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BOOK REVIEW Managing Ethnic

Conflict in Africa: Pressures and
Incentives for Co-operation
Published online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: (1998) BOOK REVIEW Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures
and Incentives for Co-operation, Development in Practice, 8:4, 486-491, DOI:
10.1080/09614529853521

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 Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
Book Reviews
Inside NGOs: Learning to Manage
Con¯ icts between Headquarters and
Field Of® ces
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Naoki Suzuki
London: IT Publications, 1998, ISBN: 1
85339 413 0, 245 pp.
The analysis and personal stories that have
contributed to Inside NGOs go beyond the
internal environm ent of the NGO sector.
They challenge the international com munity
to assess both the internal and external com-
plexities and vulnerability im pact on the
NGO sector. The creative and innovative
approach of using staff interviews in the
® eld and headquarters to document an
analysis that speaks to a wide range of
issues and concerns, brings alive aspects of
disharmony in developm ent in the North
and South. The author gives legitimacy to a
range of problem s experienced in the design
and application of development m odels. His
® eld and headquarters research and stories
reveal that any centralization of authority,
power, control, and cultural insensitivity
works against social justice and equity.
Such behaviour ultimately contradicts the
m ission, goals, and objectives of human
developm ent: helping people to help them -
selves towards empowerment.
A particular insight from the preface as
the author describes his entry into his work
con® rms the need for NGOs to re-examine
their organizations from within. Using the
m etaphor of a jigsaw puzzle, Suzuki com-
pares his work to a piece in an un® nished
puzzle without a picture of the com pleted
puzzle to use as a reference point. As such,
he describes the working environm ent in
NGOs as being without the focused direc-
tion necessary to ensure that different
486
projects and initiatives com plem ent each
other to achieve a greater objective. He
found him self `¼ responding to, instead of
directing, the requirements of [his] job on a
daily basis’ (Preface, p. xii).
The m ethodology used in the research of
Inside NGOs lends an im portant credibility
to a set of challenges that are prevalent
throughout the NGO sector. The work is
well presented, and key issues such as diver-
sity, ¯ exibility, consistency, and a need for
developing strategies are em phasized
throughout the research and insights from
staff.
This well-documented publication seeks
to advocate that NGOs are not an entity in
and of them selves. It em phasizes the im -
portance of making connections with
government and other sectors in order to
advance the kind of socio-econom ic, cul-
tural, environm ental, and political changes
that advance development. In the absence of
such linkages, the NGO com munity would
in fact marginalize their cause and, more
importantly, the com munities they work
with. Furtherm ore, they would weaken and
devalue their aspirations for the develop-
m ent of human potential in the North as
well as the South.
The research and data in the book provide
a basis upon which to create a vision, a
strategy and an action plan that identi® es
key elements of need as these im pact nega-
tively on a particular organization. The pub-
lication is sensitively written and gives due
credit to the high level of staff com mitm ent
to the ideals and work of NGOs. At the
same time, however, it recognizes that in the
absence of key strategies, planning, cultural
sensitivity, equitable relationships between
the North and South, and formal and infor-
0961± 4524/98/040486-06 $9.00 Ó 1998 Oxfam GB
Carfax Publishing Ltd

m al learning experiences, the achievement
of goals in the longer term may not be
realized.
The challenges that NGOs experience are
m any, as Suzuki carefully outlines. Such
challenges include the design of system s,
human resource m anagement, diversity, cul-
ture, achieving objectives, and developing
strategies for longer-term success. All of
these areas bear relevance since the issues
raised, whether considered from a pro-
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gramme or an organizational perspective are
inter-related and com plem entary. These ar-
eas provide a strong basis for achieving
changes to the status quo. They are worthy
of further study by m iddle and senior NGO
m anagers. One of the most im portant as-
pects of this book is the reinforcement that
the ultim ate in development, whether in the
South or North, is human development.
In my view, the research, storytelling, and
contextual analysis in areas of programm e
centred versus organization activities, and
m anaging diversity, provide invaluable in-
sights on how to create a fram ework for
action that would reconcile the objectives of
the program mes with those of the organiza-
tion. Although these issues and tensions
raised in the book provide a basis for an
overall analysis of a given NGO, each of
these issues must be exam ined in depth and
contextualized if key strategies are to be
developed that will govern a more holistic
approach to developm ent. Through out the
analysis, there appeared to be minim al suc-
cess in dealing with the wide range of con-
cerns voiced by ® eld and headquarters
personnel. This signals a signi® cant lack of
understanding , perhaps more at a subcon-
scious or theoretical level, of a longer-term
vision and strategy that is aimed at the
developm ent of hum an potential.
