Even with the recent bad news from Mali, Jean-Herve Jezequel, Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group is optimistic: in a preview of a new ICG report at a lunch meeting at the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law, he explained how he believes the tide is changing, and set out four key issues for reform.

A narrow escape

In Summer, the situation in Mali came very close to disaster. The peace agreement reproduced the shortcomings of earlier agreements and events proved these weaknesses, with fighting resuming in the north. Under international pressure, the Malian President managed to calm the situation, and the warlords and drug dealers involved in the fighting engaged in a series of low-profile peace talks.

New optimism

With discrete support by the international community, the peace talks in Anefis led to the first successful ceasefire in two years. Levels of intercommunal tension remain high and civil society is very much divided along the same lines. Some groups that have not been included in the agreement remain active. However, with the ceasefire, albeit fragile, there is something to build on, and a sense that something can be done. There are also limited positive signals in the capital, Bamako.

Four key issues

The agreement comes with risks and opportunities. The risk is that it will be a return to the previous regime, with fighting now halted “because it is bad for business”, only to give the warring groups time to recuperate and then resume violence. Jezequel also sees an opportunity: to implement the agreement as a tool for reform in the north. Reform should address four key issues:

1. Demilitarizing the north to deal with the heavy militarization of society and politics. Focus should be on removing the heavy weapons and integrating militias into the national army, in which the militias may also have an interest now that hostilities have ceased. This does mean that the vicious cycle of militias being integrated into the army only to desert when hostilities resume, somehow has to be broken. And the Malian government has to be convinced that its ‘divide and rule’ strategy for the north is not in its own benefit.
2. “Bring the money to the population”: learning from past failures, funds should be directly channeled to local organizations and authorities – in parallel to continuing support to the central government. Even with local corruption there is a high chance the funds will be invested locally, and in this way the population will be better able to see where the money goes and to hold their leaders to account.
3. The government of Mali should focus less on asserting its authority, and more on proving its utility to its citizens. In the end, its authority will increase if it increases its utility to citizens.
4. The feeling of lack of justice: development is not the number one issue and poverty is not the main factor. It rather is people’s access to services: justice, healthcare, education, with people saying “We are not poor, we are angry.”

Islamist groups

Is the influence of Islamist groups growing? Jezequel pointed out that the international community currently tends to read everything through a lens of radicalism: this obscures the fact that there are other developments, and that things are moving. Some groups that have been excluded from the peace process are active, and enjoy local support. It is important that these groups are engaged in the political dialogue at some point, because they reflect local grievances. In fact, individuals who are part of these groups and navigate between militia, jihadist groups, and military, may be very difficult to engage, but might prove very useful.

Photo credit: 27 July 2013, UN Mission in Mali via Flickr, A Malian soldier patrols the perimeter

Informal economies are not ‘ungoverned spaces’: there are informal security and justice providers, and often the state and elites are heavily involved. But how are security and justice being organized in the informal economy, for whom, and by whom? And who benefits? These questions were taken up at an Interactive Brainstorm of the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law on November 23, 2015.

Three highlights

• Engagement with the informal economy means engaging with intricate power dynamics, blurred lines between state and non-state, licit and illicit: how will an intervention interact with these?
• Approaching the informal economy with a “criminal justice lens” is not productive: rather, investigate the development trajectories of security and justice provision, to find how actors can be induced to change for the better.
• Cases suggest there are certain tipping points, when informal systems change. Where are these tipping points, and what makes things go bad?

Common features

How security and justice are being organized, and to what extent this is a success, differs greatly from place to place: yet there are also common features. From gangs in Nairobi, to transport associations in Kampala, and heroin trade in Tajikistan, it is clear that the relation with the state matters for the success of informal systems. Often there are intimate relations between the state and informal (even criminal) actors, blurring the lines between state and non-state, licit and illicit. Similarly, it is clear that elites benefit disproportionately of these arrangements, with some cases suggesting a trickling up of microcredit from the lower to the higher echelons. These linkages were illustrated by a wealth of empirical case material from Mali, Tajikistan, Colombia, Afghanistan, Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya.

But different trajectories

It is important to gain a better understanding of the development trajectories of different forms of informal security and justice provision, to understand how informal security and justice are organized, and how interventions may affect this. Many of these systems find their origin in informal economic activities. To what extent does this origin in profit creation, affect the inclusion of economically marginalized groups in these systems? Are there ways to make these systems more inclusive and egalitarian? Political involvement often critically affects these organizations, as shown by the rise and demise of the urban transport association UTODA in Uganda. Similarly, “mafia style agreements” with governments or the international community condoning certain activities, while prohibiting other types of activities, have a strong effect on the development of the informal economy and, consequently, security and justice provision.

And consequences for intervention

The informal economy has proven a remarkably resilient phenomenon, and thus requires humility in attempts to change this. Often the informal economy is approached with a “criminal justice lens”,  while actually, the informal economy is business as usual, representing a system of governance that precedes colonialism. Engagement means engaging with intricate power dynamics, and facing the question how an intervention will interact with these. Open spaces, competing networks, tipping points present potential entry points to influence the way informal economy and justice are organized. The intricacy of the linkages in the informal economy means that interventions should allow room for experimenting and learning.

