Post-Conflict

The aim of this study was to conduct a review of the literature to identify
the efficacy of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) for traumatised children
and adolescents suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in resource-poor, post conflict societies. The results provide a summary of the
studies which have used NET treatment approaches with children and adolescents from non-Western populations, indicating that NET has empirical evidence
for the treatment of PTSD in children and adolescents within this population.

This book examines the legacy of Lebanon’s civil war and how the population, and the youth in particular, are dealing with their national past. Drawing on extensive qualitative research and social observation, the author explores the efforts of those who wish to remember, so as not to repeat past mistakes, and those who wish to forget.

In considering how the Lebanese youth are negotiating this collective memory, Larkin addresses issues of:

    - Lebanese post-war amnesia and the gradual emergence of  new memory discourses and public debates
    - Lebanese nationalism and historical memory
    - visual memory and mnemonic landscapes
  -  oral memory and post-war narratives
  -  war memory as an agent of ethnic conflict and a tool for reconciliation and peace-building.
  -  trans-generational trauma or postmemory.

Shedding new light on trauma and the persistence of ethnic and religious hostility, this book offers a unique insight into Lebanon’s recurring communal tensions and a fresh perspective on the issue of war memory. As such, this is an essential addition to the existing literature on Lebanon and will be relevant for scholars of sociology, Middle East studies, anthropology, politics and history.

During the last few years, some donor countries (especially the US and the UK) have been increasingly outsourcing services in post-conflict operations to international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and private military and security companies (PMSCs). These states have also adopted ‘integrated approaches’ to their policy interventions, contributing to the emergence of an ‘aid and security market’. The article uses ideas from both development and defence studies and re-problematises the contracting states’ relationship with PMSCs and INGOs. It argues that although INGOs and PMSCs are very different types of non-state actors, there are striking similarities in outsourcing practices. Moreover, it demonstrates that the leading contracting states have poorly managed their contracts with both INGOs and PMSCs, and have not seriously reflected on the unintended consequences of their contracting practices on the recovery of war-affected countries.

The purpose of this report is to outline the current provision of microfinance in Southern Sudan and to raise attention to the constraints that presently restrict its broad based provision and its potential impact.

While a handful of microfinance institutions (MFI’s) currently provide microfinance services in Southern Sudan, these only service 1% of potential clients, offer a limited range of products, and do not as yet address the productive, rural and agricultural sectors effectively. Certain MFI’s suffer from a high default rate and feedback from the microfinance agencies detail limitations including unstable access to funds (particularly in terms of grant and equity), the lack of a regulatory framework that would enable them to better fund themselves through savings, and poor capacity (poorly trained staff, lack of IT systems, poor monitoring and controls, etc). Further issues that have been hindering the MFI’s provision of microfinance include low staff retention and the demolition of markets by local government entities, while their geographical and sectoral outreach is limited respectively by security concerns and client access to productive training.

The main measures with the potential to address these constraints include the better incentivised entry of further large international microfinance actors (attracted through the development of a regulatory framework, a more integrated approach to urban planning that takes into account the importance of building the informal sector as a source of income generation, the comprehensive training of the labour force, and the smoother and enhanced access to loan, equity, and grant funding), in coordination with the enhanced capacity building of the present actors (through the increased provision of technical support to the microfinance agencies). As there are now a number of organizations now involved in the provision of support to the microfinance industry in Southern Sudan, a better coordination between relevant organizations would be recommended to avoid duplication and address all gaps. Finally, given the acute need of recovering communities with little access to capital or finance, the development of agricultural and rural lending methodologies appropriate to the post conflict environment would key in enhancing livelihood possibilities.

Sebha is the key and the most populated city in Fezzan,
the South of Libya, and the main gateway between
North and South. In 2018, it es􀆟matly hosts around
210,000 inhabitants constitu􀆟ng around 2/3rd of its
governorate.
It has experienced figh􀆟ng and damage, especially in
2011 and 2014. Most of the displaced were within the
boundaries of the city and its immediate
neighborhoods, accelerating the development of its
informal settlements.
15,190 IDPs from Sebha outside the region has
returned, cons􀆟tu􀆟ng today 7% of the population. This
is while there are s􀆟ll 8,390 displaced IDPs.
Sebha became also a major step on the migra􀆟on road
from Africa to the North. 35,040 migrants were
accounted for in August 2018 (18% of the municipality
popula􀆟on), in an accelera􀆟ng trend. 89% of the
migrants are from Africa, mainly Niger and Nigeria.
Their humanitarian situation is a priority issue.

