A new EBA report by researchers Johan Brosché, Sebastian Raattamaa and Kate Lonergan shows that peace agreements that miss the core issues of the conflict are at risk of failing quickly. By analysing over 250 peace agreements and a brand new data set, the authors have gained insights into how peace negotiations and treaties should be designed to achieve more sustainable outcomes.
Peace and development are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Therefore, development cooperation must be conflict-sensitive and help prevent armed conflict. As a large and increasing proportion of people living in extreme poverty today live in unstable and conflict-affected countries, future aid is likely to be focussed in such settings.
The researchers highlight important lessons from concrete cases such as Sudan, Nepal and Colombia – where the difference between superficial and deep peace negotiations becomes painfully clear. To break the vicious cycle of war and underdevelopment, peace processes need to address the very core of the conflict – the parties’ contentious issues. Among other things, the study shows that:
- Peace agreements that settle more of the parties’ actual claims are much more likely to lead to peace – in one, three and five years.
- If no conflict issues are settled, the probability of a one-year peace is 63%. If more are addressed, it increases to 85%.
- On average, only 43% of the parties’ demands are addressed in peace agreements.
The report provides concrete tools for a problem-based approach to peacebuilding. It calls on policy makers and aid actors to adapt development interventions to the actual conflict issues. In peacebuilding, quick fixes that do not address the parties’ demands should be avoided. It is also important to focus on what the conflict is about, rather than who is at the negotiating table.
For researchers and analysts, the report offers new empirical evidence for studying the relationship between conflict causes and peace sustainability, and new datasets that provide unique opportunities for in-depth analysis.