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Case studies / Working Paper

Recovering from armed conflict: lessons learned and next steps for improved international assistance

07/04/2006 By Megan Burke

Since 1988, 100 violent conflicts have ended and nearly that many countries have emerged from years of violent conflict, leaving behind a ‘legacy of wounded societies and failed states’.

The increase in the number of violent conflicts in the 1980s and the 1990s,  followed by an increase in international attention to resolve conflicts in the mid-nineties, has resulted in a record number of countries that have ended conflicts and begun the arduous process of rebuilding.

Over the same period, the nature of violent conflict changed. Interstate conflicts are increasingly rare and in the 1980s and 1990s nearly all new conflicts were
‘intrastate conflicts’, though not strictly without external involvement.

Wars are, on average, longer and target the civilian population in devastating ways. State institutions are often targeted during civil conflicts. The duration of wars and their negative effects on civilians and state institutions have had serious consequences.

Most countries emerging from conflict require emergency humanitarian relief and lack the fundamental ability to respond to the most basic needs of their citizenry.

By and large, these countries overlap with states classified as failed or fragile. As a result, one of the most critical challenges facing the international community is post-conflict reconstruction.

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Keywords

Conflict resolution Democracy Democracy aid Peacebuilding

Bio author: Megan Burke

Megan Burke is a Programme Manager at the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) where she works on a campaign that seeks to eliminate the impact of landmines in several post-conflict countries and serves on the Steering Committee for the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines. Megan Burke is also a consultant to the Governance and Civil Society Unit at the Ford Foundation where she provides research assistance for portfolios on U.S. Foreign Policy, post-conflict reconstruction, and regional conflict prevention and resolution in Africa and the Middle East. She holds a Master's degree in International Relations from Yale University.