Introduction
Economic reconstruction post-war is an important part of a political economy of a seamless and peaceful transition. Post-war reconstruction is also one of the most challenging parts of a state-building or peace-building strategy. Once war comes to an end, the involved countries are forced to negotiate several approaches to truce peacefully. In such states, violence is expected to give way to public security. It is also expected that political exclusion, lawlessness, human rights violation, and political exclusions must give way to the participating government and the rule of law. Additionally, the religious, ethnic, ideological or class confrontation must also tone down for national reconciliation to take place (International Monetary Fund, 2004) In the end, the mismanaged and ravaged war economies must undergo reconstruction and transformation into a fully-fledged and functional market economies that allow the citizens to earn a decent living. Conflicts are referred to as disasters because they cause massive destruction to lives and impact lives over the long term in different ways, including the destruction of physical infrastructure, livelihoods, social cohesion, and governing institutions. Post-conflict reconstruction, abbreviated as PCR, therefore, needs to assume a holistic approach to rebuilding the lives that have been shut down while restoring trust and governance to avoid possible future conflicts. Sri Lanka underwent a protracted ethnic conflict for about three decades (Kondoch, 2001). When the Sri Lankan war came to an end in 2009, huge investments were placed towards the country's physical reconstruction. While no specific authoritative study has reported on the reconstruction success in Sri Lanka, it could be a perfect case study of reconstruction. However, this paper focuses on the challenges a country experiences in the reconstruction post-conflict. This paper aims to discuss the impact of war with respect to post-war reconstruction. To accomplish this, the essay has to discuss and give an understanding of the nature of disasters and the related impacts. Therefore, to fulfill the research purpose, this study asks the question: “What are the post-war impact in a country, and what are the challenges of reconstruction?”
Body
The American led economic reconstruction projects in Haiti and Afghan, and the United Nations reconstruction efforts in Africa, Timor Leste, and Balkans are perfect examples of the post-Cold War efforts to help nations to move from war to peace. Even though there are only a few reconstruction success stories, almost 50% of the states facing similar transitions, as reported by the UN, relapsed into chaos or conflict, leading to further tragedy, huge numbers of refugees, IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), and massive costs in regards to peacekeeping missions and military interventions. It is also worth noting that a significant of failed states do turn into terrorism incubators, women and drug trafficking, and several other illicit activities. This implies that by a country failing, it causes series and dangerous regional and global problems (Kreimer et al., 1998). The significant number of states that successfully transitioned from war and managed to keep a fragile peace ended up being dependent on other countries through aid, which is never sustainable. Post-war reconstruction, in general, is therefore critical for every state that has emerged from war and needs to rebuild itself successfully without necessarily plunging back to war. It is, therefore, important to bring an understanding of the challenges of post-war reconstruction. Understanding the war disasters and their failures makes it easy to create a working model and a framework that would help countries sustainably emerge from war and rebuild for a better future. According to the United Nations definition, any event that significantly disturbs the normal societal functionality is categorized as a disaster. Within the disaster classification, wars and conflicts are grouped under complex emergencies. Humans normally cause wars and conflicts, and they lead to large scale displacement, mortality rates, food insecurity, and human rights violations. Where an armed conflict constitutes large scale violence, then it can be categorized as war. When war happens in a society, it has a serious socio-economic impact, and such impacts include the damage caused to the infrastructure (Geda, 2005). Normally the severity of war in a region is measured in terms of damage caused to the infrastructure. The development slows down and eventually is stagnated as a result of limited production ability and capacity, leading to large scale destruction of infrastructure. Since war lasts longer, there are no investments taking place, and as a result, the country begins to lack facilities. With time, the communities become fragile, and as a result, it becomes difficult to revert back to the usual living condition on their own. A society that has suffered war also suffers from war economic conditions and high levels of corruption (Mckechnie, 2003). Therefore, it is, important to invest in large-scale reconstruction to rebuild the destroyed and neglected infrastructure and invest in empowering and strengthening the productive engine and support trade heavily.
