Paper short abstract:

Exploring the inter-relationships between international and local actors to ensure more sustainable natural resource management in the post-conflict peace-building and state-building projects in three African contexts

Paper long abstract:

In recent decades, natural resources, such as land, water and oil have either served as one of a multitude of factors fuelling a conflict, or have been harshly impacted by civil wars in Africa. Additionally, institutional factors, such as weak governance systems or the lack of effective institutions for the sustainable management of the environment, often exacerbate the harsh impacts of a civil war on a country's natural resource base. In crafting effective and sustainable peacebuilding strategies in these contexts, international and local actors have had to bring issues of natural resource management more frequently to the negotiating table. Addressing the incorporation of natural resources considerations into a post-conflict strategy brings explicitly to light the highly complex interrelationships between internal and external actors in post-conflict peace- and statebuilding.

Through case study analysis of the conflicts in Sudan/South Sudan, Sierra Leone and CAR, this paper will analyse the individual agendas, role of, and interplay between various sets of international and local actors as they engage with each other in order to devise strategies for the more effective management of natural resources. This study will reveal a key area in which we see the problematising of local ownership, as it come into conflict with the individual interests of international actors. This paper will elaborate the different agendas for the post-conflict management of natural resources brought to the negotiating table by international and local actors, and its impact on the resultant peace agreements and peacebuilding projects addressing the environment.