About the Report

This report from the United States Institute of Peace’s Center 

of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding illustrates 

the importance of local ownership in peacebuilding and 

stabilization operations—not just in concept but in practice. 

It does so by drawing on the author’s personal experiences 

with post-conflict media reform over the past fifteen years 

in countries ranging from 1990s Bosnia and Herzegovina to 

present-day Afghanistan. It argues that the lack of practical 

local ownership in Afghanistan is a considerable factor in 

holding back progress there. 

Simon Haselock is cofounder and director of Albany Associates 

and a pioneer in media intervention in post-conflict 

countries. He is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School 

for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and an 

associate of the Programme for Comparative Media Law and 

Policy at Oxford University. He started his career in the British 

Royal Marines, where he served for twenty-three years.

1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 253 October 2010

© 2010 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Simon Haselock

Make It Theirs

The Imperative of Local Ownership in 

Communications and Media Initiatives

Summary

•	 International interventions—no matter the moral or national security considerations that 

inform them—are inevitably characterized by some as just a new form of colonialism, with 

the West trying to shape fragile and failing states in its own image. 

•	 The question of the merits of such a characterization aside, perceptions affect outcomes. An 

examination of communications and media reform initiatives in five post-conflict countries 

illustrates important lessons about the general need in international interventions to move 

away from the paternalistic practice of “we know best” to a more nuanced approach of 

“you know best.”

•	 The most effective stabilization and reconstruction programs are those in which local 

professionals, civil society, and communities have participated and taken ownership. But 

as experience has shown, local ownership cannot be taken for granted. The international 

community must quickly establish effective partnerships with local actors in a project’s 

entry phase. 

•	 Achieving local ownership requires that planners and implementers have as full an understanding of the context, culture, and history of a society and situation as possible, as early 

as possible. Demand-driven development projects are the most likely to succeed, but they 

require an approach to communications that places as much emphasis on listening to the 

local population as on transmitting information to it. 

•	 International missions need to act as “learning organizations” and maintain rolling research 

programs, public opinion polling, public consultations, media monitoring, local intelligence 

gathering, and analysis to understand the drivers of conflict, the word on “the street,” and 

the people’s perceptions. 

•	 Establishing the levels and extent of local capacity, knowing where to find it, and being 

confident about its authenticity is vital to meaningful, and not just optical, consultation. 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT

Contents

Introduction 2

Nation Building in Bosnia 2

Addressing Hate Speech in Kosovo 5

Letting Go in Kosovo 7

Encouraging Independent Media in Iraq 8

Encouraging Local Ownership of Darfur Peace Process 10

Building Relationships in Afghanistan 13

Conclusions 15
2

•	 Peacebuilding and counterinsurgency are about politics, which is in turn about persuasion 

and consensus. Because all politics is local, this means that two-way grassroots communications are crucial for success on either front. 

•	 Communicating to the grass roots requires an understanding of how information is transmitted across a society and the way in which traditional networks are used. As a result, 

communicating in traditional tribal societies often requires unconventional approaches.

•	 The current international narrative on Afghanistan revolves around the timeline for military 

withdrawal and handover. The concept of Afghan ownership looms large on the agendas 

of politicians, diplomats, and soldiers alike as the clock starts ticking. But successfully 

transferring ownership is first about understanding culture and context—and that requires 

effective two-way communication.

Introduction

The NATO military intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina in late 1995 marked the beginning of a new post–Cold War era of international intervention in the internal affairs of 

sovereign states. The Rwandan genocide and the specter of similar atrocities returning to 

Europe, spotlighted by twenty-four-hour rolling news, galvanized—or perhaps shamed—the 

international community into action. A new doctrine of humanitarian intervention evolved 

that is justified by the notion that there is a moral “responsibility to protect” populations 

from the excesses of war, oppression, and other disasters. Elsewhere in the Balkans in 1999, 

for example, the idea of moral responsibility was used to justify NATO’s bombing and subsequent invasion of Serbia/Kosovo. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, and the 

declaration of the “war on terror,” older notions of the right to self-defense reinforced this 

interventionist zeal.

As a consequence of this new doctrine, the powerful nations of the world, primarily in 

the West, have intervened not only in Bosnia and Kosovo but also in Sierra Leone, Chad, 

Afghanistan, and Iraq. In fact, of the fifty-four UN peacekeeping missions since 1945, fortyone began after 1988, with fifteen still in place today.1 But no matter the moral or national 

security arguments that are deployed in support of these interventions, there are those 

who inevitably characterize them as just a new form of colonialism, with the West trying to 

shape fragile and failing states in its own image. Although the focus of this report is not on 

the relative merits of intervention, moral or otherwise, it is clear that such perceptions do 

affect outcomes. As this report argues, international interventions need to move away from 

the paternalistic “we know best” approach of stabilization and reconstruction to a more 

nuanced approach of “you know best”—that is, of helping countries help themselves. In 

other words, this report argues for the importance of “local ownership.” However, it is necessary to stress that this report’s findings are not drawn from a specific course of research but 

rather from the author’s own practical experience with local post-conflict media reform in 

the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa over the past fifteen years. As such, although this 

report focuses specifically on the intersection between international intervention and local 

media reform in post-conflict countries, its findings are meant to illustrate the importance 

of local ownership in stabilization and reconstruction efforts more generally.

Nation Building in Bosnia, 1997–2000

Not since the end of the Second World War had the international community had experience 

in nation building on the scale embarked on in Bosnia after the Dayton Agreement was 

signed. Even the wars of the collapsing Yugoslavia that coincided with the democratization 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor 

of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, 

D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, American 

University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, James R. 

Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. 

Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, 

Nev. • Kerry Kennedy, Human Rights Activist • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor 

of Law, George Mason University, Arlington, Va. • Judy Van 

Rest, Executive Vice President, International Republican 

Institute, Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice 

President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
3

of the Soviet Union and the old Warsaw Pact could not compare to the devastation and 

division that was Bosnia at the beginning of 1996, as evidenced in the state of the media 

itself. In June of that year, for example, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) 

described the war’s effect on the media in Bosnia as having totally destroyed its previously integrated information system. In its place, three separate and mutually antagonistic 

systems had been created. There was no free flow of information, and the distribution and 

regulation of both the written press and broadcast programming was restricted along ethnic 

lines. Not a single one of the essential ingredients for a common media market existed. The 

Office of the High Representative (OHR) confronted the formidable challenge of breaking 

the political control of the Bosnian media, which had been carved up between the three 

hard-line sectarian parties that had prosecuted the war. 

The OHR’s “big idea” was essentially to create an information environment that allowed 

free and open debate and provided a mechanism for reconciliation and the conduct of free 

and fair elections. The intention was to develop a democratic Fourth Estate that would be 

independent of the government and party politics but that would hold them and the judiciary to account. Democratizing the media, it was hoped, would help to democratize Bosnia. 

How to achieve this, though, was new territory for everyone, despite the experience with 

media reform efforts in other parts of Eastern Europe. 

