Misplaced Analogies: 'Coordination' and 'Learning' in the Building of Peace

This paper highlights the structural impediments to effective coordination and learning in peacebuilding. While the post Cold-War security environment fostered the merger of the security and development agendas and seemed to call for stronger multilateral and multi-level (IGOs, states, NGOS, beneficiaries) partnerships to meet the challenges of managing conflict and building peace, the record has been underwhelming thus far. Review of lessons-learned exercises focusing on coordination illustrates that similar errors and weaknesses are identified in various conflicts, similar lessons are drawn from them, and the same errors and weaknesses re-emerge in later conflicts. This pattern suggests a deeper underlying problem, which will be addressed in the paper.