Post-conflict Assistance to Timor-Leste for Reforestation and Community Recovery
Publisher: Naori Miyazawa
Date: 2011
Topics: Cooperation, Dispute Resolution/Mediation, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Peace Agreements, Peace and Security Operations
Countries: Timor-Leste
The chapter examines the United Nations–supported Ainaro and Manatuto Community Activation Project (AMCAP), a two-phase reforestation and community recovery project in post conflict Timor-Leste. AMCAP is unique both because it was one of only four projects launched within the framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and it was one of a few projects that addressed natural resource management and reforestation in Timor-Leste’s post-conflict period through community reconstruction (MAFF 2007).
AMCAP is noteworthy because it addressed natural resource management through community recovery in a post-conflict situation. In the past, large parts of post-conflict assistance have focused on capacity building of governmental institutions, and the restoration of community has not been the primary focus of assistance (Colleta, Cullen, and Mendelson 1998). Many difficulties in post- conflict recovery, however, are associated with restoring trust and social cohesion among community members after conflicts (Colleta, Cullen, and Mendelson 1998). An examination of AMCAP is relevant to peacebuilding because it is an example where environmental management and community recovery have been addressed in conjunction with one another in a post-conflict country, a subject which has scarcely been examined in other studies