Author Description

For the past decades, poverty and war have scarred the planet in ways that continue to frustrate the efforts of the international community to curtail them. Wherever the fault lies-in the unreadiness of post-colonial societies for democracy, in the inefficiency or shortsightedness of international organizations, in the cultural insensitivity of many multinational corporations, in varieties of human greed, or (most likely) some Gordian knot entangling all of these, one thing is certain-the need to solve the problem grows by the day. After September 11, it is clear that innovation and a commitment to utilize all of our resources will be a central hallmark of the strategy not only to win the war but also to win the peace. Privatizing Peace: From Conflict to Security is the first book to explore the possibilities of a fusion in depth. Drawing on first-hand experience of World Bank and UN initiatives, the authors pinpoint the weaknesses in the numerous peacekeeping missions of recent decades, as well as the blind spots in the thinking that guided them. Even more significantly, they clearly demonstrate the ways in which well-meaning stabilization and reconstruction programs fail to accommodate the economic and social imperatives of war-torn societies. But this visionary work is not merely an indictment of First World myopia in the face of Third World devastation. The authors offer cogent, well-thought-out recommendations, firmly grounded in current reality, with a powerful determination to avoid the repetition of past mistakes. Among their recommendations the reader will find: •specific measures to quickly further the explicit "partnering" arrangements between the UN and the World Bank; •numerous ways in which the valuable work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can be integrated, avoiding the all-too-common social and market distortions caused by conspicuous humanitarian assistance; •proposals for World Bank policies that will more realistically add