The only previous experience of anything of the same ambition was in postwar Germany 

and Japan. The prevailing principle in the approach of that era was contained in a 1944 

letter from President Franklin Roosevelt to Secretary of War Henry Stimson: “The German 

people as a whole must have it driven into them that the whole nation has been engaged in 

a lawless conspiracy against the decencies of modern civilisation.” After Germany’s capitulation, President Harry Truman’s directive to the commander in chief of U.S. forces called for 

essential steps to be taken, including “eliminating Nazism and militarism, apprehending and 

punishing war criminals” and preparing “for an eventual reconstruction of German political 

life on a democratic basis.”2 Similarly, the United States‘ post-surrender policy for Japan 

included the requirement to “eliminate the influence of militarists and bring about the 

eventual establishment of peaceful and responsible government, conforming as closely as 

possible to the principles of democratic self-government.”3 Media policy in both Germany 

and Japan supported these political aims by dismantling the previous state propaganda 

machines, developing public media systems, and training journalists in the Anglo-American 

school of liberal journalism. It emphasized freedom of expression and access to information 

on public matters, the strict separation of news from commentary, and the detailed reporting of the facts supported by standardized routines for designating sources.4 It was essentially a policy of imposition underpinned by the power of an occupying army and designed 

to achieve political outcomes.

While the OHR did not consciously examine and apply the post–World War II model, it 

adopted a similar “impositionist” frame of mind by looking at how Western liberal media 

systems were constructed and regulated and trying to replicate them. The Madrid Peace 

Implementation Council (PIC) declaration of 1998 articulated the media reform objective 

for Bosnia: “The establishment of a free, pluralistic, multi-ethnic and professional media 

throughout BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina] with strong public and commercial sectors, 

promoting co-existence and reconciliation among ethnic communities.” The three primary 

subobjectives were (1) “the removal of direct party political control from all media”; (2) the 

“establishment of a legal and regulatory framework to maintain media standards consistent 

with Western democratic best practice, ensure media freedom, and raise journalistic and 

broadcasting standards”; and (3) the “adoption and full implementation of Western public 

service standards at all public broadcasters.” It was a forward-leaning and uncompromising 

approach, very similar to the one in postwar Germany and Japan, designed to reconstruct 

Democratizing the media, 

it was hoped, would help to 

democratize Bosnia. 
4

the Bosnian media in the image of a Euro-Atlantic democratic model. The OHR was also 

prepared to impose it through robust diplomacy and if necessary by military force, as was 

demonstrated in 1997 in the case of Srpska Radio Televizija Pale (or SRT Pale, named after 

the then capital town of the Bosnian Serb political entity Republika Srpska).

The example of SRT Pale is instructive, as it was controlled by the party of Bosnian Serb 

leader Radovan Karadzic, which was seen as fanning discord and engendering opposition 

to the implementation of the Dayton Accords and NATO’s mission. Indeed, there was an 

election looming, and SRT held a monopoly of the airwaves in Republika Srpska,5 giving no 

space to the political parties that opposed Karadzic. It therefore posed an obstacle to free 

and fair elections. Inevitably, as the hard-liners saw their monopoly being eroded, they tried 

to challenge the process of reform by reacting with a visceral propaganda campaign against 

the international community and NATO in particular. The international community considered that this challenge should be met robustly, because it threatened the credibility of the 

international administration in Bosnia and the emergence of a moderate Serb body politic. 

The OHR persuaded NATO to take action, and NATO responded by seizing the transmission 

towers that propagated SRT Pale’s signal. NATO and the OHR then reversed the polarity of the 

transmission system, allowing the broadcasting hub to be controlled from Banja Luka, which 

was the center of moderate Serb politics. Whether the subsequent collapse in the power of 

Karadzic’s party and the emergence of less extreme Serb politicians was due to this action 

has been the source of considerable debate ever since.6

In parallel with its activities designed to transform the existing nationalist state and 

entity TV stations, the OHR established a new cross-entity public broadcasting service that 

became known as the Open Broadcast Network (OBN). The mission statement of the network 

was “to provide Bosnia and Herzegovina (with a locally run but national and cross-entity TV 

network . . . and [to provide] the viewers with programming they can trust, whether locally 

produced or acquired from other sources.” From the beginning, the enterprise was criticized 

for being dominated by international administrators and consultants. The OBN board, for 

example, included no local representation, because the OHR and the international community more generally saw it as the trustee of international funding and best practice and 

not as an active board of directors. This gave rise to the perception that the international 

experts entrusted with the formative research were not interested in the opinions of local 

professionals, while the experts, for their part, had little confidence in the capacity of locals 

to work across ethnic boundaries.7 After all, the media had been instrumental in fanning the 

fire that led to the war and had been traumatized dramatically by it. Further, the OHR was 

not sure which local experts to trust. Indeed, much of the local dissatisfaction came from 

those who had their own interests in maintaining the political status quo or who felt the 

project would divert international funding from other media enterprises.

Nevertheless, the OBN defied skeptics and by late 1998 was being described by the 

International Crisis Group (ICG) as “having evolved into a much watched highly influential medium,”8 covering over 80 percent of the territory of Bosnia.9 Despite having been 

regarded as a white elephant, it is now operating as a commercially funded privately owned 

network. However, with the benefit of hindsight, this result might have been achieved more 

rapidly and with less acrimony had the international officials charged with delivery, of which 

this author was one, taken more time to consult more broadly with local professionals and 

representatives of civil society before launching a plan driven more by political deadlines 

(the elections) than an awareness of available local capacity. 

Although the OHR media reform policy has been criticized by some freedom-ofexpression advocates and local Bosnian journalists as being high-handed and having been 

imposed with little consultation, it should be stressed that it was designed for the specific 

purpose of ameliorating the effect of hard-line sectarian politics in the immediate aftermath 
5

of a vicious ethnic war. Other than the experience in postwar Germany and Japan, the policy 

had no clear template to follow and was thus not based on the more altruistic approach of 

media development that has emerged since. As a result, local ownership, although recognized as desirable, was never the first priority of the reform effort. 

Addressing Hate Speech in Kosovo, 2000–2001

The NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was initiated with the Bosnian experience still 

very much at the forefront of the international community’s thinking. The predominant 

view was that, before 1995, the international community’s response to the war in Bosnia 

had been weak and inadequate and that this had permitted atrocities like Srebrenica to 

occur.10 In short, the mandate of the UN mission had not been sufficient to the task and the 

international community in general had been indecisive and feeble until NATO intervened. 

Not wanting a repeat of Bosnia, NATO forced a Serbian military withdrawal and the international community, through UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244, established and 

empowered the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Chapter 

VII of the UN Charter provided UNMIK with the legal clout to enforce UNSCR 1244 and to 

use military force if necessary, with NATO providing the muscle. This meant that both the 

head of UNMIK and the special representative of the secretary-general (SRSG) possessed 

significant power and the means to use it.

At the time, one of the main concerns of the international community in Kosovo was the 

threat of Kosovar Albanian reprisals against the Kosovo Serb population. The United Nations 

and NATO clearly could not be seen as having intervened to protect one segment of the 

population, the majority Albanians, only to have them turn on the other, the minority Serbs. 