The framework of issues, concerns, and
problems raised in Inside NGOs create a
variety of tensions both inside the NGO
sector and within an individual NGO. These
represent many struggles that, in the ® nal
analysis, detract from the ultim ate goals of
international developm ent. Furthermore,
Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
Book Reviews
these obstacles often undervalue the com-
m itment of staff, whether in the ® eld or in
headquarters, for the countless hours of
work that are devoted to helping those who
are less privileged and to addressing poverty
and social injustices. But, in order to
achieve these ultimate goals, NGOs must be
less fearful of established managem ent prin-
ciples and learn how to integrate these in
ways that will harmonize working relation-
ships with dignity and respect for human
developm ent.
I would highly recomm end this book to
all practitioners and particularly to middle
and senior levels of managem ent respon-
sible for the organization and programm e
direction. How ever, the inclusion of a
gender analysis is of critical importance
although Suzuki overlooks this issue
entirely even thoug h the majority of ® eld
workers are wom en.
Pauline Sawh,
Canadi an Program Co-ordinator, Oxfam
Canada
Third World Professionals and
Development Education in Europe:
Personal Narratives Global
Conversations
Shanti George
New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1997,
ISBN: 81 0736 639 9 (India-hb),
322 pp.
Third W orld Professionals and Develop-
ment Education in Europe is an interesting
piece of scholarship on one of Europe’ s
oldest centres of developm ent studies, the
Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the
Netherlands, and its `students’ . The author
was com missioned by the ISS to travel to
the South and interview 120 ex-students
who had studied at the ISS during the last
40 years. These interviews led the author
to two conclusions: that development
education (the informal) like Development
Education (the formal) is an im portant
487
 Book Reviews
com ponent of development studies, and that
the m ethodology that she used in this book ,
nam ely the narration, can also present what
cannot be presented in the conventional
way.
Delving into assessing the impact that the
ISS and sim ilar institutions has made on the
developm ent process in the South and the
developm ent practitioners it trained is a
dif® cult undertaking indeed. W hether or not
the conclusions that Shanti George has
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reached as a result of her work and the
narrative methodology that she used have
enabled the ISS to attain its objective in
com missioning this study needs to be
re¯ ected upon if not rigorously assessed.
Shanti George introduces an interesting
discourse on `Developm ent Education’ as
the form al aspect and `development edu-
cation’ as the informal side of developm ent
studies. This distinction aside, what needs to
be addressed is the whole concept of devel-
opment, the prevalence of the dominant dis-
course on developm ent, and what the North
imposes on the South as developm ent. This
did not feature in the interviews with ex-stu-
dents. As a result, developm ent was dis-
cussed by participants within the prism of
the dominant discourse and old paradigms
when it could have been one area where the
book would trigger debate.
The narrative m ethodology is quite inter-
esting. It is indeed refreshing to read the
re¯ ection of ex-students on their experi-
ences not only during their stay at the Insti-
tute but also before they cam e to the ISS
and after they left. This is an important part
of the book for this is where the im pact the
ISS had m ade on them could have been
assessed. The views of the participants
about the various strands they re¯ ected on
are interesting to know. But, can one take
these views and assessments for granted?
Distillation is quite essential in this case as
some of the assertions m ade in the inter-
views are based on false assum ptions and
are inaccurate.
It would have been useful to situate the
whole period of the 40 years of the exist-
488 Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
ence of ISS into two periods: the Cold W ar
and Post-Cold W ar and analyse the inter-
views. Even if the ISS m ay not have been
part of the Cold W ar design on the part of
the Netherlands (a W est European country
and active member of NATO), the Cold
W ar global context must have had some
kind of in¯ uence on its program mes, con-
tent, methodolo gy, and students. How they
reacted to this and what they though t about
it would have been interesting to know. On
the other hand, did the end of the Cold W ar
have any im pact on its programm es and
particularly on choosing particular develop-
m ent paradigms? And what did the inter-
viewee think about these issues?
It is encouraging to note that the book
takes gender considerations into account and
brough t out som e of the problems and con-
cerns of female ex-participants. As the very
notion of developm ent needs to be revisited
and rede® ned, the role gender consider-
ations play in this reconstruction is funda-
m ental. One’ s attitude towards gender in
general constitutes a crucial basis for devel-
opment values. W hether or not such values
were acquired in the course of the `develop-
m ent education’ at the ISS is an im portant
question. Have men changed their patriar-
chal values and views and started to con-
sider wom en as their equals? Did the
wom en change their learned submissive
views and values? How about their views on
the environm ent, hum an rights, m inority
rights, etc. ¼ ? Unfortunately, the answers
to such questions did not come out in the
interviews.
