Network Paper 12: Dilemmas of 'Post'-Conflict Transition

This paper argues that experience of responding to the challenge of `post'-conflict recovery reveals weaknesses in our understanding of the nature of conflict and of international aid responses to instability. In particular, drawing on examples from the health sector, it suggests that far from linking relief and development interventions as is increasingly claimed in the upsurge of attention to the `continuum', rehabilitation strategies often sustain emergency-type responses which focus on material supply issues at the cost of addressing underlying structural problems. It argues that inappropriately designed rehabilitation strategies can obstruct rather than enable the development of sustainable health systems. The paper suggests that the failure of many rehabilitation programmes to achieve their objectives of paving the way to peaceful development needs to be understood in relation to the policy environment within conflict-affected countries themselves and to the organisation of the aid system itself.