Much of this concern focused initially around hate speech in the media, the debilitating 

effects of which had already been witnessed in both the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.11

As Daan Everts, the deputy SRSG for democratization, stated in February 2000, “We cannot 

tolerate hate speech anywhere in society—whether it is on the radio, in the classroom, in 

a newspaper, or at a political rally.”12

In May 2000, a Serb UNMIK employee, Petar Topoljski, was found stabbed and strangled 

to death after he had been accused by a local Albanian newspaper, Dita (Day), of being a 

war criminal and of having committed crimes against Albanians. The article had included 

a photograph of him and given details about his home address and workplace. Shortly 

after his body was discovered, the editor of the newspaper published an open letter to the 

SRSG saying that he would continue to publish the names and addresses of those who had 

been “involved against Albanians.” Using his formidable executive authority, SRSG Bernard 

Kouchner ordered the newspaper on June 3, 2000, to close its offices for eight days on the 

grounds that it and its editor had “violated the spirit and letter of Security Council Resolution 1244.”13 Catching UNMIK slightly off guard, the media community in Kosovo reacted 

dramatically and expressed vehement opposition to the decision. Veton Surroi, the editor 

of the main independent daily, Koha Ditore, offered to publish Dita’s editorial pages in his 

newspaper until its offices were reopened. Koha Ditore also carried a headline on June 4 that 

reflected the sympathy of other Albanian journalists: “Dita is closed by decree, not through 

normal procedure.” Hacif Muliqui, head of the Kosovo Journalists’ Association, accused SRSG 

Kouchner of having broken the law himself by halting the publication of the newspaper 

without a court hearing. The association described the closure of Dita as an arbitrary act 

that endangered press freedom, and it asked the United Nations to rethink the decision, as 

it could set a dangerous precedent for local media.14 At the time the article was published, 

Dita reportedly had a daily circulation of around five hundred copies. When UNMIK’s ban was 

lifted, sales apparently more than doubled.

The media reform policy . . . 

was designed for the specific 

purpose of ameliorating the 

effect of hard-line sectarian 

politics . . . Local ownership, 

although recognized as 

desirable, was never the first 

priority of the reform effort.
6

The problem with the SRSG’s decision in the Topoljski case was not so much about the 

rights and wrongs of the decision itself but the way in which the decision was taken. No one 

disputed the power and authority of UNMIK and the SRSG. What was in dispute was the seemingly arbitrary manner in which that power had been used. In other words, it was not about 

the power itself, but the legitimacy of its use. A normative principle for the regulation of any 

industry, if it is to be effective, is the consent and cooperation of those who are going to be 

affected by it. Fundamental to this is wide consultation and the application of a system of due 

process that everyone recognizes and understands. Prior to the SRSG’s decision, there had been 

no consultation with the profession on the regulation of hate speech and little public debate 

about the responsibilities that accompany the right to freedom of expression. The decision was 

seen as an outside imposition in which local professionals had no part. There was therefore no 

local ownership of the decision itself or the process that had led to it. 

It was against this background, and in the immediate aftermath of the UN action against 

Dita, that this author was appointed temporary media commissioner (TMC) in Kosovo. It was 

clear straight away that there was a serious potential hate speech and incitement problem 

in the Kosovo media. However, to address it would require the agreement and cooperation of the media profession, the understanding of the audience and readership, and the 

endorsement of independent international experts and expert bodies. A system was needed 

that was owned, and therefore legitimized, by both the public and the profession. What 

was required was wide consultation, and the Dita newspaper case provided the opportunity 

and the frame for such consultation. The resultant discussions showed the extent to which 

Kosovars viewed the SRSG’s decision as having been imposed from outside and arbitrary. 

Those who were consulted understood why hate speech and incitement were so poisonous to the rehabilitation of Kosovar society in the aftermath of war, but they felt that 

they should be included in the formulation of the mechanisms that would regulate it. The 

consultations that took place included international experts and practitioners so that any 

system proposed to the Kosovars would be seen as consistent with international standards 

and best practice. 

The system that emerged was based on the pervasive nature of human rights law as 

laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European 

Convention on Human Rights. Its legitimacy was underpinned by the understanding and 

acceptance by the media profession and general public that the right to freedom of expression brought with it certain duties and responsibilities. This consensus enabled the application of specific UNMIK regulations and codes of conduct that were produced in partnership 

with the profession. The regulations and codes were administered by an UNMIK-appointed 

regulator, the TMC, and adjudicated by a hearings board with an automatic right of appeal. 

The hearings and appeals boards included local Kosovar media professionals and lawyers. 

The legitimacy of the system was further enhanced when the media appeals board (MAB) 

examined and ruled on the Dita case. The MAB found that, although Dita’s editor had acted 

irresponsibly and could have been subject to prosecution, the SRSG had acted without the 

due process required by international conventions, and the decision was rendered null and 

void. Because the system had been developed transparently and in consultation with local 

actors, it was seen to be demonstrably independent.15

The consequence of this improved legitimacy was that all future decisions of the TMC that 

were upheld by the MAB were broadly accepted, and, in the few cases where financial sanctions were applied, penalties were paid in full. Furthermore, the incidents of hate speech 

and incitement decreased significantly, and most of the cases that did occur were resolved 

by negotiation and agreement before they reached the formal-hearings stage. There was 

also a clear lesson to be learned about local ownership of local problems and the necessity 

for local buy-in for their effective resolution.

Those who were consulted 

understood why hate speech and 

incitement were so poisonous 

to the rehabilitation of Kosovar 

society . . . but they felt that 

they should be included in the 

formulation of the mechanisms 

that would regulate it.
7

Letting Go in Kosovo, 2001–2003 

In mid-2001, this author joined UNMIK as director of the Department of Public Information (DPI). As already discussed, UNMIK in effect served as the government of Kosovo. It 

was interim only in the fact that the international community wanted to delay any form 

of sovereign government until the sovereign status of what was still formally a province 

of Serbia had been resolved. Nevertheless, UNMIK was mandated to establish and develop 

autonomous provisional institutions of self-government (PISG) on the basis of free and fair 

elections. The focus of UNMIK’s effort at the time was thus the development and establishment of the constitutional framework that would establish the structure of the PISG and the 

basis for elections to a multiethnic Kosovo Assembly. UNMIK saw its role during this phase 

as stewarding Kosovo through the process of establishing these provisional institutions and 

building the local capacity necessary to make them effective. The Kosovars, on the other 

hand, were impatient for more power more quickly than the international community was 

prepared to devolve to them. There was therefore a natural tension between the UNMIK 

administration and the PISG. 

DPI set out to establish popular consent through public information and education, dialogue, and participation—and to build the legitimacy of the Kosovar provisional institutions 

rather than the profile and popularity of UNMIK. Effective local institutions that were seen 

to be able to deliver the key benefits of peace to all elements of the population were central 

to the mission’s endgame. Not everyone in the United Nation’s public information establishment at the time saw the DPI’s role the same way, as the traditional approach seemed to 

be much more about selling the United Nations and its image. Again, this was a question 

of creating a sense of local ownership that would result in the Kosovars taking possession 

of all their problems, including the ones that they would rather leave to the international 

community, such as minority rights, for fear of making their politicians unpopular. This was 

not a popularity contest between UNMIK and Kosovo’s politicians, as it was perceived by 

some, but rather an attempt to build a partnership that would result in the embedding of 

local institutions.