We analyse the influence of gun culture and exogenous political events on gun regulation in post-Soviet Georgia. While neighbouring states retain restrictive Soviet-era gun laws, in Georgia, state failure, armed conflict and proliferation of weapons during the 1990s all impelled recent governments towards moderate gun policies, including liberal rules on handgun ownership, strict rules on gun carriage and a national gun registry. We conceptualize gun policy as the product of relatively durable institutional legacies and underlying social attitudes—in this case, a distinctive post-communist ‘gunscape’—which constrain future policy development; and specific political conjunctures, which provide opportunities for limited policy experimentation. While Georgian gun owners desire weapons for self-defence, sport and the affirmation of masculinity, they do not seek to defy the state or replace its role in collective security, leading to a moderate ‘harm reduction’ approach to regulation that may be applicable in other post-conflict societies.

Community-driven development (CDD) – a widely practiced tool by development donors and practitioners worldwide - strives to empower and develop communities by giving them joint control over aid allocations. This is expected to improve local development, local governance, and strengthen social cohesion. However, the empirical evidence for the third outcome is quite weak. This paper presents the findings of an impact evaluation research examining the extent the community driven development intervention implemented during 2014-2017 strengthened social cohesion in two regions in Kyrgyzstan. Our findings are that, on the one hand, the CDD project led to a sense of unity and cooperation and to a perception of improvements in local governance and educational services. On the other hand, the program had at best a weak effect on deep-trenched perceptions, attitudes and trust for closely related social groups and local institutions. We posit that these results obtained in part because the duration of the CDD interventions was rather short and the micro-projects were only realized in less than a half of villages in treatment sub-districts. It stands to reason that larger and longer CDD projects would have had larger impacts on social cohesion as well.

The first formal published research conducted on Retired Special Forces Operators with the direct input of retired and serving Special Forces Operators. The research opportunity, co-operation of the Special Forces League, co-operation of the Special Forces Brigade and co-operation of interviewees was facilitated and managed by Stuart Sterzel. The research itself was conducted by Guy Lamb while at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, and published in Track Two - the quarterly research Publication of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (from Page 39 onwards).

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement both ended the Bosnian War and created the consociational democracy that exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina to this day. The ethnic autonomy created by the Dayton Agreement has resulted in a frozen conflict between ethnic groups that has manifested itself in the country’s monoethnic education system. This study explores the short-term stability under consociationalism and the long-term stability under a multiethnic education system. Additionally, this study explains the importance of the country’s only multiethnic education system in Brčko District and how it came into existence.

The purpose of this report is to raise attention to the constraints that presently restrict the provision of finance in Southern Sudan, and recommend actions that would stimulate the development of the sector as well as a more broad based provision of financial services.

The main providers of financial services in Southern Sudan consist of five commercial banks and six or so microfinance agencies, while a sprinkling of foreign exchange agencies provide foreign exchange and transfer services, six insurance agencies provide a range of insurance services. The commercial banks provide loans, advances and trade finance, but their lending portfolio (63 Million SDG according to the Bank of Southern Sudan’s December 2008 reports) covers only a meagre 7% of the approx. 6000 registered firms and less than 1 % of the Government of Southern Sudan’s revenue. Similarly, the microfinance agencies estimate that their microloan portfolio (9 Million according to self reported figures) only services 5% of the available clients in the greater Juba region, and less than 1% of the potential market in Southern Sudan. Further, the financial sector only provides finance in urban hubs, focuses primarily on the non-productive sectors (such as trade, construction and hotel services, etc.), and only dedicates 10 % of its loan portfolio to small firms (loans between 1000 and 100,000 USD) in Southern Sudan. The financial sector is clearly small and underdeveloped.

The main issues hampering the depth and breadth of provision by commercial banks are not the lack of liquidity, but (1) the lack of competition, and the poor capacity of local banks (in terms of credit analysis skills, controls, systems, management capacity and corporate governance), (2) the lack of collateral due to the frail structures for land registry and a nascent legal, regulatory and enforcement framework, and (3) the specific characteristics of businesses in Southern Sudan. Credit is rationed according to the high risk and the low ability to recover assets – excluding certain sectors and company types with low short-term cash flows and collateral.

