I recently helped Jordan Schwartz pull together two short notes on the challenge of reconstructing infrastructure after conflict. The first examines private investment and aid flows to conflict-affected countries:
The initial period of high growth and large aid inflows in postconflict countries is paralleled by a period of inactivity in private investment in infrastructure: little such investment typically occurs for the first five years after conflict abates. Large-scale investments in infrastructure tend to materialize only after postconflict countries have maintained stability for a sufficient period—that is, at about the time that aid slows and growth declines. Again paradoxically, it is during those initial postconflict years that investments are most needed to provide basic services, reignite the local private sector, strengthen growth prospects, and lessen the likelihood of a return to conflict.
The second tries to suggest some policy measures that could help shorten this gap in private inactivity, and thereby hopefully contribute to ending the conflict cycle.
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