To do this, DPI instituted a series of specific participatory information campaigns on 

what were considered to be the key issues: the constitutional framework, police and justice, 

community relations, and the new economy. On the constitutional framework, DPI broke a 

complex legal document down into a series of simple explanations, diagrams, and pictures. 

These were then combined into a booklet that was distributed to every household in Kosovo 

as the basis for an informed interactive public discussion through phone-in TV and radio 

programs and live audience debates. On the police and justice, DPI recognized the importance of localizing the police force, building public trust, and bringing them closer to the 

population. It embarked on this through a weekly television program similar to America’s 

Most Wanted in the United States and Crime Watch in the United Kingdom called Dosier Krimit

(Crime Files). However, the Kosovo program was fronted entirely by Kosovar police officers 

and was an attempt to get people to understand that they had a civic responsibility to work 

with their police and not against them. This program, which required the audience to interact with the presenters, became Kosovo’s most popular TV show. On community relations, 

DPI established Community Information Centers in the minority areas that were staffed by 

locals and designed not just to answer the population’s questions but to find out what those 

questions were. DPI also produced a weekly communities magazine, Danas i Sutra (Today 

and Tomorrow), both in print and as a TV program on Kosovo’s main channel. These initiatives reflected the issues and topics that DPI was hearing on the grassroots level. On the 

economy, DPI took a similar approach with a weekly TV program backed up by a traveling 

road show designed to provide information on how local business can work. The significance 
8

of this approach was that the campaigns were designed to recognize that communications is 

a two-way process and that public trust is gained as much by listening as by talking. 

As already noted, a peacebuilding mission’s endgame is to hand over all of its responsibilities to a capable partner. It has therefore succeeded only when it has made itself superfluous. As a yardstick to measure progress toward this goal in Kosovo, the SRSG, Michael 

Steiner, developed a set of standards or benchmarks. These benchmarks covered the basic 

requirements for any functional democratic society: democratic institutions, the rule of law, 

a viable market-based economy, property rights, multiethnicity and returns, and freedom of 

movement. The point of writing them all down in a list and publicizing them was to ensure 

that all relevant actors—the international community, UNMIK, and Kosovo’s institutions and 

civil society—were all singing from the same song sheet. On the international side, it would 

make it easier to identify both achievements and problems. Most important, though, on the 

Kosovo side, standards helped Kosovo’s citizens understand and own the challenges that 

were confronting them. Again, a major public awareness campaign was constructed around 

the benchmarks, which became known through the slogan “Standards before Status.”

The final challenge to this process, however, was an unexpected one. For many international civil servants, conferring ownership to the local population means losing ownership 

themselves. On an individual level, it implies switching from doing everything yourself to 

mentoring and advising, and this can be a difficult transition. In general terms, mission 

staff will often have spent considerable time and effort in difficult circumstances working 

and developing systems that they are proud and in control of. Handing this responsibility 

and expertise over to someone who might be considered less prepared and qualified is often 

a risk that some are reluctant to take, but it is essential if international missions are to be 

successful. It means that internal education and communications campaigns are as important as public ones if international officials are to learn what Michael Steiner referred to in 

Kosovo as the “art of letting go.”

Encouraging Independent Media in Iraq, 2003–2006

On leaving UNMIK, this author was already working with an Internews project funded by 

the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop a framework 

for creating and encouraging a free and independent media in Iraq. This process started 

with a five-day working group in Cairo in the spring of 2003 that was designed to produce a 

draft background document and model law that could be presented at a wider conference in 

Athens in June of that year. While the drafting team in Cairo included two Iraqi expat journalists, the aim of the Athens conference was to work through the draft and produce a final 

document that was the result of a thorough consultation with as wide a group of experts 

and stakeholders as possible. This group included Arab journalists associations, government 

officials, freedom of expression advocacy groups, and expat Iraqis. However, significantly, it 

was difficult to include indigenous Iraqi journalists or potential Iraqi government officials, 

both because of security concerns and because they were worried about being regarded as 

collaborators by their peers back in Iraq.16 This later turned out to be a major disadvantage 

in the competition for legitimacy and local ownership.

The document that emerged from the conference became known as the Athens Framework and formed the basis of the author’s work as the head of the Media Development 

Advisory Team in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad. It was based on four 

main areas of work:

•	 the overall legal framework;

•	 independent regulatory structures for broadcast and print media;

Internal education and 

communications campaigns are 

as important as public ones if 

international officials are to learn 

. . . the “art of letting go.”
9

•	 public-service broadcasting; and

•	 professionalization, training, and public education and awareness.

In early July, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office dispatched this author to 

present the framework to ambassador Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq and head 

of the CPA. Although Bremer bought into the strategy and endorsed the author’s appointment to his team, pressures from officials within his inner circle produced tensions between 

ideology and experience, complicating the framework’s implementation. Essentially, three 

conflicting approaches to media development in Iraq presented themselves. The first was 

the idea of “no regulation.” This “let-a-thousand-flowers-bloom” approach came from some 

of Bremer’s close advisers and was based on an ideological notion of laissez-faire. The second was driven by the security concerns of the military and represented an argument for 

arbitrary powers similar to those initially used by UNMIK in the Dita case; controversially, 

this concern had already represented itself in a CPA anti-incitement order, CPA Order 14, that 

had been enacted prior to the arrival of the Media Development Advisory Team (MDAT) and 

that meant that the administrator could close down media outlets by fiat and without due 

process. The last approach represented a third and middle way and was the one on which the 

Athens Framework was founded. Delivering this framework, however, against the background 

of the competing agendas that characterized the CPA, proved to be more challenging than 

was first thought. At no time was this more apparent than when this author visited the 

Pentagon to discuss the framework with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s aide, Larry 

Di Rita, who said, “Forget how you did it in the Balkans, the Pentagon is in charge, and they 

intend to do things their own way.” 

There has been a deluge of critical analysis about what went right and wrong in Iraq after 

2003, but the U.S. administration of the time seemed to have learned little from the experiences of the Balkans, where the approach to nation building had migrated from imposition to 

consultation and local ownership. The policy was more akin to that of post–World War II, with 

the Baathists playing the role of the Nazi Party or the Japanese militarists. Although the Iraqi 

Governing Council was established to confer a degree of legitimacy on the CPA, it consisted 

primarily of expatriates, most of whom had little credibility with the indigenous population. 

The decision to transfer authority from the CPA to an Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) in June 

2004 appeared to have been done in haste for optical purposes rather than as a substantive 

attempt at indigenous self-government. Ayad Allawi and the IIG were perceived as a surrogate 

for the international community and specifically the United States. The New York Times, for 

example, reported that Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations’ special envoy to Iraq, endorsed 

Allawi only as a result of pressure from U.S. officials.17 In response to a question about the role 

of the United States in Allawi’s appointment, Brahimi reportedly replied: “I sometimes say, I’m 

sure he doesn’t mind me saying that, Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money. He has 

the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country.”18

Notwithstanding the problems of the CPA and the IIG, there were also practical difficulties that made consultation with professional bodies and local actors problematic. Many 

nongovernmental organizations (NGO), for example, found the security conditions in Iraq 

impossible to cope with. Other international NGOs refused to become involved because of 

their disagreement with the invasion in the first place or because they were not prepared 

to work with the Pentagon, preferring to have the State Department or USAID as partners. 