Recommendations to enhance the provision of finance by commercial banks include (1) the entry of new banks in coordination with an escalated support to BOSS (for banking supervision) as well as to the local banks (in terms of capacity building), (2) the development of legal, regulatory and enforcement frameworks for lending technologies that match the client characteristics of businesses in Southern Sudan, and (3) the improvement in the financial transparency of businesses (audits, credit bureaus, business training) in coordination with the development of alternative lending technologies that are better suited to the client characteristics of businesses in Southern Sudan (guarantee/ subsidy provision, group lending structures, fixed asset lending, leasing models, factoring and asset based lending, etc). The establishment of an insurance commission might also heighten their ability to access loans from the commercial banks.

This report thus presents a set of recommendations to enhance the provision of finance of microloans by microfinance agencies, and individual loans as well as medium scale loans for trade finance (in terms of LOCs), as working capital for business expansion, and bridge finance to assist in the purchase of fixed assets (overdraw facilities). It is important to note that these recommendations would not enhance the provision of large-scale loans for agricultural finance, investment into manufacture, and real estate, and the demand for start up capital by local Sudanese firms. These would best be met by nor would be better addressed by public private partnership or through alternative support systems.

Given that some of the recommended actions will take several years to implement successfully (e.g. the availability of land as properly registered collateral), a short run strategy to address the financing needs of businesses would be ideal. Accordingly, an investigation into associated methods of reducing the lack of financial transparency of businesses in Southern Sudan (audits, credit bureaus, business training) as well as appropriate alternative lending technologies that are better suited to characteristics of businesses in Southern Sudan (lack of collateral, etc) would be timely. This report, as well as the subsequent investigation would thus pave the way for the development of innovative structures to address the specific access to finance issues in post conflict countries.

The protracted LRA war in northern Uganda was characterised by the
abduction and abuse of an unknown but significant number of girls and
women. These girls were forced to carry guns and become wives to
rebels, among other roles during captivity. Based on thirteen child
mothers’ interviews and eight key informant interviews, the study found
that the lives of formerly abducted mothers are tainted with stigma,
rejection, and discrimination by in-laws, relatives, and the community,
which leads to identity problems and limited possibilities for their
integration. Child mothers’ return to school, small business engagement,
and social involvement reduced their plight.

There is still a considerable lack of systematic and rigorous understanding about the impact of violent conflict on women‘s roles, activities and aspirations, or about the nature and magnitude of the benefits of including women more fully in economic recovery and peace-building processes.

Patricia Justino, Ivan Cardona, Catherine Muller and Becky Mitchell
Policy programming around gender issues in post-conflict contexts is currently being designed based on limited rigorous evidence, and incorporates inadequate procedures to evaluate its impact in terms of gender roles and gender equality. This situation has at times resulted in misplaced interventions and the continued emphasis on the reintegration of (male) combatants, and male employment generation programmes.

The main aim of this report is to analyse how changes in the roles and activities of women during episodes of violent conflict may shape their contribution to post-conflict economic recovery and sustainable peace. The report poses two important questions for which limited evidence is to date available in the academic literature on violent conflict or in policy programming in post-conflict contexts: 1) How does violent conflict change the roles that women take on within their households and communities? 2) How do changes in female roles during conflict affect women‘s own status after the conflict, and the capacity of households and communities to recover from the conflict?

This paper discusses and defines stability operations, analyzes recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, highlights American weaknesses in conducting stability operations, and applies those lessons to improve America’s ability to conduct stability operations.

In 1999 NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign of targets across Serbia, including the capital of Belgrade, in order to force the hand of Slobodan Milošević to remove Serbian forces from Kosovo and end atrocities against ethnic Albanians. The operation, officially known as "Operation Allied Force," was widely contested across the global stage as it sidestepped UN authorization in the name of 'humanitarian intervention.' This event, in the larger context of the Balkans in the 1990s, marks a site to explore various aspects of collective memory within post-conflict Serbia and the former Yugoslav republics. Approaching Belgrade as a mnemonic landscape, a fragmented urban topography, that pushes our focus on the material and spatial spread of the city, we can study this 'space' as 'place' in order to clarify the relation of the past with in post-conflict Serbia.

