In the wake of civil war, the state’s ability to collect and manage public resources will largely shape its ability to survive once the short-term avalanche of post-conflict international aid dwindles. CIC’s project on post-conflict public finance and economic recovery is developing research on how the economic agenda of public finance interacts with the political agendas of peacebuilding and statebuilding, lifting the curtain that has often separated the two. Research on the management of post-conflict finance includes issues such as right-financing security sector reform, managing natural resources and fiscal policies to promote horizontal equality. In addition to an ongoing series of policy papers on public finance, CIC published Peace and the Public Purse, a major study on economic policies for postwar statebuilding.

Lead Researcher: Shepard Forman, Barnett Rubin, Bruce Jones
Project Staff: Rahul Chandran, Jake Sherman, Gigja Sorensen

Funders: Government of Norway, Government of the United Kingdom, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, United States Institute of Peace.

Click here to see a list of the Advisory Board.

Resources for Peace?
February 2008

Revenues from extractive sectors play an important role in many post-conflict environments. When mismanaged, resource revenues can undermine both economic performance and the quality of governance, thereby heightening the risk of renewed violence. In "Resources for Peace?" Philippe Le Billon offers seven proposals to address this challenge.

Right-Financing Security Sector Reform
January 2008

Current SSR strategies and programming all too often pay insufficient attention to public finance issues. The negative consequences include unsustainable reforms, the squeezing out of other vital sectors, and, conversely, the under-provision of security. This new paper from CIC and PERI argues for the “right-financing” approach as a potential solution to this problem.