D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 1999,
p. 16-18)

With the end of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, and a possible peaceful settlement of the conflict, planning for reconstruction and development of the whole region has started. Mainly the European countries have promised to provide funds, distinguishing between development activities and immediate humanitarian support without any political conditionality. Once again attempts are made to define what is meant by "rehabilitation" and how we understand "development".

The debate is not new, it has started since the beginning of the nineties with the end of a series of conflicts in Third World countries linked to the Cold War, when in quite a number of countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa refugees had to be repatriated, distroyed infrastructure to be rebuilt, and collapsed administrations to be replaced.

International, bilateral and multilateral agencies function according to mandates which are mainly divided into two categories: humanitarian assistance or relief, and support to development. In the UN family for example, UNHCR is helping the refugee populations as long as they live in exile, whereas UNDP is taking over as soon as they have been repatriated to their home land. But this applies also to bilateral agencies and NGOs, with more or less rigidity. In reality the support measures in post-conflict situations are often a mix of relief, rehabilitation and development. Nevertheless due to different mandates and existing expertise, repatriation and reintegration of returning refugees proved to be a cumbersome and sometimes disappointing exercise, discovering what was called "the gap" between relief and development1. This article will try to pinpoint some of the problems which make the task of post-war reconstruction and reintegration as part of sustainable development so difficult to handle.

Lack of global view and
integrated approach

For some rehabilitation means mainly repair and reconstruction of what had been distroyed, as a subordinate activity to peace-building and conflict prevention. For others it is the ground on which not only material but also institutional structures would be based, a real "springboard for progress"2

Unfortunately in real life the two pillars of post-conflict rehabilitation, that is reconstruction on one side, and repatriation and reintegration of returning refugees on the other, are rarely found in an integrated way in post-war construction programmes, as it was aimed at by the so-called Area Development Programmes. Of course the construction of shelter is usually part of resettlement schemes, maybe in addition the reconstruction of a road or a bridge. But the building of schools and health posts in newly opened settlement areas is often out of question. This was the case in Eritrea. After the end of the thirty year long war of independence, large parts of the country were heavily destroyed, mainly in the Western Lowlands which were meant to receive the majority of the 400.000 to 500.000 refugees expected to return from exile in Sudan. The Eritrean government had worked out a plan following a concept of repatriation to be carried out according the progress made in rehabilitating the resettlement sites. The donor community was willing to provide funds, but not as much as the Eritrean government had asked for (US$ 32,7 million instead of 262,26 million). Moreover each agency (more than 70 agencies had participated in the donors meeting in Geneva in July 1993) wanted to fund and implement projects according to their own mandate and priorities: construction of shelters, vocational training, distribution of agricultural tools and seeds, drilling wells etc., following a strategy commonly called "pick and leave". Thus the ambitious PROFERI, last of a series of coordinated and combined repatriation and reintegration programmes (PRODERE in Guatemala, CARERE in Cambodia) was far from achieving an integrated and coordinated approach.3

Reintegration without participation

Hope - return - disillusionment - seems to be the general pattern of most of the repatriation and reintegration programmes, be it in Africa, Asia or Latin America. One of the reasons is the belief in a kind of homogeneous returnee profile. Returnees not only in Africa are believed to be farmers. In order to facilitate their reintegration, they get a package of seeds and agricultural tools, and pastoralists get some sheep and goats. But even if they are of rural origin in many cases they have had no opportunity to farm during their stay in refugee camps, often they have taken up other income generating activities for which they would need some starting capital. The example of the Ethiopian woman who in exile had earned her own and her family's living with a tea shop and is given a couple of goats, instead of a small sum to buy some equipment and tea, is rather the rule than the exception. And those who want to go into farming often have no access to land, as in most countries land reform is not the first priority in post-conflict situation. Also in many cases the start of agricultural activities has to wait until the land is demined, which was the case in Cambodia and Mozambique, and now is happening in Kosovo. This means relief has to go on until returnees will be able to farm and feed themselves.

Also the length of exile has to be taken into consideration. Many of the Tutsis who returned to Rwanda had spent their whole life in exile in Tanzania and Uganda, if they were not born there. Many of them never had any opportunity to farm, but have an urban background and sometimes a good school education level. They obviously need a different "package" to enable them to start than the smallholder peasant who abandoned his village during the genocide in 1994 and came back hardly one year later.

It seems that refugees have no or only little say in the decision concerning the reintegration package which they will get after returning to their home country. Also in most cases they are not informed about existing reintegration possibilities before they leave their place of exile, contrary to the demand made already in 1994, based on the fact that "refugees are the main actors, the main decision makers and have their own criteria"4. So it is not astonishing that reintegration programmes are conceived in isolation not only from the socio-economic realities in the home country, and especially in the settlement area, but also that experiences and personal histories of the returnees are not taken into consideration. This means that no use is made of the possibilities, limits, different survival strategies and perceptions of the refugees.

This applies especially to women. In most refugee camps women form the overwhelming majority of the resident population. They carry the burden of the family, but often they also benefit from their stay in the refugee camp, as they have access to education and training. For example they are trained to assume tasks in camp administration, kindergardens and health stations. Also the girls living in refugee camps have often better access to school education than they would have had if they had stayed at home. Back in their home country, these skills are neglected, to the disadvantage of the women and the community.