It is indeed true that life itself is a school,
and academic life even m ore so. In an
international education program me such as
that of the ISS where students com e from all
over the world, the South in particular,
knowing the society they have come into
contact with, its history particularly, is an
important part of `developm ent education’ .
One thing that the Dutch do haveÐ and
exem plifyÐ is a Spartan attitude toward
work, their labour discipline, and work ethic
that W eber wrote about. This cannot be

acquired just from book s or by being in
Holland. One needs to mingle with the
Dutch, live, talk, and play with them. The
ISS did not seem to take this aspect of
education seriously. Although it tried to get
participants in touch with Dutch families,
alm ost all these fam ilies are not working
class families. This is a dif® cult under-
taking, for participants m ostly tend to stick
together due to, among other things, the
language barrier and the short duration of
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their stay in Holland. No wonder that most
participants know very little and got m any
things wrong about Holland even after
spending 15 m onths there.
Shanti George has touched upon almost
every aspect in the lives of participants
while in Holland. Much has been said about
relationships between participants and staff,
although m ention of the romantic relation-
ships that participants enter into with each
other or with staff mem bers was conspicu-
ously absent. A great m any students entered
relationships which changed their lives and
m any, including myself, even met their
spouses while at the ISS.
This book is indeed interesting and path-
breaking particularly in its methodolo gy. I
am sure it will be fascinating for all those
that have passed through the ISS.
M elakou Tegegn,
PANOS Eastern Africa
The War Next Door: A Study of
Second-track Intervention during the
War in ex-Yugoslavia
Judith Large
Stroud: Hawthorn Press, 1998, ISBN 1
869 890 97 3
The introduction says that this book is about
how comm unities and non-government
organizations (collectively called `second
track’ ) can play a role in con¯ ict situations:
`The central question is whether there are
Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
Book Reviews
ways in which outsiders can intervene early
enough and in any m eaningful way to assist
and strengthen local capacity for violence
reduction.’
It is presented like a textbook, with dou-
ble columns on the page and lots of boxes
with case studies and quotations. The style
is dense, full of references, and at tim es it is
dif® cult to follow the writer’ s argum ent
through its twists and turns and extensive
digressions. The book is really a collection
of heterogeneous observations and view-
points, interspersed with a few personal
experiences and assessments.
I read it hopin g to ® nd an answer to the
`central question’ it sets out. I wanted to
know whether con¯ ict can be mitigated or
even resolved by the efforts of small organi-
zations and local groups. I had a special
interest. As m anager of Oxfam ’ s pro-
gram mes in the Form er Yugoslavia for the
last few years I have spent a lot of time
planning and supporting the kinds of pro-
gram mes described in this book.
I found m yself dipping in here and there,
getting bits and pieces of inform ation and
plenty of quotable quotes that I could use in
an essay but little that would help me as a
m anager making decisions. I kept coming
back to the sam e uncertainties: How can
comm unities in¯ uence war? Can work on
m utual understanding actually reduce ethnic
tension when violence has erupted? On the
whole I was not convinced by the book that
it could.
Various local con¯ ict situations are de-
scribed and analysed against various
paradigm s. References are given to dozens
of book s on related subjects. Scholars are
quoted and their comments analysed. But as
the remaining pages becam e fewer and
fewer I began to realize that I was not going
to get an answer. The last few pages explain
how such projects could be evaluated, look-
ing at various m odels and approaches, but
whether they actually work is not proven.
So it all remains an act of faith. The
author concludes with a few tentative but
rather impenetrable generalizations, such as:
489
 Book Reviews
Intervenors have the potential of posi-
tive impact w hen enabling com muni-
cation betw een groups w ho have been
cut off for political reasons, when the
motive and intent of such groups is the
healing and ending of situations of
w ar.
Last year I visited an old Serb couple who
were literally shaking with fear, left in an
isolated farm house in a Croatian area which
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had been ethnically cleansed except for
those, like this couple, who were too old
and ill to bother about. I visited with one of
the organizations described in this book ,
which made visits to such people to give
m oral support and a few bits of food and
clothing. The visit, it was argued, might
possibly deter troublemakers. After we had
gone the old man and wom an would go
back into their house and try to sleep, but
all night they would be awake, terri® ed of
every sound, im agining it might be the
knock on the door, followed by a hail of
bullets. Or anything elseÐ there was nothing
to stop it.
Like Judith Large I believe that such
projects are worth supporting. It is a gut
feeling. But I am not m uch clearer why that
is. This is a book that provides good
m aterial for anyone studying the issue, but
the attempt to m ake it into something ratio-
nal and scienti® c remains unconv incing.