Indeed, the very NGO that had been contracted by USAID to carry out the public education 

and awareness campaign that was supposed to have accompanied the technical implementation of the framework considered the situation in Baghdad to be too dangerous to perform 

its duties. This obstacle was highly significant as it meant that although the MDAT was 

eventually able to institute the most liberal media framework and regulatory regime in the 

Middle East, few people understood it or how to use it. 

Although the MDAT was 

eventually able to institute the 

most liberal media framework 

and regulatory regime in 

the Middle East, few people 

understood it or how to use it. 
10

A consequence of this lack of public understanding was that, after the handover to Ayad 

Allawi’s IIG, there was a gradual progression toward a familiar assertion of authoritarian 

control of the media by government. Soon after taking power, Allawi appointed his friend 

Ibrahim Al-Janabi as his media adviser. Al-Janabi then created a government-controlled 

Higher Media Commission that, de facto, compromised the principles of independence and 

due process that underpinned the new regulatory and public-service broadcasting structures 

established under the CPA. This approach was symptomatic of the attitude expressed to this 

author during a workshop in Baghdad with a group of Iraqi civil society representatives 

and which further demonstrated the absolute requirement to accompany technical reform 

with a public advocacy campaign. In response to an explanation about the practicalities 

of independent media regulation, one delegate said that while he fully supported the idea 

of a media regulatory body independent of government, he wondered who was going to 

control it. 

Nevertheless, as many Iraq commentators have often said, there was a window of 

opportunity in the summer of 2003, before the situation had deteriorated to the extent 

that CPA officials and advisers could no longer move outside the Green Zone. During this 

period, this author was able to travel to the Khadamiya Mosque in Baghdad before Friday 

prayers and discuss freedom of expression with an assembly of Shi’a clerics. These discussions were disarmingly open and enlightened, and the participants were extremely pleased 

to be consulted about a system that could be adapted to their culture and practice without 

compromising best practices. If there had been more consultation and discussions of this 

nature across the country, many of the media excesses and excessive reactions to them 

could have been prevented. 

Encouraging Local Ownership of the Darfur Peace Process, 

2006–2008

The impassioned entreaty of a tribal leader in South Darfur in 2008, who said that the international community should “forget the government and the [rebel] movements as it was 

time that [their] voices were heard,” goes to the heart of the problem facing peacemakers in 

Darfur. His comment simply meant that the majority of those most affected by the conflict 

felt no ownership of the peace process aimed at ending it.

Marrack Goulding, the former head of Peacekeeping and Political Affairs at the United 

Nations, wrote that most governments and intergovernmental organizations have traditionally viewed peacemaking as a quintessentially governmental activity.19 As a consequence, 

the prevalent strategy for ending civil wars has been to bring the combatants, usually the 

government and representatives of the armed insurgents, to a neutral venue to negotiate 

behind closed doors with the assistance of an international mediator or envoy. While this 

approach has worked in many places, it rarely provides an opportunity for those who have 

not taken up arms, the majority, to have a voice in shaping or endorsing the agreements 

that result and thereby ensure the agreements’ sustainability.20 The efforts to bring peace 

to Darfur so far have been no exception to this tradition.

This author first found himself in Sudan at the end of July 2006 after leaving Iraq, when 

the company he cofounded, Albany Associates, was asked by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to assist the African Union (AU) in devising and implementing a strategy for 

explaining the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) to ordinary Darfurians. The DPA, which had 

been signed in Abuja the previous May, was the result of seven rounds of talks under the 

auspices of an AU mediation team supported by the United Nations, the United Kingdom, 

the United States, and other international partners. While it was generally considered, with 
11

some notable exceptions, to have been a good text covering the main causes of the conflict 

as perceived internationally, it was signed only by two of the four principal parties. The DPA 

had been driven by deadline diplomacy with little to no public consultation, and, as a consequence, the parties had little embedded commitment to it. It also exacerbated existing 

fault lines between the parties, which resulted in new fighting between those who signed 

and those who did not and in the splintering of the rebel movements into an alphabet soup 

of competing armed factions. As Laurie Nathan of the Centre for Conflict Resolution, who 

was in Abuja at the time, put it, “Deadline diplomacy inhibited effective mediation, resulted 

in a peace agreement that did not bring peace and sowed divisions that exacerbated the 

conflict.”21

By June 2006, the DPA was already in trouble, with the UN secretary-general’s representative in Sudan arguing that there was a risk that it would collapse, not least because it had 

no resonance with the people of Darfur themselves.22 This clearly meant that the task of 

helping the African Union to explain the agreement to Darfur’s population was going to be a 

formidable undertaking, so much so that by the end of the year those involved had to think 

again about whether it was a realistic proposition at all. What had become clear was that the 

process by which the agreement had been prepared and concluded was at least as important 

to its legitimacy as the content of the agreement itself. The DPA had been delivered by a 

deadline, but in so doing, the complexities of the conflict had been underestimated and 

the imperative of ownership neglected.23 What was needed was a communications strategy 

that addressed these shortcomings and supported the peace process as a whole. Civil society 

needed to be empowered and voice needed to be given to those without the guns.

Despite the prevailing paradigm that peacemaking is the preserve of governments, there 

are many examples where civil society and grassroots public participation has been the key 

to building successful and sustainable peace processes. In the African context alone, there 

are a number of examples, most notably in postapartheid South Africa, where an explosion of political violence was avoided in part because of the process of open dialogue that 

had helped bring about democracy and a culture of peaceful negotiation and coexistence. 

Public participation through mass organization, public debate, and direct participation at 

local and regional levels created a sense of legitimacy and public ownership of the process, 

which fostered a culture of cooperation and compromise.24 The effort to end persistent 

violent conflict in northern Mali in the mid-1990s also provides another good example. 

As in Darfur, negotiated agreements between government representatives and the armed 

factions were unable to bring the conflict to a conclusion, and in fact exacerbated it. It 

was only when thousands of people engaged directly in intercommunity peacemaking that 

the path to national reconciliation opened. The involvement of those most affected by the 

conflict in open and inclusive dialogue was able to achieve what the official political negotiations could not.25 Similarly, with regard to the United Kingdom’s experience in Northern 

Ireland, only with active civil society engagement and the realization by the government 

that communities and community groups, far from being a distraction to peacemaking, 

were in fact central to its success, could light be seen at the end of the tunnel.26 These 

grassroots approaches to mobilizing voices, understanding the issues, and developing a 

popular constituency of interest is the context that formed the basis of a research project 

in Darfur designed to replicate some of the success witnessed in other parts of Africa and 

the world. 

