Security and Development in Fragile and Conflict - Affected Areas
Module code: PES7048-B
Module Aims
To enable you to develop advanced knowledge and understanding of the complex interrelationships between conflict, security, poverty and development in developing countries, and particularly in fragile and conflict affected areas – historically and since the mid-1990s.
To enable you to develop an advanced understanding of key concepts, theories and approaches to the nexus between violence, security, development, poverty and governance.
To develop and apply the skills necessary to use analytical frameworks for understanding and assessing human insecurity; fragility, fragile states, conflict- and gender- sensitivity, resilience, and peace-building and state-building processes.
To enable you to develop a detailed knowledge, understanding and capacity to engage with key policy and practitioner community debates relating to areas of development, poverty reduction, security, justice, governance and recovery from complex crises, as they apply to actors and programmes in fragile and conflict-affected countries, and also in fragile areas of otherwise relatively stable developing countries and emerging powers.
To familiarise you with key methods and assessment frameworks used in international policy and practitioner communities concerning gender sensitivity, fragility assessments, conflict sensitivity, community safety and security; and security and justice sector reform; and to gain experience in applying these.
Outline Syllabus
Examination of the inter-relationships between peace, conflict and national development, and then of the inter-relationships between violent conflict, (in-)security, poverty reduction, governance and human development – historically and since the mid-1990s; drawing on empirical examples and findings.
Examination of the significance and impact of the conflict-security-development nexus and dynamics; drawing on empirical research and lessons from experience.
Grounding in key concepts, perspectives and analytical frameworks for conceptualising, examining and assessing fragility, resilience, conflict sensitivity, gender sensitivity, and peace-building and state-building processes in programme, country or regional contexts.
The development and implementation of policy and practitioner debates and guidelines relating to working in or engaging with fragile or conflict-affected states or areas, in relation to national or local security and poverty alleviation strategies including: the OECD-DAC Paris Declaration, the ‘aid effectiveness’ agendas, security and justice sector reform; the ‘New Deal’ on Peace-Building and State-Building; conflict- and gender sensitivity, and the development and operationalisation of the SDGs (particularly SDG 16).
Detailed examination, and engagement with policy debates and lessons-learned, of selected specific issues relating to the conflict-security-development nexus and fragile contexts, including for example: the ‘resource curse’; conflict goods; war economies, trafficking and transnational crime; ‘borderland’ governance; development and security; roles of customary as well as formal state authorities in dispute settlement, policing, and governance; gender roles and programmes; and security and justice sector reform strategies and processes.