War-to-peace transitions are expected to trigger the transformation of war-ravaged, jobless economies into thriving ones that provide for all. Although large-scale violent conflict is certainly capable of suppressing economic activity, the idea that peace organically generates jobs, growth and recovery appears far less robust. What seems clear is that, without active intervention, economic circumstances do not automatically get better for all following a peace agreement. This session will examine empirical evidence from quantitative and qualitative work conducted by the SLRC on how people make a living during and after conflicts, including findings from a cross-country panel survey as well as more in-depth studies of livelihoods and employment in Afghanistan and Uganda.

The research presented shows that post-conflict transitions are often non-linear, marked instead by the continuation of adverse circumstances, and suggests that greater attention must be paid to the multiple forms of regulation that constrain and shape local economic activity, many of which lie outside the bounds of de jure state policy; the non-conflict-related shocks that characterise many people’s ‘enabling environments’ following war; and the political dynamics underlying processes of economic recovery and development. Linked to this, there is a pressing need to refine exactly what a ‘good jobs’ or ‘decent work’ agenda could (and should) look like in conflict-affected environments.

Chair: Mr Paul Harvey, SLRC CEO and Partner, Humanitarian Outcomes

This panel is part of a recovering from conflict conference sub-stream convened by The Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium (SLRC) in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). SLRC is a six-year global research programme exploring livelihoods, basic services and social protection in conflict-affected situations. Funded by UK Aid from the UK government (DFID), Irish Aid and the European Commission (EC), SLRC was established in 2011 with the aim of strengthening the evidence base and informing policy and practice around livelihoods and services in conflict. SLRC’s research focuses on eight conflict-affected countries: Afghanistan; Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); Nepal; Pakistan; South Sudan; Sri Lanka; Uganda; and Sierra Leone. The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) is a partner institution and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is the lead institution. www.securelivelihoods.org

Afghanistan’s ‘surplus rural population’

Dr Adam Pain, SLRC Afghanistan and Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU), Uppsala and Ms Danielle Huot, SLRC Afghanistan

The Afghanistan Livelihood Trajectory (ALT) study was established in 2002-03 and, drawing on a panel of 390 households in contrasting locations, has selectively returned for two further rounds of study in 2008-09 and 2015-16.  In 2009 there was evidence the rural households were running out of options; matters are no better now with an economic downturn caused by a sharp reduction in funding flows. The evidence shows strongly the existence of a distributional economy – entitlements and claims on household resources and networks - and a moral economy linked to patron-client relations that hold the fabric of rural Afghanistan together.  But in line with Li (2014) and Ferguson (2015) this paper concludes that there is a large and growing ‘surplus’ rural population. This is not surplus in a Malthusian sense – too many people to feed – but surplus to the ability of a market or capitalist economy to provide the means to live through productive activity or decent work. There is no room left for many rural people within Afghanistan’s rural economy. Of course they are still there – where else can they go? But the struggle to risk all and generate remittance income through local and more distant migration points to the meagre opportunities that are available locally to them. Donors and policymaking have stuck with the old script of transitions and evolutionary structural change. The assumptions in Afghanistan’s agricultural sector review (World Bank 2014) are an act of faith. It is time to rethink.

References:

Ferguson, J (2015)  Give a man a fish: reflections on the new politics of distribution. Duke University Press

Li, T. M (2014) Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. Duke University Press

World Bank, (2015) Afghanistan: Poverty Status Update: An analysis based on National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) 2007/08 and 2011/12. Washington, World Bank.

Markets, jobs and youth in Uganda and Afghanistan

Mr Richard Mallett, SLRC-ODI

Global youth unemployment has been recently described as a ‘top policy concern’ (ILO), a ‘crisis’ (World Bank), and an ‘epidemic [representing] a great test of our time’ (former UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon). The central argument of this presentation is that the same phrases could and should be used in relation to the phenomenon of ‘bad work’ – forms of labour that are precarious, underpaid, exploitative. Around the world, vast numbers of young people are eking out a living in towns and cities, not through formal wage employment or agriculture but via a range of informal and casual methods. Through case study research in Afghanistan and Uganda, we explore: i) the ways in which young people access work in the first place; ii) the terms of their participation once they are ‘inside’ the labour market; and iii) the meanings and effects of that participation. Findings speak to the need for policymakers to pay greater attention to the informal modes of regulation that shape the quality of work available to young people in ‘fragile settings’, and the limits of the orthodox approach to stimulating employment and private-sector development in such contexts. 

Findings from the panel survey

Dr Rachel Slater, SLRC-ODI