In early 2007, an ever-increasing and disparate mixture of experts, exiles, and rebel 

movements claimed to speak with authority on behalf of the people of Darfur. But it was 

clear that there was very little empirical evidence to support what they were saying, either 

positively or negatively. Very few seemed to be asking ordinary folk for their opinion; and, 

as a consequence, it was apparent that these same individuals felt excluded from the 

The DPA had been delivered by 

a deadline, but in so doing, 

the complexities of the conflict 

had been underestimated and 

the imperative of ownership 

neglected. What was needed was 

a communications strategy that 

addressed these shortcomings.
12

process, as they were unable to recognize their own voice in the discourse. Equally clear 

to the African Union and the UN-AU Joint Mediation Support Team (JMST) was the lack of 

adequate and accurate data to support the mediation effort itself; most of the information 

that was available was old, anecdotal, or extracted from intermittent whirlwind official 

visits. What was needed was genuine, academically rigorous, and reliable research that 

could be used to inform and shape the overall political process from the bottom up; enable 

the negotiators to understand the context of the conflict and the needs of those affected 

by it; assist in building ownership and inclusiveness by representing individuals’ views and 

experiences in a way that they could recognize; challenge the assumptions of all of the 

stakeholders to prevent them from hijacking the process; and, finally, measure the level of 

public understanding and awareness of the peace process as a whole. The question, however, 

was, how could this be done?

It was clear from the outset that to be seen as credible, the research had to be genuinely independent. It would have to be as transparent as conditions on the ground would 

allow, and its data and reports should not be secret and proprietary but rather available to 

the public and disseminated as widely as possible, much like the Initiative 92 reports that 

nudged the peace process forward in Northern Ireland. Public presentation would be vital 

so that people could feel that they were beginning to participate in a process where their 

views were being accurately reflected. The research also needed to be ambitious in scale if 

it was to generate the momentum necessary to have any impact. 

But traditional polling techniques were unlikely to be reliable in the war-torn environment 

of Darfur, where tribal suspicion, the threat of intimidation, and a fear of strangers asking 

questions are the norms. Standard survey questionnaires and conventional random sampling 

are of questionable use in such circumstances, so a new and creative research framework 

that could be trusted and tailored to the specific social dynamics of the region needed to 

be developed. As a consequence of a series of workshops with Sudanese academics and 

international polling experts, a research team from the Annenberg School for Communication 

at the Center for Global Communications Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the 

Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London produced a framework. At 

the same time, the team also came up with a methodology for using the resulting research 

to support the inclusive grassroots diplomacy that was required to break the intransigence 

of the parties to the conflict and to help kick-start a sustainable peace process owned by all 

sections of the population in Darfur.27

This methodology was based on the experience that had earlier been gained in Darfur in 

trying to explain the DPA, when a broad grassroots outreach network around the brand name 

Afia Darfur (Health to Darfur) had been built. Afia Darfur was established as a positive brand 

through a series of large cultural festivals that were organized and run in the three Darfur state 

capitals as well as through a free newspaper that was produced by Darfurians for Darfurians. 

The week-long festivals were fronted by one of Sudan’s foremost folk groups and consisted of 

a range of activities in both 2006 and 2007. These activities included street theater, participatory workshops, sports competitions, poetry readings, and musical concerts, all delivering 

the messages of reconciliation and participation in the peace process. The newspaper was 

designed to appeal to those who could not read and thus emphasized the use of color and 

pictures. The idea was to encourage those who could not read to sit with those who could so 

that they could then spontaneously debate the stories. It was a genuine attempt at producing 

an independent news source on local affairs, and a hundred thousand copies of the paper were 

distributed across Darfur twice a month. To communicate with the nomadic tribes, the team 

helped a local NGO, Governance Bureau, to arrange a horse festival where nomads could come 

to race their horses and then sit down and eat together in tents in the evening and debate the 

issues of the day. These techniques all proved highly effective and popular. 

The newspaper was designed 

to appeal to those who could 

not read and thus emphasized 

the use of color and pictures. 

The idea was to encourage 

those who could not read to sit 

with those who could so that 

they could then spontaneously 

debate the stories.
13

At the time of writing, the second round of field research is in progress in Darfur, and so 

it would be premature to talk about the results and their impact on public discourse about 

making peace. It is clear, however, that the attempts to produce an inclusive and lasting 

agreement between the myriad self-proclaimed and recalcitrant rebel movements and the 

government of Sudan continue to fail, and that they will continue to do so until ordinary 

Sudanese at the grass roots feel that they are included and are able to take some ownership 

of the process. Crucially, for this to happen they must first be listened to and feel that their 

views are being heard.

Building Relationships in Afghanistan—Today 

General Sir Rupert Smith asserts in his book The Utility of Force that there has been a shift 

in why and how wars are fought. “The old paradigm,” he says, “was that of interstate 

industrial war. The new one is the paradigm of war amongst the people.”28 Nowhere is this 

more apparent than in Afghanistan, where the international community, as represented by 

both NATO and the United Nations, is engaged in a counterinsurgency “among the people” 

of that country. Most experts would agree that countering insurgency is essentially about 

politics and, as House Speaker Tip O‘Neill once famously said, “All politics is local.” So why is 

it that—nearly nine years after the ousting of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the deployment of over 140,000 coalition troops, the delivery of billions of dollars of aid, and the 

assembly of countless conferences, declarations, and strategic reviews—the international 

community is still struggling to win over ordinary Afghans?29

There is certainly no shortage of analysis on this subject, though most would agree that 

the civil and political aspects of the campaign are paramount and, as the Obama administration has done, call for a civilian lead. After all, this approach to counterinsurgency is not 

new. Indeed, Sir Gerald Templer, the British high commissioner and director of operations in 

Malaya, first coined this now well-worn phrase in the 1950s when discussing the “battle for 

hearts and minds” in the British fight against the communist insurgency in Malaya, while 

Robert Thompson’s famous five principles for success in counterinsurgency operations were 

drawn from his experience as permanent secretary for defense in Templer’s administration 

in Malaya. His fourth principle states that ”the government must give priority to defeating 

the political subversion not the guerrillas.” He regarded that the key to this was establishing 

the legitimacy of the government in the eyes of the general population.30 Templer himself 

in early 1952 wrote to a colleague that “the shooting side of the business is only 25 percent 

of the trouble and the other 75 percent lies in getting the people of this country [Malaya]

behind us.” Thus he identified the hearts and minds of the population as the center of 

gravity for success.

President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy comprehends this approach, identifying as one of its goals a specific “civilian strategy” and acknowledging that the people of 

Afghanistan, not the insurgents, need to be at the center of the plan to defeat the Taliban. 

There is little disagreement that the legitimacy of the Afghan government and its ability to 

improve the social and economic conditions of the Afghan population is vital. Yet the Taliban 

continue to consolidate their power in large areas of the country at the expense of a weak 

and corrupt central government. Concurrently, domestic tensions between ethnic factions 

threaten communal violence, which compounds instability in the rest of Afghanistan and 

further undermines the legitimacy of the government in Kabul.31 In October 2006, a local 

Taliban commander in northern Helmand told BBC journalist David Loyn that the failure of 

the international community to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans was the reason the 

Taliban were making a comeback.32 If he asked the same question now, he would probably 

get the same answer.
14

So why is it that, despite such a clear consensus on the overall strategy and what needs 

to be done, the situation remains as it is? In short, there is a mismatch between aspiration 

and implementation in Afghanistan. As argued earlier, counterinsurgency is fundamentally 

about politics, and politics is about persuasion, influence, consensus, and agreement. But it 

is also about understanding constituencies and, given the assertion that all politics is local, 

the key constituency is always the grass roots. It is possible that this is where the international community has gone wrong in Afghanistan, with participating countries invariably 

focused on their own domestic audiences and not on the villages and hamlets where the 

troops are deployed. 