These are some of the first answers: a more extensive summary report will become available in the coming weeks.The conversation also continues online: participants were invited to write blog posts which will be published on our website. You’re invited to join the conversation: share your comments, or write a new blog post.

Since 2000, the Malian justice sector has been subject to repeated cycles of reviews and ensuing donor investments, but so far without much result. After 15 years of “Groundhog Day” in Mali, with the same story over and over again, how to break this cycle?

On 2 November 2015,  organizations in The Netherlands working on rule of law in Mali came together to discuss the challenges and opportunities for rule of law programming, building on a discussion note analyzing the past years of rule of law programming in Mali.

Some key takeaways

• There is a need to map the customary system, to understand the landscape and political economy
• Focus on individuals that are interested in change, and how you can support them
• Social media have potential but are no silver bullet: tie this to other media that are being used by Malians
• Get rid of output thinking, move to a focus on learning instead of accountability, with rapid feedback loops

Four interlinked issues stood out and shaped the discussion:

1. There are still many questions about customary law

In conversations with justice officials, they indicate they work with informal authorities, and there also are provisions in the criminal code for this. Others deny the existence of customary law apart from Islamic law, and linkages are denied in the official narrative. While customary law may provide opportunities for justice sector reform, it also is an exclusive, elitist system. There is a need for a better understanding of what is there, analyzing the parties and interests involved.

2. What to do with blockages at central level: supporting the “Nelson Mandelas”

In focusing  on citizens and end-users, blockages at the central level are a challenge. Political parties are formed around leaders that have been around for decades, lack clear party programs, and are not responsive to citizens. Political will is strongly geared towards ethnic patronage systems. Nevertheless, there are individuals who are interested in change, who need support. But who are these “Nelson Mandelas”, and does the international community know how to support them effectively?

3. Corruption and the potential of social media to tackle this

Corruption is described as the number 1 problem, which decades of interventions have failed to adequately address. Though the international community often focusses on high-level corruption, it is the local, petty corruption that makes people suffer daily. Through social media, citizens have the potential to expose bad governance and corruption and put pressure on the government (see for example the Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi). It can also be used to collect data for advocacy – being mindful that is important to protect sources of information, and to verify the data.

4. Putting into practice the flexible, iterative, participatory programming that is needed

A citizen-centered approach, moving beyond the established partners (NGOs and the national government), requires flexible and participatory programming. One way to approach this is through problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA), with four core principles:

• Focus on locally defined problems and solutions
• Move away from short-term programs and fixed designs
• Focus on learning, not accountability, with rapid feedback loops in which donor and recipient can learn from each other
• Actively engage a broad set of actors throughout the process to make sure change is legitimate and viable.

Dutch Rule of Law program in Mali

The Dutch program in Mali takes the social contract between the government and its citizens as starting point. Citizens are the primary focus, to develop the justice sector from the grassroots. This takes time, considering that even the best performing countries need forty years to rebuild a functioning rule of law system. The process requires long-term commitment and realism about the risks involved, and what matters is the Malian process, development in mindsets, rather than infrastructure. 

Photo credit: the Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi, by Alan Gichigi, www.alangichigi.com

Governance and accountability were put center-stage at the recent SCIENTIA meeting on the EU and Security Sector Reform (SSR), with two civilian experts sharing their experiences on EU missions in Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Flour and cake are like donor funding and security

Flour is not the cause of cake: similarly, donor funding and capacity development are not the cause of security. Security has to do with the strength of equitable and accessible institutions, and the relationship between the government and its citizens. This means accountability is at the heart of SSR, helping to enable institutions to become more powerful than the people who populate them.

Accountability does not begin and end with individual capacity: instead, political conditions have to be addressed. To address  this in SSR processes, the right expertise is crucial, in multidisciplinary teams capable of handling both the technical and political aspects. “We’re not asking a doctor to build a hospital…” – so can we ask a policeman to reform the security sector?

Lessons from research and practice

The two civilian experts and several researchers shared a number of lessons, highlighting the political nature of SSR:

• Team composition is crucial. It is important to balance expertise and diversify team thinking, to prevent tunnel vision. As a team, it takes time to develop a shared SSR language.
• Have the flexibility to respond to windows of opportunity: in order to position the mission and build credibility with local counterparts, and gain quick successes.
• Have realistic ambitions, keeping in mind SSR is a long-term process. But this does not exclude quick wins, balance the “hunger for early success”, with the long-term goals.
• Address different levels. In SSR missions, training is the easy part. The ministerial development process is more complicated, but should not be  ignored.
• Engage in political dialogue, both in the country hosting the mission, as well as in home countries of mission experts. Home governments and national interests have a strong influence: “you cannot imagine the impact of these on the mission headquarters”.

Reflections on The Netherlands and the EU

What is the added value of the European Union in SSR missions? And what role can The Netherlands play in putting the focus on governance and accountability?

• The EU has the most comprehensive package of tools at its disposal, of all western organizations.
• The Netherlands can play a role in encouraging the shift in focus from outputs to outcomes, sharing own experiences with programming in for example Burundi, and inviting other countries to share as well.
• To overcome the challenge of coordination between different missions, a solution may be for one country to second experts to all these missions, so that these can facilitate collaboration.