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From war to work: In a world of "local conflicts", the ILO helps build peace
Though the ashes of world war have long been cold, national and regional conflicts have continued to smoulder. From Asia to Africa, from Europe to the former Soviet Union, the number of "local" conflicts has more than doubled since 1989. But what do people do when peace accords are concluded? Building sustainable peace through employment promotion for the war-affected is the goal of a major ILO programme that strives to reintegrate millions of former combatants and victims of war into civil society.
In Angola and Mozambique, tens of thousands of ex-combatants have traded war and weapons for work and employment. Instead of learning to shoot and kill, they are learning to use new skills to reintegrate themselves into the peacetime workforce in the process.
In Central America, new ways of providing financial credits, such as seed money for starting up businesses, have reached 1.3 million people, including former jungle fighters. And in Cambodia, returning refugees and internally displaced persons are developing small enterprises, learning trades and finding new jobs.
From Asia to Africa, from Central America to Central Europe, these are some examples of how war-affected populations and ex-combatants are being reintegrated into new, peaceful civil societies. Through skills training and employment-related activities such as microenterprise development, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has mounted a major effort in recent years to turn swords into ploughshares (see pp. 18-19).
In a world torn by civil strife and other local armed conflicts, the aftermath of such conflicts is as serious as the fighting itself. Whole cities have been destroyed, the countryside ravaged by bombs, land mines and ecological disasters. Many millions have died, and those fighters fortunate enough to return from combat, some injured or disabled, have sometimes found members of their families also injured or disabled and displaced. Relationships have been disrupted, wives and daughters sexually abused, homes destroyed and communities robbed of their traditional structures. In many regions, the infrastructures of countries or war-affected communities have either ceased to work efficiently or collapsed altogether. National, regional and local economies have been crippled, and in many areas, basic social services have ceased to exist.
Agencies working in the field, including the ILO, face a growing number of extremely difficult requests for technical assistance in such highly unstable situations, where time is of the essence. Until now, there were few concrete, successful examples providing models for action. In the past, the focus had been largely on reintegration of former combatants - a vital step if peace efforts were to be sustained - because if ex-combatants were not equipped to return to civilian life they could threaten the security of the country as well as the peace process itself.
Now, however, attention is turning to other vulnerable groups affected by war - in particular women, young people and the disabled. And greater consideration is being given to longer-term reconstruction efforts which must accompany such immediate measures such as returning displaced persons and refugees to their communities, demining of the land and the reconstruction of basic infrastructure.
Wars bring with them demographic changes as well as reproductive and other health concerns. Yet the chaos of post-conflict situations makes it extremely difficult for these changes to be assessed accurately. These, however, need to be taken into account in effective planning in the war-affected context. Communities, including the potential workforce, need skills and entrepreneurship to get back on their feet.
Although the consequences of war affect all population groups in a country, women bear a disproportionate burden. Women constitute the bulk of the internally displaced and refugee populations during armed conflict and of the general population in its aftermath. An imbalance in sex ratio is often created, with women outnumbering men, leading to changes in family composition and gender relations within households, including an increase in the number of female-headed households. Migration increases, leading to a weakening or complete breakup of the extended family, denying households the security this formerly provided.
Dramatic changes occur in women's roles and in the general sexual division of labour. War and postwar situations often create non-traditional tasks for women in addition to their traditional roles, to ensure survival of the family and other dependants. They must also face demanding psychological and physical burdens. Both during war and in its aftermath, women face reproductive, health care and psycho-social problems, often resulting from rape and other sexual abuses, as well as unsanitary birth conditions.
War poses adult problems for huge numbers of children and adolescents. Child victims of war include child soldiers who have seen more death and destruction than many adults, orphans for whom foter families can never be found, and the young who cannot return to their original communities and, out of desperation, may become street children. As in the case of women, some children have been physically or sexually abused and are suffering from trauma and/or sexually-transmitted diseases, including AIDS and infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In many cases, youngsters with psychological traumas are unable or unwilling to rejoin the education system, and as a consequence find it harder than usual for their age group to find employment or to set themselves up in business.
War also sows a bitter harvest in injuries and resulting disabilities, in the form of land mines sown during a war and left behind to trap the unwary when the conflict ends. Unfortunately, disabled people are sometimes regarded as even more of a burden in postwar times than otherwise; they are seen as people needing charity rather than the support and respect they require to become self-reliant.
For all groups affected by wars - and this includes aid workers - post-traumatic stress can lead to serious problems, about which more has become known in recent years. These range from alcohol and drug abuse to the inability to get back to the world of work. Most important, post-traumatic stress disorder has to be confronted as an important factor contributing to the continuation of violence.
Helping people and economies to get back on their feet after conflicts is vital for building long-term peace. It entails a variety of approaches. Many skills-training programmes implemented by various bodies have often not been related to market opportunities. Frequently, self-employment is the only option available to people at a time when the possibilities of wage employment are being rebuilt.
Where possible, employment-intensive works programmes are implemented, which are often the first interventions requested by a country emerging from armed conflict. Such programmes have the advantage of providing employment and opportunities to relieve acute distress, while at the same time helping to rebuild the key infrastructures which will, in their turn, bring about further development and create new jobs.
The first phase of intervention in a country emerging from armed conflict usually takes place in a rather unstable situation - with a government in crisis, unable or unwilling to concentrate on security. Thus, donors often respond to perceived needs exclusively at the local level for fear that their programmes will be diverted from the population in need. In such situations, leadership by the United Nations and its agencies is of great importance. The affected communities should be consulted on the design of programmes to strengthen their capacity as a top priority in the development of such programmes, since it is those communities themselves which must bear the brunt of reintegration. In this domain, the ILO has the advantage of long experience and worldwide capacity, as well as direct links with key social partners and the knowhow to promote social dialogue.
In Africa, Asia and Central America, the ILO approach has been to combine vocational training with micro- and small enterprise development, and wherever possible in the same geographical area, employment-intensive works programmes. Vocational training is provided through a variety of local training providers, including government institutions, NGOs, religious groups and artisans. Small-enterprise development is organized through Local Economic Development Agencies (LEDAs) which assist with business support services. In some cases the LEDAs also assist in obtaining credit, one of the main roadblocks to the development of small-scale enterprises, especially in the aftermath of armed conflict when a community's infrastructure is often partially or completely destroyed.
In a number of countries, including Afghanistan and Uganda, ILO activities have continued even in combat areas. In Mozambique, more than 9,000 ex-combatants have followed skills-training courses, on completion of which they were able to obtain essential toolkits to start their own businesses. More than 70 per cent of those trained became employable, and more than 600 microenterprises were created, resulting in more than 2,000 jobs.
The ILO is currently implementing a multidisciplinary action programme on skills and entrepreneurship development in countries emerging from armed conflict(*). This programme is geared to strengthening the capacity of relevant national personnel in planning more effective reintegration of war-affected populations. By reinserting them into the working population, the ILO hopes to speed up the postwar stabilization of the society, thereby helping to diminish the disastrous after-effects of these conflicts and to avert further resort to wars in the same societies.
The trade unions and employers' organizations have an important role to play in post-conflict reconstruction efforts. At a recent (February 1997) organized by the ILO's Bureau for Workers Activities and the Irish Confederation of Trade Unions workshop, held in Dublin, and attended by trade unionists from Bosnia, Mozambique, Palestine and Northern Ireland, the participants discussed how unions could engage in and reinforce the peace process and support the reconstruction of civil and democratic society.