Winning Hearts and Minds?
Stuart Gordon | Feinstein International Center | 2011
Within the practitioner and policy making communities there is a powerful assumption that development and reconstruction assistance is a critical instrument for promoting stability within fragile and conflict states. This assumption has had a significant impact on resource flows and strategies, leading to sharp increases in foreign assistance budgets, stronger linkages between development and security strategies, and a shift of development activities from the aid agencies to the military. In this light, it is essential that policy makers understand whether and how aid projects actually contribute to security.
This paper explores the relationship between Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT)- and military-delivered aid projects and security in Helmand Province during the period from 2006 to early 2008. Afghanistan provided an opportunity to examine one of the most concerted recent efforts to use “hearts and minds” projects to achieve security objectives, as it has been the testing ground for new approaches to using reconstruction assistance to promote stability, which in some cases (e.g., Provincial Reconstruction Teams) were then exported to Iraq.
The Helmand case study is part of a larger Afghanistan country study composed of five provinces: Balkh, Faryab, Helmand, Paktia, and Uruzgan. Due to conditions in Helmand, a different methodology was used there. The Helmand methodology involved synthesizing and analyzing data drawn from focus group discussions, polls, and key informant interviews.
The country study looks at the assumption that humanitarian and development assistance projects can help to bring or maintain security in strategically important environments, and can help “win hearts and minds,” thereby undermining support within the local populace for radical, insurgent, or terrorist groups. In addition to the Afghanistan country study, the Feinstein International Center has conducted similar research in the Horn of Africa.
Sprache | English
Winning Hearts and Minds?