Governance, Corruption, and Conflict by United States Institute of Peace - HTML preview

Activity I:

Analyzing Recommendtions

After reading “Governance, Corruption, and Conflict,” participate in the following activity.

Before You Begin

This activity can be done with cases other than Afghanistan. For Part I, ask students to research a selected country. For Part II, assign articles or multimedia news coverage and tailor the discussion questions accordingly. Some suggested alternate cases are Liberia, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan. Other case examples can be found in the reading.

Learning Objectives

• Practice analyzing a conflict case.
• Discover and define problems.
• Understand the complexity of building strong governance in countries rebuilding after conflict.
• Understand the broad range of participants who are involved in establishing stable governance.
• Gain an enhanced understanding of conflict and peacemaking.

Time required: 2 hours

Part I: Group Research and Presentation

(40 minutes research, 20 minutes information sharing)

Learners research the conflict and challenges for Afghanistan in 2010 and answer the following questions individually or in small groups. After they have the answers, they share their findings with the entire group.

1. Who are the key actors in the political, economic, and social life of the country?

2. What are the grievances and objectives of the parties in Afghanistan that have conflicting goals, values, and needs?

3. What are some of the immediate challenges to peace in Afghanistan?

4. Identify three foreign countries and/or international development organizations that work to build stability in Afghanistan. (Facilitator may assign one country or organization to each group.) What are some of the needs that each group addresses? Who do they cooperate or coordinate with to accomplish their goals?

5. For each of the three actors, does their work contribute to improving governance, fighting corruption, or making the country more stable? If yes, how so? If no, why not?