POLICY BRIEF
April 2013
Peacebuilding, Statebuilding and Resilience:
Linking Lessons from the New Deal
to the Post-2015 Debates
Development Depends on Peace and Security
Jobs, healthy families, educated minds. Freedom from fear. Aspiration and
opportunity. These human hopes transcend culture, history, and politics—and
they are achievable. In the long view of history, the Post-2015 framework,
more than anything, is an opportunity for the global community to take
another significant step forward toward the world we all hope to see.
 Reduced violence
including against
women and girls
 Confidence in security
 Fair access to justice
 Livelihoods, resources
and services
 Participation in
decision making
 Reduced corruption
 Addressing external
stresses that lead to
conflict
To do so, the Post-2015 framework must address not only the expressions of
poverty but the structural drivers of instability and conflict that prevent
societies from sustaining development gains. This means tackling thornier
issues of governance, inclusive politics, justice, and other structural factors in
order to build lasting peace and security. Conflict and violence have
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significantly impeded progress towards all MDGs. According to the 2011
World Development Report, ‘a country that experienced major violence over
the period from 1981 to 2005 has a poverty rate 21 percentage points higher than a country that saw no
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violence.’ UNICEF recently highlighted that 8 of the 10 countries with the highest under-5 mortality rate are in
fragile states. In 2008, the Economic Commission for Africa found that all 8 countries with the highest maternal
mortality ratio were in or post-conflict.
The fact that poverty reduction cannot succeed without addressing conflict and violence is reinforced by the
voices of poor people. The World Bank’s 1999 Voices of the Poor study brought together evidence from across
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the world that in the eyes of the poor, freedom from the fear of violence is inseparable from poverty reduction.
This point was reaffirmed by the recent CDA report, Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of
International Aid. Based on worldwide consultations, the report affirmed that ‘Improved Political and Security
Conditions’ is one of three main areas where people on the receiving end of aid think strategies should focus.
For these reasons the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding strongly endorses the emerging
global consensus to address peace and security as a key purpose of the new framework. To address conflict and
violence strategically, the new framework should not only aim for a reduction in violence: it should also
incentivise institutions to work towards a just and sustainable peace.
Key issues to address in Post-2015 targets
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Build on the Peacebuilding & Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) in the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States
as a framework for addressing structural drivers of instability in the Post-2015 agenda.
Include a target on progress toward peace that does not relate to the building of the state to encourage
reconciliation of conflicts between groups within society and strengthening of informal justice capacities.
Include commitments to address regional and global factors that fuel conflict.
Include a direct focus on women’s empowerment and targets on access of women and girls to security,
justice and services – perhaps under an overall goal on gender equality.
Avoid developing perceptions of distinction between ‘development’ indicators and ‘fragility’ indicators.
Preventing violence and instability is part of a holistic approach to human development that is relevant
to all states. Similarly, ‘development’ indicators should be designed to be relevant to fragile states.
Sources for all examples in this paragraph are cited along with further evidence in Saferworld, ‘Addressing conflict and
violence from 2015 - Issue Paper 1: The impact of conflict and violence on achieving development’, (November 2012).
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World Bank, World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development, (2011), p 60.
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Narayan D et al, Can anyone hear us?, World Bank, December 1999, p 217, 222.
Measuring real progress toward peace through viable indicators
When designing indicators in relation to these peacebuilding targets, no single indicator will in every context be
able to tell a full, fair story about progress: changes in capacity are not the same as better outcomes – and better
outcomes are not enough unless they generate confidence among all social groups. Much good data is available
that shows that progress towards sustainable peace can be measured. However, the international community
needs to work fast to build capacities: both to measure the right things impartially and sensitively, and to
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generate a sense of shared ownership of the post-2015 monitoring process.
Recommendations for developing shared global indicators:
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Feed the best lessons learned from the bottom-up development of indicators that has been done within
the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding & Statebuilding into the post-2015 process.
A more accurate picture of progress can be shown if each peace-related target is underpinned by a
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‘basket’ of three kinds of indicator: Capacity, ‘Objective’ Situation, and Public Perceptions.
Much good data is available that shows that the right issues can be measured.
Indicators used to measure progress towards peace and violence reduction should be disaggregated to
the maximum extent possible, so that unequal levels of progress between different social groups can be
recognised and tackled.
Building Political Consensus for Peace and Security
The last few months have seen growing momentum for conflict and violence to be addressed in the post-2015
development framework. In January the High Level Panel on the post-2015 development agenda issued a very
progressive communiqué from its Monrovia meeting – emphasising the importance of peace, security, justice
and governance. Comments made by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon, on 26 February also reaffirmed that
“transforming violent conflicts and fragility into peace, justice and shared prosperity” must be central to post2015 plans. In February, the Dili consensus saw more than 30 countries from the g7+ group of states and
countries from Asia Pacific affirm that development efforts must be underpinned by respect for human rights,
fairness, justice and peace. And most recently, the interim report from in-country consultations undertaken by
Beyond 2015 and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) affirmed the need to address peace and
conflict as part of the human rights agenda.
These diverse actors may vary their terminology, but their conclusions all revolve, with minor variations, on the
same key issues. These are: reduced violence including against women and girls, confidence in security, fair
access to justice, livelihoods, resources and services, participation in decision making, reduced corruption, and
progress in addressing external stresses that lead to conflict. Dialogue is now needed to deepen the consensus
around these concepts.
Paths towards consensus:
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Stress the voluntary, non-binding nature of the framework.
Emphasise the potential benefits of mainstreaming conflict prevention into development work.
Prevention means less interventionism – not more.
Stress the universality of vulnerability to violence in all countries rather than focusing only on ‘conflict
affected’ or ‘fragile’ contexts.
Identify targets and indicators that are relevant to the challenges of all countries.
Work towards an international monitoring system for these indicators that is effective, impartial and
jointly owned.
The Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding is a Southern-Northern non-governmental coalition
that helps coordinate civil society participation in the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding,
and supports local civil society engagement in the implementation of New Deal commitments such as the
development of fragility assessments and country-specific and shard global indicators to measure progress
toward peacebuilding and statebuilding goals.
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For further information about design of indicators on peace, conflict and violence see Saferworld, Addressing conflict and
violence from 2015 – A vision of goals, targets and indicators’, (February 2013) and CSO Platform for Peacebuilding &
Statebuilding, Joint submission to consultation on shared indicators, (January 2013).
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Saferworld, Addressing conflict and violence from 2015 – A vision of goals, targets and indicators’, (February 2013)