Target group versus
community development approach

It is common practice to conceive different programmes for different categories of beneficiaries, mainly returnees, IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and demobilised combatants, usually for no other reason than differing responsibilities and mandates, as mentioned before. As UNHCR is in charge of refugees, both during their stay in camps and during repatriation, the agency has to negotiate programmes to be funded and implemented by other agencies, in order to avoid that the repatriated refugees will fall into a vacuum. IDPs don't fall under their mandate, so usually they are not included even though they often outnumber by far those who pass a national border on their flight and on their way home. If demobilisation follows an international PKO (Peace Keeping Operation), the country will be helped to pay demobilisation money to the combatants, as was the case in Mozambique. If demobilisation is done on the initiative of the national government, as was the case in Eritrea, no foreign agency will fund it. These distinctions are further complicating the already difficult task of reintegration, although progressively there is a tendency to treat all groups the same way, as has been the case in Bosnia.

Demobilised combatants often are considered as a special target group, asking for special reintegration measures in order to avoid that they become a risk for general security. Actually particular categories of ex-combatants, for example child soldiers, female combatants with children, or disabled combatants, will need special attention, especially during the time immediately after demobilisation. But demobilised combatants usually have the same needs as returnees: they need land, shelter, skill training, start-up capital and equipment, and administrative support. Again this is mainly due to a narrow concept of mandate and project. In Eritrea for example, two parallel skill training programmes - one for ex-fighters and one for returnees - were implemented simultaneously by two German agencies5

It has to be kept in mind that reintegration of whatever group is mainly supported by the extended family, friends and neighbours, the village community. The government and aid agencies come in with special support measures or comprehensive programmes, aimed at facilitating and speeding up this process. It seems the best way to do this is by programmes which offer a mix of measures addressing the needs of the community as a whole, with special components for some categories needing special attention, as is done with more or less success in the already mentioned Area Development Programmes.

Lack of needs assessments and
impact evaluations

In order to address the needs of the different population groups as well as those of the community as a whole, differentiated needs assessments should be carried out, if possible starting before repatriation or demobilisation. Thus it would be possible not only to assess the needs, but also the skills and other assets which can be made use of after return. Among the returnees we find some well-to-do families which could be better helped with a bank loan than with a pair of oxen, a plough, seeds and fertiliser. Unfortunately this is hardly ever done, and if a needs assessment is carried out, the vulnerable groups in the community are usually not addressed as a separate entity. In Cambodia for example it turned out that the majority of returnees having left the agricultural settlement set up to receive them were single women with children. They had got the same reintegration support than the other members of the community, but they had used it to feed their children and thus had no money left to buy seeds and hire labour.

What applies to needs assessments is also valid for impact evaluations. For the time being the assessment of success or failure of an integration programme is based on quantitative facts: the number of people having benefitted from support measures, the number of houses having been built, the number of pairs of oxen, or seeds packages, or tools distributed, the number of skill training courses carried out ... But without proper impact evaluation, without effectively knowing how many returnees, IDPs and ex-combatants feel that they are part of the community and able to sustain themselves and their family without outside help, it is not possible to say whether a programme was a success or a failure.

The absence of evaluations at the level of the beneficiaries is partly due to the fact that it is not easy to answer the question whether they are integrated or not. The number of settlers who have stayed in a settlement can be used as an indicator, but it has to be completed by subjective appreciations of the beneficiaries: do they think they have improved their livelyhood, compared to their life in exile? Would they be better off if they had gone to town instead of joining a settlement? Another important subjective aspect to be taken into consideration is whether the expectations of the returnees, IDPs and ex-combatants before repatriatation or demobilision had been met or not. The answer of a woman ex-fighter in Eritrea who said that she was afraid to be demobilised, but now she is glad about it, is to be taken as an indicator for success (individually, not globally). The decision of a returnee to sell the oxen he had been given and to migrate to town, may be an indicator for failure. What is needed is an appropriate mix of indicators which up to date does not exist.

"Contiguum" instead of "continuum"

As experienced in real post-conflict situations it is difficult if not impossible to "hand over" the task of reintegration to another executing agency, after having concluded the repatriation procedure, expecting that after successful reintegration development will start. In reality we face a simultaneity of situations and needs. Humanitarian assistance will have to play a vital role, as long as uprooted and other war affected populations are not able to feed themselves, as long as supply and distribution of goods are hampered by destroyed or heavily damaged roads and bridges, and lack of means of transport. At the same time reconstruction has to take place, if possible according to plans which will favour future development. Thus it is not only a task for engineers and masons, but also a task for town planners and experts in land use, land reform and administrative decentralisation. Not only in case of a "failed state" there is an urgent need of rehabilitating the administrative structure - the buildings as well as the staffing - and this should be done with a long term perspective, including eventually administrative reforms, accompanied by measures aimed at developing participatory structures. If this strategy is to succeed, it will have to be completed by wider programmes and projects not only meant to strengthen the general economic capacity and social stability, but also aimed at eliminating the root causes which have led to the conflict. Relief - rehabilitation/reintegration - development, they are not following one another, they are coexisting, with changing importance not only in time, but also in space. There seems to be growing belief that conflict prevention is the most urgent task to attend, mainly by monitoring of alarming signals and "Multi-Track Diplomacy". It seems at least as important to stabilise the generally fragile political, economic and social conditions prevailing not only in traditional Third World countries by appropriate and successful management of the triple task of relief - rehabilitation/reintegration - development.

5) Leaving the Warm House - Demobilization and Reintegration in Eritrea, Eva-Maria Bruchhaus and Amanuel Mehreteab, in: Demobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa - The Development and Security Impact Kees Kingma ed., Macmillan Publishers, forthcoming.