Tony Vaux,
Regiona l M anager for Eastern Europe/FSU,
Oxfam GB
Managing Ethnic Con¯ ict in Africa:
Pressures and Incentives for
Co-operation
Donald Rothchild
Washington: Brookings Institution
Press, 1997
Political developments since 1989 have
m eant that fresh analysis is needed of
African ethnic con¯ ict and its managem ent.
490 Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
There is as much con¯ ict as ever, but the
end of the Cold W ar and France’ s continu-
ing disengagement have rem oved m ajor
incentives for W estern attempts at m anage-
m ent. W estern disengagem ent has in turn
diminished the UN’ s ability to mediate eth-
nic con¯ icts, because the UN executive’ s
lack of consistent, effective security council
back-up weakens its leverage over warring
parties. To ® ll the vacuum, there is a
demand for creative, tim ely and preferably
inexpensive approaches to con¯ ict m anage-
m ent. New coalitions and institutions have
em erged to meet it, and an analytical fram e-
work such as Rothchild’ s to assess their
chances of success is tim ely and useful.
After a history of the dynamics of African
ethnic con¯ ict, Rothchild notes that m ost
ethnic competition in Africa does not lead to
con¯ ict. Instead, the competition is conduc-
ted according to rules roughly accepted by
all, with the state not overly discriminatory,
and ethnic elites presenting dem ands the
state can more or less accommodate.
Rothchild argues that although hegemonic
regimes can suppress ethnic con¯ ict, poly-
archic regimes, where civil society parti-
cipates in politics and governments are
accountable, are better able to `regularize’
(sic) and thus contain ethnic con¯ ict. This is
because ethnic elites and their followers
bene® t from participating in the system and
are not too worried that asserting only m od-
erate dem ands will encourage others to take
advantage. However, Rothchild should have
m entioned that donors increasingly punish
polyarchic regim es for resource allocation
designed to appease ethnic interests rather
than m axim ize econom ic returns, usually by
freezing aid, and as a result m any govern-
m ents have had to stop doing it.
Ethnic con¯ ict becom es likely when a
government m arginalizes an ethnic elite or
the elite presents demands the governm ent
cannot accom modate. Once at war, the two
are invariably reluctant to concede a draw,
and usually ® ght on to victory or defeat.
How ever, if both begin to concede stale-
m ate, opportunities arise for m ediation, of

which Rothchild offers four examples. The
chapter on Angola shows how hard m edia-
tion is in the absence of con¯ ict manage-
m ent institutions, and when reneging on
deals, for som e, is standard practice. The
case of Zim babwe shows that leverage from
the m ediator over both parties contributes to
a settlem ent, especially when neighbouring
states want one too. The South African
study demonstrates that a com mitment from
negotiators to an inclusive settlem ent helps
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contain con¯ ict and that informal private
m ediation can help this process by offering
face-saving ways back to talks for boycott-
prone faction leaders. Finally, in his analysis
of Sudan, Rothchild discusses timing and
the role of mediators who lack leverage but
have the trust of warring parties.
The book ’ s ® nal section reads like a
m ediator’ s handbo ok, outlining a strategy
range com plete with guidelines for use.
Rothchild argues that the implementation of
agreements is as important as the agree-
m ents them selves, and is right to criticize
some recent initiatives for achieving the
latter but not the form er. Finally, he claims
that only African regional coalitions can
now muster the necessary leverage and
legitimacy for effective m ediation in
African ethnic con¯ ict and calls on W estern
powers to provide the resources for them to
do so.
Development in Practice, Volume 8, Number 4, November 1998
Book Reviews
A curious om ission from the book is any
consideration of the African state when cap-
tured by an ethnic elite. Instead, Rothchild
only considers the state as a mediator or
negotiator with ethnic interests, but in
Burund i, for exam ple, the con¯ ict is less
between the state and an ethnic interest than
between two ethnic elites, where one has
almost entirely captured state institutions in
its bid to force a settlem ent on the other.
Also missing in Rothchild’ s panoply of
good m ediation advice is one crucial pre-
scriptionÐ don’ t speak with a forked
tongue. African governm ents and ethnic
elites are m ore paranoid than ever about
hidden agendas so it is no good , for exam -
ple, offering your services as a mediator and
proposing all-party talks when one side is
convinced you are secretly supplying arms
to the other.
Overall, the book is considered and in-
structive, but unnecessarily heavy going and
turgid. The leaden opening phraseÐ `Grim
scenarios notwithstanding ’ Ð is an accurate
indicator of the subsequent prose, which
will unfortunately lim it the book ’ s reader-
ship among scholars and those with the
dif® cult but crucial task of m ediating ethnic
con¯ ict in Africa.
Gregory M thembu-Sa lter,
independent development w riter
491