This author’s involvement in Afghanistan started in late 2007 when Albany Associates 

was asked by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) to assist in 

the development of a communications strategy that would support the aims and objectives 

of the Afghanistan Compact, which sets out common goals for the future of Afghanistan in 

terms of security, governance, and economic and social development.33 The strategy was 

to be delivered through the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB), which represents a partnership between the Afghan government, UNAMA, and participating nations 

and international organizations. The JCMB’s job was and is to improve the effectiveness of 

international assistance through better coordination and to monitor the progress of the 

compact. The main implementing tool for this was intended to be the Afghan National 

Development Strategy (ANDS), which at the time was being developed by a team of Afghan 

government officials. 

While the officials on the Afghan side were keen to have technical assistance in writing 

a plan, they were much less keen about having embedded internationals to work on implementing it—this, despite not having the capacity in terms of numbers and expertise to do 

much themselves. Their experience with a procession of international consultants had not 

been positive, and they were sensitive to being told what to do. They wanted to be helped, 

not patronized, and they wanted the human resources budget that the United Nations 

Development Program (UNDP) had for consultants to be used to recruit Afghans. The reality is that they were probably overly sensitive and suspicious, but it underlines the notion 

of ownership from the perspective of the beneficiary. The approach of least resistance is 

always partnership rather than leadership. The point being that building relationships is 

fundamental to the concept of local ownership in international assistance. If the attitude 

held by the ANDS officials was a reflection of a widely held mind-set, it is no wonder that 

there was a problem convincing grassroots Afghans of what the international community 

and the Afghan government were trying to achieve together. Just as in the corporate world, 

winning the trust and confidence of your client is the essential precursor for progress and 

should be planned for and practiced as part of the preparation phase of any project. The 

key to this is to approach the relationship from the outset as a partnership, and successful 

partnerships require partners to listen to and not just talk at one another.

Albany Associates has subsequently returned to Afghanistan on a number of occasions 

to assist in devising the ANDS communications strategy. The most recent visit was in 2009, 

when it was asked by UNAMA to come up with an approach to communicating development 

that was capable of being implemented. The aim was to develop a practical work plan that 

would establish a new narrative that focused on the civilian rather than military effort, 

concentrating on social and economic issues consistent with the new NATO/U.S. strategic 

emphasis. The plan that was conceived took account of existing programs, reinforcing 

those that worked and identifying where new effort was required. It was based on a series 

of interlocking initiatives, some to be carried out directly by the Afghan government and 

others to be carried out indirectly through local partners. The aim was for the sum of these 

activities to build a critical mass of public confidence that would progressively undermine 
15

the insurgency. It was a plan designed specifically around local ownership and the empowerment of an Afghan voice and focused on demand-driven projects developed on the basis of 

grassroots consultations.34

In carrying out the initial audit of the communications projects that were already in 

place, Albany Associates noted that, although there were some very impressive individual 

programs, there was a surprising lack of grassroots initiatives of the scale necessary to have 

any real impact. The audit further revealed that the international community’s strategic 

communications focus was largely external rather than internal and that the international 

community was still primarily concerned about gaining the support of its own domestic 

populations rather than about seriously attempting to win over the hearts and minds of the 

Afghans. In summary, the audit identified five key problems with existing communications 

projects in Afghanistan:

•	 Wrong message—most messaging is about the military campaign and the war against 

the Taliban rather than about civilian and socioeconomic problems and solutions. That is, 

messages need to be driven by local demand and needs.

•	 Wrong voice—the predominant voices on Afghanistan are foreign; they need to be 

Afghan.

•	 Wrong audience—messages are principally aimed at the public in donor countries rather 

than at the Afghan audience(s).

•	 Fragmented approach—although there are many initiatives in place, some effective and 

some not, they suffer from a lack of core vision, minimal coordination, and a tendency to 

“stovepipe” individual programs in the areas where individual donor nations are deployed.

•	 Lack of capacity—neither the Afghan government nor UNAMA has sufficient capacity in 

personnel, expertise, or resources to implement and coordinate a plan of the scope and 

scale necessary to counter the community-based campaigns of the Taliban.

Conclusions

As this report attempts to demonstrate, the most effective programs of reform, transformation, and advocacy are generally those in which local professionals, civil society, and 

communities have participated and taken ownership. But what past experience has also 

shown is that local participation and ownership is not a given. In the entry phase of a 

project, thought must be put into creating effective partnerships between the local actors 

and stakeholders and international officials and experts as quickly as possible. This partnership must be the essential operational objective of any project, and it needs to be thought 

through and planned for as the critical part of the methodology of delivery. The impact of 

projects can be sustained after the international assistance is over only if they are wholly 

owned by the people, professions, and communities that they were designed to help. This 

is the essence of the “art of letting go.”

Achieving local ownership requires planners and implementers to have as full an understanding of the context, culture, and history of a society and situation as possible, as 

early as possible. Research is a much vaunted but neglected process, and this author has 

often been staggered by the lack of cultural, historical, and situational awareness of many 

international planners and officials, even of the information that is available through open 

and readily available sources. It is impossible to be effective in any project without an 

understanding of the society in which the project is grounded and of who the people are 

and where they come from. Demand-driven development projects are by far the most likely 

to succeed and require an approach to communications that places as much emphasis on listening to the population as on transmitting information. Peacebuilding does not just mean 

Although there were some very 

impressive individual programs, 

there was a surprising lack of 

grassroots initiatives of the 

scale necessary to have any 

real impact.
16

creating clones of Western European societies. For projects to be sustainable, international 

best practice needs to be adjusted to suit local traditions and culture, provided those traditions are consistent with international human rights standards. 

It may seem banal, but international missions need to be “learning organizations.” To 

be effective, missions must study the environment, its political rivalries and alliances, how 

people make a living, and the stories they tell one another. Missions need to maintain rolling 

research programs, public opinion polling, public consultations, and media monitoring and 

analysis in order to understand the drivers of conflict and change and how people view their 

situation. Missions need to have an intelligence-gathering capacity so that they can fully 

understand the political dynamics, points of influence, and the perceptions of those in the 

street. They also need mechanisms for capturing and passing on institutional knowledge to 

ameliorate the loss of experience from staff turnover. Understanding the environment and 

learning from experience is key to ownership and success. Particularly important is establishing the levels and extent of local capacity. Using local expertise implies knowing where 

to find it and being confident about its authenticity. 