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This paper looks to study the impact of war by discussing some of the disasters that have happened in some of the countries across the world. The paper focuses specifically on the challenges that the post-conflict countries experience in the reconstruction of war-torn countries. Three specific challenges have been singled out, and these include the lack of coordination to reconstruct a post-conflict country, insufficient financial resources, and promoting safety and security in a region that just came from war:
Lack of Coordination: Case of Kosovo
As the war came to a stop in Kosovo, it became open knowledge that there had been a significant level of damage to property, life, and business. The way of life had changed significantly. To a bigger extent, the main infrastructures, including bridges, roads, health care centers, schools, water supply systems, and telecommunication were seriously destroyed. This severe damage called for the need to have an urgent solution to the emerging humanitarian crisis which involved a huge number of IDPs and the returning refugees. The economic growth stalled in Kosovo, and this destroyed the public sector, specifically the education and health sectors, were completely damaged. The agricultural industry that played an essential role in supporting the rural economy was also disrupted significantly, and unemployment was spread across the entire country. The business enterprise had no sufficiency, and there was a huge disruption of public sector utility services, which culminated in intermittent supplies of electricity and water. Mustafa (1999) in his summary of the Kosovo project development and dynamic nature of reconstruction complexity, argued that the international agencies in the country were working in parallel on similar issues. Still, these agencies were at the same time working on other different areas without involving the local communities. Mustafa also pointed out the need to have proper coordination in the process of Kosovo reconstruction to develop domestic capacity. The European Union and the World Bank approved help for the country reconstruction at about US%2.5 billion that was to be completed in a period of four to five years. In their study, Rondinelli and Montgomery (2005) made a recommendation that for Kosovo to achieve an optimal outcome after the long-standing civil war in the country, it needs to make better-informed decisions, allocating resources equally and in a better way and promoting good governance. These tasks constitute a clear understanding and focus on the planning and implementation activities of post-war reconstruction programs and projects that contribute to nation-building (World Bank, 2003). The post-conflict countries like East Timor, Lebanon, Kosovo, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, and Rwanda experience the challenge of lack of institutional capacity to conduct development and reconstruction programs. These countries normally fully or partially dependent on the international development agencies and a multitude of players to create and implement projects, policies, and programs. After every conflict, there is normally a huge cloud of uncertainty that the country experiences. This is an indication of the fact that peaceful resolutions to such conflicts may not be a reality, and the international community may be forced to put a lot of emphasis on social reforms and economic recovery to prevent a further outbreak of violence. Besides, in a community that has freshly come from war, the physical reconstruction includes building and rehabilitation of airports, roads, schools, hospitals, and markets. Other reconstructions include building bridges, telecommunication infrastructure, restoring fuel, electricity and water supply, and recruiting the experts and giving them, the necessary training to continue with national professional development (Rondinelli, 2007). The reconstruction of the national projects after the war begins after the recovery and emergency phase, which usually spreads to about four to five years, though it can be longer than that. Therefore, even the environment where the pre-conflict reconstruction is to be implemented is considered a big challenge because it is never 100% secure.
Financial Resources
Countries that evolve from wars and conflicts face serious constraints for mobilizing both human and financial resources which are required urgently, over the short-term for humanitarian relief and the long-term for economic recovery. Countries that have freshly come from war has to look for peace through sustained security, resettle the internally displaced people, develop the public institutions, develop the public infrastructure, and to gain the private investors’ confidence. Reviving the public finances and reasserting control needs to be the top priority for such a country. Most importantly, post-conflict countries also need to find ways through which it can generate their finances, create employment, reduce inequalities, restore the judicial system and ensure everything else normally runs (World Bank., 2003). However, to implement all these, the main challenge for a post-conflict state is normally lack of sufficient funds, countries rely on other countries and foreign organizations to accomplish some of these goals. Violence and conflict normally divert resources from the originally intended production purposes to destruction intentions. The post-conflict states also experience problems in regards to capital flight and massive national assets damages and with time a decline in economic productivity. Additionally, the damaged asset acquisition systems and the remaining resources result in a very negative environment for the private sector to put their funds. Lack of investor confidence and capital flight is not something new for countries that are recovering from conflict since the markets are severely impacted at every possible angle, ranging from the production of the local village to national level commodity trading and financial exchanges (Rondinelli, 2004). The warlords normally take advantage of the situation and enrich themselves during the war and use the proceeds to sustain their constituents. Looking at the problems for the revival of legitimate economies in a war torn-state, the parallel economies by the warring parties are a further trap. The same situation was observed immediately, the US withdrew from Iran, which in the end led to the birth of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq) in Iran and the subsequent death of the Iranian economy. After just coming from war, Timor-Leste suffered a weaker financial position and a less functional administration. These two factors were major hindrances to Timor reconstruction after the war. Just after the Timor-Leste presidential elections, the refugees returned home in high numbers with higher anticipation of peace, stability and security in the country. The East Timor Reconciliation team worked through UNTAET to motivate the refugees to return via information campaigns. Repatriation was facilitated through cessation of food aid to everybody and the most vulnerable people. There was also a rise in cross-border visits which led to an increase in repatriation. While the assistance through emergency humanitarian continued in Timor, the international donors and the UNTAET concluded that it was imperative to have a stronger public administration to provide sufficient social services and to take part in building infrastructure. However, building East Timorese public service was not a walk in the park; it was one of the most challenging and difficult aspects of the mandate by UNTAET. During the war, the most important public records were destroyed, and the experienced public servants fled the country (Kaufmann, Kraay, & Mastruzzi, 2003). UNTAET was forced to set up a new transitional public administration to help with restoring the essential infrastructure, recruit civil servants, issue social services and revive commerce and trade. Timor leveraged on the post-war efforts of the civil society, international organizations, the local community and the Catholic Church in collaboration with the civil servants to strengthen health services, education, increased enrollments and health facility rehabilitation. All these required finances which were not easy to come by.
