbreaks of latent conflict. This may sound like an old cliché. But it is not.

Over the last year or so Norway has striven to raise awareness of the need for overlap between humanitarian assistance and long-term development efforts. I think there is general acceptance that long-term investments such as vaccination and education may also be needed in refugee camps. In post-conflict situations, relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development are generally not consecutive phases, but are more likely to overlap and take place simultaneously. And so they should! This – “the death of the continuum” - was one of the main messages in the humanitarian strategy that I presented to the Norwegian Parliament earlier this year.

We - the Norwegian government – would like to help develop adjusted financial mechanisms that would fill the critical resource gaps between acute emergency relief and more long-term activities. - Fill the gaps between relief and development, be it in efforts at demobilisation, reintegration or rehabilitation.

Having drawn attention to this (“gap”) phenomenon, we have also been reconsidering our own budgetary instruments in order to make them more flexible. We have encouraged and participated actively in the process undertaken under the aegis of the Brookings Institution to formulate proposals for closing institutional and financial gaps. If we are to succeed in this endeavour, we - the bilateral donors - as well as the international financial institutions and the United Nations development agencies, need to be much more willing to take risks for the sake of development. Improving active collaboration between the UNHCR and the World Bank in this field is one of the big tasks.

In certain countries, sometimes referred to as “failed states”, there are no central authorities for us to relate to. In other countries, there are local or cyclical conflicts combined with very weak institutions. Here, development agencies have to operate in an institutional vacuum, so to speak. In such countries, rebuilding the state becomes a major challenge. And development partners engaging in such countries often do so at a signficant risk.

In my opinion, we should focus more on the links between state security, human security and the development agenda. We need to address issues such as excessive military spending, corruption and repressive authorities. Security sector reform is a crucial element in creating stability in post-conflict societies.

The promotion of democracy and human rights are important pillars in Norway’s development cooperation. They serve both as means to development and as ends in themselves. At the same time, humanitarian assistance is increasingly being linked to conflict resolution and development promotion. Humanitarian action should not be used as a substitute for political action. Quite the contrary, they should go hand in hand. Or, to put it in another way: humanitarian interventions should be based on a political strategy. In our new Strategy for Humanitarian Assistance we will strive to develop a fully integrated approach to humanitarian assistance, peace and reconciliation, and development.

Our more comprehensive “South policy” has enhanced the need for more research-based knowledge of the structure of conflicts and questions related to post-conflict management. This applies, not least, to the effect of international relief efforts. We cannot put ourselves in a situation where we end up distorting local mechanisms, as also mentioned in the conference brochure. Of course, the dilemma facing all donors is how to reconcile the principle of neutrality with the fact that humanitarian assistance always changes the nature of a conflict - becoming a further factor in the web of cause and effect, of strategy and counter-strategy.

Therefore, conflict impact assessment should become part and parcel of our aid to conflict-ridden areas. Likewise, we need to better understand how long-term measures in the economic and social sectors of developing countries can benefit excluded and marginalised groups.

In addressing these questions, we need to be able to rely on expertise. Your expertise. We need to strengthen our contact with “development researchers”. We need research that is relevant to our tasks as policy-makers. Earlier this year, I launched a new strategy to strengthen research and higher education in our relations with developing countries. The basic message is that we need to improve the ability of developing countries to carry out research on the basis of their own needs, and to make use of existing research results.

Part of the strategy is, however, also devoted to the role of Norwegian development research. Why? – Beacause research-based knowledge will help provide the basis for an integrated and coherent Norwegian “South Policy”.

In cooperation with the Norwegian Research Council, we are – as you know - funding a number of research programmes that are directly relevant to the shaping of our development cooperation. Quite recently, “Paths to development in the South” - a major inter- and multi-disciplinary research programme on globalisation and marginalisation - was launched. Many of you are already familiar with this programme. We hope that it will help us ask relevant questions, and provide useful inputs to our future policy-making.

I have visited some of the prominent centres of development research in Norway, and I will be travelling to the University of Tromsø later this autumn. I have been very impressed by the variety of the research being carried out and the high scientific standards that are being maintained.

As users – and buyers - we must define what kind of information we need. This is a difficult task. It calls for a close dialogue with the research community. More importantly, you should make your research results widely accessible. Your reports and papers should not only be understandable to other researchers, but also to us, the policy-makers, and to operators in the field. We need applied and applicable research. Use your expertise to address the problems confronting decision-makers. The convening of this and similar conferences proves that you are in a position to do just that.

Ladies and gentlemen,

What you will be discussing during the next two days are among the major challenges confronting us today. Are we helpless spectators, or can we play a role in developing democratic societies where people can coexist peacefully? How can development cooperation reduce the causes of conflict? What are the dilemmas facing us? Can humanitarian assistance be counterproductive by increasing dependence and fueling conflicts? Can humanitarian assistance in some cases prolong conflicts? How far should the international community go when the parties to a conflict are not themselves interested in conflict resolution and peace? Can a stronger emphasis on the humanitarian imperative in Norwegian foreign policy – which we have been pursuing - undermine the traditional goals of development cooperation? Is there a need for an international discussion of a new humanitarianism, within the framework of an ethical foreign policy? Our continuous efforts in the Sudan and on the Horn of Africa remind us daily of the relevance of these questions.

Before concluding, there was one other issue discussed in your conference programme that I would like to comment on. In a previous announcement of the panel debate for tomorrow, Norwegian foreign policy was described as being either in defence of national interests (defined as security needs and economic interests) or based on ideals (defined as humanitarian action, human rights, democratization and development cooperation). As a social anthropologist by training, I would like to challenge this approach, which I find simplistically dichotomized. I would rather suggest that, in fact, widely shared ideals and national interests are interdependent. Especially so in a long-term perspective. Nowadays, national and global interests often coincide. At the turn of the millennium, economic development, democratisation and peace in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America are vital to the future of the entire world community. If we want to help shape our own future - our common future - we cannot limit our focus to the narrow and immediate interests of only four million people.

You - the research community - help us broaden our perspectives, digest the flow of information, ask the right questions, try find the answers, and suggest adequate policy responses. And we will keep working on improving our policy tools, increasing the impact of every dollar spent.

I wish you every success during your two days here in Oslo.

Thank you.