Given the political nature of peacebuilding and counterinsurgency, the importance of 

communications cannot be overstated. Strategic communications is another overused but 

commonly misunderstood expression. Politics is about communications, persuasion, and 

consensus building, and because all politics is local, this means making the local audience 

the first priority. If there is local understanding, cooperation, and support, it is self-evident 

that the mission will succeed. The leaders and politicians of contributing nations are often 

more concerned about audiences back home than they are in the theater of operations. This 

needs to change. As nothing succeeds like success, the concerns of international constituents will take care of themselves if success on the ground becomes apparent.

Communicating at the grass roots also requires an understanding of how the information 

ecology of a society functions.35 How does information get disseminated? What methods 

and sources are trusted? And what is the relative importance of traditional and cultural 

networks over conventional media? For example, as in Darfur, communicating in traditional 

tribal societies often means adopting unconventional approaches.

Finally, a word about training: most civil servants, international officials, consultants, 

and contractors involved in overseas intervention are insufficiently prepared for the environments in which they find themselves. The military spends considerable time and resources 

training its personnel for what they might have to do and engages them in a period of specific predeployment training before arriving in theater. Civilian missions should do the same. 

In addition to training civilian officials in the context and culture in which they operate, 

they should be made aware of institutional knowledge gained prior to their engagement and 

of the lessons learned from previous experience. Although documenting “lessons learned” 

has become increasingly popular, they are seldom truly learned by others and passed on.

The current international narrative on the most pressing stabilization operation of the 

moment, Afghanistan, revolves around the timeline for military withdrawal and handover. 

The concept of Afghan ownership therefore looms large on the agendas of politicians, diplomats, and soldiers alike as the clock starts ticking. But successfully transferring ownership, 

as this report argues, is first about understanding culture and context—and that requires 

effective two-way communication.

Missions need to maintain 

rolling research programs, 

public opinion polling, public 

consultations, and media 

monitoring and analysis in order 

to understand the drivers of 

conflict and change.

Communicating at the 

grass roots also requires an 

understanding of how the 

information ecology of a society 

functions.
17

Notes

1. See the United Nations, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

2. Richard Merrit, Democracy Imposed: US Occupation Policy and the German Public, 1945–1949. (New Haven, CT: 

Yale University Press, 1995).

3. Meirion and Susan Harries, Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Postwar Japan (New York: Macmillan, 

1987).

4. Whit Mason, “Winning Hearts and Minds in Germany and Japan” (master’s thesis, Cambridge University, 2005).

5. The other political entity is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is jointly administered by the 

Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

6. Monroe Price and Mark Thompson, ed., Forging Peace—Intervention and the Management of Media Space 

(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002). 

7. Vladimir Bratic, Susan Dente Ross, and Hyeonjin Kang-Graham, “Bosnia’s Open Broadcast Network: A Brief but 

Illustrative Foray into Peace Journalism Practice,” Global Media Journal 7, no. 13 (Fall 2008), http://lass.calumet.

purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa08/gmj-fa08-bratic-ross-graham.htm.

8. ICG, Doing Democracy a Disservice: 1998 Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Europe Report no. 42 (Sarajevo: ICG, 

September 9, 2008).

9. Mark Thompson, Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (London: University of Luton 

Press, 1999).

10. Srebrenica was the site of the massacre of 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by the Serbs in the summer of 

1995. It is considered to be the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

11. Thompson, Forging War.

12. Daan Everts, speech on the occasion of the opening of new studios at Radio Television Kosovo (RTK), February 

16, 2000.

13. SRSG Executive Decision no. 2000/2, UNMIK/200/2, May 30, 2000.

14. Price and Thompson, Forging Peace. 

15. Peter Krug and Monroe E. Price, “A Module for Media Intervention: Content Regulation in Post-Conflict Zones,” 

in Forging Peace: Intervention, Human Rights and the Management of Media Space, ed. Monroe E. Price and Mark 

Thompson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002). 

16. Monroe Price, Ibrahim Al Marashi, and Douglas Griffin, Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems 

in Iraq, CGCS Occasional Paper Series (Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of 

Pennsylvania, 2007). 

17. Dexter Filkins, “A Worn Road for U.N. Aide,” New York Times, May 31, 2004.

18. As quoted in Doug Lorimer, “Iraq: US Still Calls the Shots,” Green Left Weekly, June 9, 2004. 

19. Marrack Goulding, “Public Participation and International Peacemaking,” Accord 13 (2002), http://www.c-r.org/

our-work/accord/public-participation/public-participation.php. 

20. Catherine Barnes, “Democratizing Peacemaking Processes: Strategies and Dilemmas for Public Participation,” 

Accord 13 (2002), http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/public-participation/introduction.php

21. Laurie Nathan, “No Ownership, No Peace: The Darfur Peace Agreement” (working paper, LSE Crisis States Research 

Centre, 2006). 

22. J. Pronk, “Darfur Peace Agreement Is Severely Paralysed,” Sudan Tribune, July 1, 2006.

23. Nathan, “No Ownership, No Peace.”

24. Eldred De Klerk, “South Africa’s Negotiated Transition: Context, Analysis and Evaluation,” Accord 13 (2002), 

http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/public-participation/southafrica-negotiated-transition.php 

25. Kare Lode, “Mali’s Peace Process: Context, Analysis and Evaluation,” Accord 13 (2002), http://www.c-r.org/ourwork/accord/public-participation/malis-peace-process.php.

26. Rachel Briggs, Catherine Fieschi, and Hannah Lownsbrough, Bringing it Home: Community-Based Approaches to 

Counter Terrorism (London: Demos, 2006).

27. Iginio Gagliardone and Nicole A. Stremlau, “Public Opinion Research in a Conflict Zone: Grassroots Diplomacy in 

Darfur,” International Journal of Communications 2 (2008). 

28. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Penguin, 2006). 

29. The 2001 Bonn Agreement, the 2002 Tokyo Conference, the 2006 Afghan Compact, the 2008 Paris Declaration, 

the 2009 Hague Conference Declaration, and the 2010 London Conference. 

30. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences in Malaya and Vietnam (New York: F. A. Praeger, 

1966).

31. See Fabrizio Foschini, “The Kuchi-Hazara Conflict, Again,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, http://aan-afghanistan.

com/index.asp?id=764

32. David Loyn, Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Engagement in Afghanistan (London: Hutchinson, 

2008).

33. Fifty countries and fifteen international organizations agreed to the Afghanistan Compact at the 2006 

International Conference on Afghanistan in London.

34. Albany Associates, “Promoting Awareness of Afghan Government Achievement in Economic and Social 

Development in Afghanistan” (unpublished report, 2009). 

35. For more discussion of the term “informaion ecology,” see Stremlau, Nicole (2010). Somaliland Communication 

Flows Research Report. Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, University of Oxford. 


Other Titles Of Interest 

•	 Preventing Media Incitement to Violence in Iraq by Theo Dolan (Peace Brief, April 2010)

•	 Media and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan by Sheldon Himelfarb (Peace Brief, March 2010)

•	 Media for Next Generation Peacebuilding in Iraq by Theo Dolan (Peace Brief, August 2009)

•	 Media and Conflict: Afghanistan as a Relative Success Story by Yll Bajraktari and Christina 

Parajon (Special Report, January 2008)

•	 Developing Media in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations by Yll Bajraktari and Emily 

Hsu (Practitioner Tool, October 2007)

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