Titulaire d'un MBA et d'un DEA en Histoire, Dima de Clerck est docteur en histoire de l'Université Paris I. Sa thèse a porté sur les mémoires collectives communautaires dans le Liban d'après-guerre et plus précisément sur les cas des villages druzo-chrétiens. Elle est chercheuse associée à l'Institut français du Proche-Orient et auteur de plusieurs articles publiés.

This article introduces the concept of ethnicity in relation to gendered security problems in conflict and post-conflict settings. Feminist research has established that men and women experience conflict and post-conflict situations differently owing to issues of identity and power. National and gendered identities and women’s disadvantageous location within global and local power structures combine to put women at risk, while simultaneously providing little room for them to voice their security problems. Theories on women as female boundary-makers show how ethnicity appears in part to be created, maintained and socialized through male control of gender identities, and how women’s fundamental human rights and dignity are often caught up in male power struggles. In post-conflict settings, gender construction appears to be further complicated by both nationalagendas of identity formation and re-formation, which often include an ethnic focus, and the presence of a competing ‘fraternity’ as aconsequence of the arrival of the international community.

To reconstruct or not to reconstruct is now the question... to post conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina this was not the question, or maybe it is better to say for post Dayton peace agreement
in Bosnia and Herzegovina (14 December, 1995). How strong agreement for peace can be?
Well it stopped the long conflict and arranged many things such as return of refugees and reconstruction of destroyed cultural heritage. Was this the end or just the beginning? Maybe
now, after the years, it is the proper time to say. In a way it helped to resolve a lot of starting questions, and surely helped to safe rest of many destructed monuments and to safeguard
them to be restored in proper manner, even there were attempts not to do so. Large number
of properties were considered impossible to restore and way too difficult we can say now that
reconstructing the heritage in B&H was a task that is still not finished, there are numbers of
monuments that are still waiting to be reconstructed or they are in the way to be reconstructed.
How to justify these reconstructions in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not difficult, by its placement in Dayton peace agreement it is clear that annex 8 is considered as part of human right
of people to its heritage, coming just after annex 7 that is based on return of refugees to their
homes after exile. Main aim of the research is to discuss questions about post conflict reconstruction of cultural heritage properties and involvement of peace agreement into a return
of refugees and reconstruction of their destroyed cultural heritage. This can be reviewed by
examples of reconstruction on significant monuments like Mostar old bridge (UNESCO site),
Ferhat pasha mosque in Banja Luka, Handanija mosque in Prusac, Kujundžiluk bazaars in
Mostar, Orthodox Monastery in Zavala and Land museum in Sarajevo. Investigation is focused by the results of survey on assessment of the impact of Swedish organization Cultural
Heritage without Borders engagements in Bosnia and Herzegovina in post conflict time. A
reflection of economic situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is more evident in the study, than
on other hand their attitude towards cultural heritage or importance of its reconstruction.

This paper tries to understand the notion of peace in the post-war Sri Lankan context. In Sri Lanka ‘peace-building’ is at a crossroads as a
theory as well as practice. Peace-building does not take place in
a vacuum, so it is important to look at the ambit of
realpolitik in order to understand peace in the post-war
Sri Lanka. The paper argues that National security is preferred to human
security in a world that seems to be moving from
prevention towards pre-emption and peace needs to be understood in this setting.

In addressing the de-Baathification in post-2003 Iraq, this article outlines the efforts by Iraqi lawmakers to codify de-Baathification in Iraq’s new constitution of 2005 as well as in subsequent pieces of more detailed legislation. The article then goes on to study the actual implementation of these laws in relation to the Iraqi parliamentary elections of 2010 and 2014, as well as the local elections of 2013. Throughout the chapter, special emphasis is given to the considerable discrepancies between the principles enshrined in the formal de-Baathification legislation and the way those principles are applied in practice. Finally, this chapter concludes by suggesting that Iraq needs to openly and honestly deal with its Baathist past if it is ever to move beyond patterns of political
sectarianism, violence and autocracy.

