Susanne Schmeidl - Böcker

Inspired by Mary Anderson’s influential work Do No Harm (1999), this book encourages critical reflection on the development and contemporary relevance of conflict sensitivity approaches in international development, humanitarian action and peacebuilding.Despite the widespread acceptance of conflict sensitivity, particularly in the context of worsening crises, there has been a surprising lack of critical discussion and evaluation of the framework and its application. This book fills this gap by bringing together a diverse collection of articles, practice notes and reflections from academics and practitioners in the field of conflict sensitivity. It provides a comprehensive platform for valuable debate, highlighting strengths, areas for improvement and practical guidance for real- world application, based on 25 years of conflict sensitivity/ do no harm practice and innovation. By integrating insights from practitioners, the book aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Advocating the systematic integration of conflict sensitivity into humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts, the book offers practical guidance for implementation and adaptation in different contexts and programmes.As a valuable resource, it deepens understanding and promotes accountability to the populations that humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actors seek to support, including actors advancing conflict sensitivity in their own contexts. It serves as a springboard for further academic research on conflict sensitivity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

This book identifies some of the main lessons for civil-military interactions that can be derived from the experiences of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. The book has three main themes. Firstly, the volume analyses why the ways in which civil and military actors interact in theatres of operations such as Afghanistan matter — for both those categories of actors, and for the ordinary people who their interactions serve. Second, the book highlights that these interactions are invariably complex. The third theme, which arises specifically from ‘the PRT experience’ in Afghanistan, is that such teams vary significantly in their roles, resourcing, and operational environments. Consequently, to appraise the value of ‘the PRT experience’, it is necessary to unpack the experiences of different PRTs, which the use of case studies allows one to do.The volume comprises an introduction, identifying some key questions to which the PRT experience gives rise, and case studies of the experiences of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and France; chapters dealing with the roles played by NGOs and the UN system and a discussion from an Afghan perspective of the implications of civilian casualties. It is the combination of the diverse cases discussed in this book with a focus on the broad challenges of optimising civil-military interactions that makes this book distinctive. This book will be of much interest to students of the Afghan War, civil-military relations, statebuilding, Central Asian politics and IR in general.

This book identifies some of the main lessons for civil-military interactions that can be derived from the experiences of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. The book has three main themes. Firstly, the volume analyses why the ways in which civil and military actors interact in theatres of operations such as Afghanistan matter — for both those categories of actors, and for the ordinary people who their interactions serve. Second, the book highlights that these interactions are invariably complex. The third theme, which arises specifically from ‘the PRT experience’ in Afghanistan, is that such teams vary significantly in their roles, resourcing, and operational environments. Consequently, to appraise the value of ‘the PRT experience’, it is necessary to unpack the experiences of different PRTs, which the use of case studies allows one to do.The volume comprises an introduction, identifying some key questions to which the PRT experience gives rise, and case studies of the experiences of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and France; chapters dealing with the roles played by NGOs and the UN system and a discussion from an Afghan perspective of the implications of civilian casualties. It is the combination of the diverse cases discussed in this book with a focus on the broad challenges of optimising civil-military interactions that makes this book distinctive. This book will be of much interest to students of the Afghan War, civil-military relations, statebuilding, Central Asian politics and IR in general.