Safety and Security
In all post conflicts and crisis, safety and security is a top priority for the governments and the international agencies of interest. Without the ability to guarantee security and safety, the government cannot do much in terms of reconstructing a war-torn country (UN, 2007). Establishing security and safety includes a mix of functional that constitutes making and signing peace agreements, ensuring public safety and order, rebuilding security forces, disarming and mobilizing the ex-combats into the economy and society, and securing the borders amongst others. The post-conflict governance function constitutes the need to build the police and military forces that act neutrally towards the parties that were formerly conflicting on behalf of the newly formed national government. It also needs to oversee the recruitment and training of civil servants so that better management of NGO programs aimed at demobilization and reintegration of the former rebels into the society. Even though the ruling authorities in a post-conflict country experiences several security issues, the UN indicates that “demobilizing the combatants is one of the most important and critical factors that will determine the success of peaceful operations.” Without demobilization, civil wars cannot be halted. Justice, democratization, and development cannot take place without demobilization (IDEA, 2003). Empowering the capacity of the government for the provision of security, demobilization, disarming, and reintegration of ex-militants is a complicated process with humanitarian, political, social and economic dimensions. Where security provision programs exist, and competing military are successfully reintegrated into the society, then this can be useful in restoring trust in government amongst the warring factions and the general population. This can also be a good hint at having sustainable peace. To ensure security in a post-war country, first, the government, together with the international community, must achieve hostilities cessation. This can be done by ceasefire enforcements, peace agreement negotiations, opponent army disarmament, and reconstruction of the national army forces and creation of a weapons control program.
After the hostilities are successfully stopped, the military has to be demobilized, and they have to be integrated back to the community, giving those pensions, jobs, and other forms of financial support (Alonso & Brugha, 2006). The government has also to ensure the combatant has access to social services and adequate health services. The essential factors for ensuring security and safety in most of the post-war states are established boundary and border security, facilitating internal travel and movements by the primary military and political leaders and dealing with the issues regarding property ownership, personal identification, birth certificates, legal records, and other legal status documents. Without ensuring public order and safety, there is not much that is accomplished at the end of the day. Protecting the most delicate sectors of the population including the refugees, the former militants, IDPs, children, and women, is important to building trust in government and restoring governance (Marshall, & Inglis, 2003). There is a need to quickly re-establish a neutral and reliable civilian police force in a post-conflict country and to monitor its behaviors closely. Clearing unexploded weapons, de-mining regions where the public is likely to have some movement, and marking the minefields are necessary elements of security and safety programs, in the states where ethnic and religious tensions are persistent, creating security and safety calls for protecting the cultural and religious sites (Lyons, 2002). There is a need to make provisions to protect the important infrastructure, civic records, and the other important legal and public documents in a post-conflict state, as well as government buildings and public institutions. Normally, the ruling government, in conjunction with international organizations, experiences very complex tasks in terms of military functions coordination, intelligence groups, and the police. Coordination of safety and security forces with the international peacekeepers is thus a must-do for the post-conflict governments to modify or negotiate the regional security arrangements.
Conclusion
This paper has examined the impact of war across the world by discussing some of the disasters that have happened in countries across the world. A special emphasis has especially been given to challenges that these countries experience in the reconstruction of war-torn countries. Their challenges have specifically been discussed including lack of coordination to reconstruct a post-conflict country, insufficient financial resources and promoting safety and security in a region that just came from war. Post-war infrastructure reconstruction and services restoration is another governance function that gives a foundation for attaining other recovery objectives (Kiragu, 2002). The government’s ability to provide adequate services and infrastructure shapes its ability also to undertake other basic rebuilding functions and the progress. However, the lack of ability to provide adequate services and infrastructure in an economy makes the government untrustworthy amongst the people and its opponents. It is known that the restoration of communication and transportation infrastructure is a precondition for economic growth and ensuring the economic development benefits reach every part of the country. Economic growth is also necessary for generating wealth, revenues and public incomes required to enhance infrastructure and coverage and quality of services (World Bank, 2004). For instance, developing an effective transport network can be essential in linking up agricultural production locations with the international and domestic markets and with the input suppliers who are situated in the cities and rural towns. Rebuilding national infrastructure can be useful in generating employment, promoting regional and national integration, and providing opportunities for small businesses as subcontractors and suppliers.
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