In the two decades since the end of the 1992-93 Georgian-Abkhaz war, the border area between Georgia and Abkhazia has seen multiple, diverse forms of violence. This area was relatively peaceful before the war and was barely touched during the war. As the war ended, it became the epicenter of organized political violence in Abkhazia. This article seeks to explain why violence has persisted in the Georgian-Abkhaz border area into the post-war period. While major approaches to this problem are developed at the macro, state level, I turn to how events developed among key actors the micro level to explain the observed variation. I locate violent events in the Gali region in the contested zone, predominantly controlled by the Abkhaz, and argue that a complex, embedded social structure of violence based on fear emerged between armed actors on both sides of the border and the local population in Gali. In this structure local residents are subjected to pressure from both sides to collaborate, and as a consequence suffer reprisals. This in turn supports the continuation of violent conflict between Abkhaz and Georgian forces.

This paper describes a participatory project that combines cultural heritage restoration activities with heritage tours and dialogue events in order to explore the relationship of heritage with identity in a multi-ethnic setting. The approach, which was used by an international non-governmental organisation based in Peje/Pec, Western Kosovo, is offered as a tool for integrating restoration into the wider social aims of humanitarian projects. The project encouraged constituent groups to negotiate their own path through the tensions presented by universal heritage value, local values and cultural diversity as well as concepts associated with humanitarian culture, such as multiculturalism, human rights, peace, reconciliation and democracy. I have evaluated its success in terms of its ability to increase opportunities for communication between communities and demystify the negative meanings associated with heritage sites and their restoration

After more than 20 years of sporadic separatist insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government signed an internationally brokered peace agreement in August 2005, just eight months after the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated Aceh’s coastal communities. This article presents a medical hu-manitarian case study based on ethnographic data I collected while working for a large aid agency in post-conflict Aceh from 2005 to 2007. In December 2005, the agency faced the first test of its medical and negotiation capacities to provide psychiatric care to a recently amnestied political prisoner whose erratic behavior upon returning home led to his re-arrest and detention at a district police station. I juxtapose two methodological approachesdan ethnographic content analysis of the agency’s email archive and field-based participant-observationdto recount contrasting narrative versions of the event. I use this contrast to illustrate and critique the immediacy of the humanitarian imperative that characterizes the industry. Immediacy is explored as both an urgent moral impulse to assist in a crisis and a form of mediation that seemingly projects neutral and transparent transmission of content. I argue that the sense of immediacy afforded by email enacts and amplifies the humanitarian imperative at the cost of abstracting elite humanitarian actors out of local and moral context. As a result, the management and mediation of this psychiatric case by email produced a bureaucratic model of care that failed to account for complex conditions of chronic political and medical instability on the ground.

Why has the internationally-promoted Weberian-style bureaucracy failed to replace patronage as the dominant principle of state organization in post-war Kosovo? This article explores how international actors’ rule-promotion activities and local actors’ strategies of resistance play out and interact to explain the failure. The empirical analysis focuses on rules of recruitment in the civil service system in the period 2000-2016. The analysis juxtaposes two consecutive stages of the state-building process, which are marked by different degrees and forms of international involvement: the pre-independence period, 1999-2008; and post-independence period, 2008-2016. Evidence from the case suggests that during the pre-independence period, legal inconsistencies embedded in the internationally promulgated legislation enabled local actors’ formal and informal strategies to recruit political cronies in the newly created civil service system. The transfer of authority from international administrators to elected local authorities, especially after Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, did not solve the problem of legal inconsistencies, and instead, served to consolidate governing parties’ strategies of control over recruitment in the state bureaucracy. More often than not, patron-client relationships that thrive at the borderline between formality and informality of political behaviour, continued to undermine external rule transfers.

After the second intifada, and the concurrent destruction of the Palestinian Authority security forces’ (PSF) infrastructure, the development and training of the security forces recommenced with renewed vigour, with substantial support of the EU and US, as well as increased cooperation with the Israeli army and intelligence. The reinstatement of the PA’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force and its role as the sole provider of security in the West Bank is facing serious challenges, however, by non-state actors, as well as the continued presence of Israeli Defence Forces. Due to the social, political and geographical fragmentation of the West Bank, various local actors have been able to develop a certain autonomy where it concerns providing security to their respective communities . This phenomenon, which can be called fragmented sovereignty, has substantial consequences for the Palestinian nation-state-building project, while it bolsters identification with sub-state communities and undermines the legitimacy of the PA, which is already under pressure because of increased cooperation with Israel. Paradoxically, the Israeli military infrastructure also hampers the performance of the PSF, which further erodes trust and legitimacy. This article explores how the divisions between the various actors, both state and non-state, and the context of occupation cause the delegitimisation of the PA and analyses the effects on Palestinian security.

Transitional justice (TJ) has developed in relative isolation from development discourse. However, in recent years, a growing number of academics, practitioners and policy makers have advocated for the adaptation of participatory methods from development studies to TJ. This article critically analyses the opportunities and challenges of implementing participation in TJ. I argue that participation can provide avenues for the voices of victims and other stakeholders to be heard, albeit not without significant challenges. I also argue that there should be increased focus to carry out participatory attempts where victims and affected community members are partners and decision makers; this just might be a starting point to ensure that TJ is indeed victim-centric.

Different formulas of truth, justice and reconciliation in post-conflict settings have been promoted by various peacebuilding agents with the aim of dealing with past atrocities and support the social reconstruction of divided societies. The different approaches to reconciliation (international, national, local and grassroots) affect the way peacebuilding is understood and assimilated by individuals residing in post-conflict settings. The aim of this paper is to critically look at the different meanings given to reconciliation in academic and policy literature in order to further explore the differences between problem-solving and critical approaches to peacebuilding. Starting from an understanding of the introduction of critical approaches to peace research and debates around liberal peacebuilding, the paper will discuss possible points of convergence and divergence in the understanding of reconciliation as reconstruction practice and present a framework for looking at the divide between top-down and bottom-up approaches to peacebuilding.

With rich resources and an untapped consumer market, South Sudan holds great potential for investment. However, the short run challenge lies in solutions that can connect the current skills and capacities of the local population to thriving sectors including: petroleum, construction, catering, accommodation, trade and procurement. South Sudanese have trouble accessing such business opportunities due to the lack of capital, as well as their weak client connections and technical skills. Given current limitations, backward linkages from such booming sectors present an interesting alternative for South Sudanese to benefit from current market opportunities. Along these lines, a “local content” rating and reward system could be instrumental in helping foreign investors engage further with the local economy, whilst a “local content” small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) fund would be helpful in promoting local job creation, enhancing income along the value chain and developing a competitive local industry as well as a balanced middle class.

Political memories—which are crucial for establishing and maintaining ‘political capital’, based on individual and group positioning during past conflict and wars, but also in relation to present day politics—are important when considering varied outcomes from negotiations and other interactions that occur in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in relation to large-scale economic land concessions. This paper continues to expand on the idea of political memories of past conflicts and wars by considering the concept in relation to the theoretical framework proposed by Hall et al. (2011) in their book Powers of Exclusion, which stresses the importance of interactions between regulation, force, the market and legitimation for understanding different types of exclusionary processes, especially those linked to land access. I argue that political memories are particularly relevant when it comes to legitimation, but that expanding the concept so as to include political memories is important. In relation to large-scale plantation, mining and hydropower dam concessions, I also stress the importance of political memories in (re)shaping understandings of landscapes, thus creating particular varieties of memory laden political landscapes, which too are constituted by the past but are also politically mobilized in the present.

This paper attempts to show the many challenges faced by the media while covering post-conflict electoral processes in six Central African states. The polls that took place in Burundi (2005), the Central African Republic (2005), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2006), Congo-Brazzaville (2002, 2007), Chad (1996, 2001, 2006) and Rwanda (2003) were crucial for peace-building. In some cases, they were widely supported and supervised by the international com- munity, being considered the last step of a peace process and the first step toward establishing a truly representative “post-conflict” regime. The media were expected to play a large part in supporting these elections, both to inform the citizens, so they could make an educated choice, and to supervise the way the electoral administration was organizing the polls. This paper attempts to show the many challenges faced by the media while covering these post-conflict electoral processes. In a context of great political tension, in which candidates are often former belligerents who have just put down their guns to go to the polls, the media operate in an unsafe and economi- cally damaged environment, suffering from a lack of infrastructure, inade- quate equipment and untrained staff. Given those constraints, one might wonder if the media should be considered actual democratic tools in Central Africa or just gimmicks in a “peace-building kit” (including “free and fair” elections, multipartism and freedom of the press) with no real impact on the democratic commitment of the elite or the political participation of the pop- ulation.