Standard approach to nation building over the last two decades: Take a war-torn country. Shovel in trillions of dollars. Send in Soldiers. Stir. Hope for the best.
Warlords and presidents with command and control tendencies love this approach to foreign aid. Munificence runs through their capital cities and administrations, ensuring they get their cut. Deputies carve out their niche managing disbursements and find their path to increased power in a society that looks spookily similar to the way it did before the external funds were dumped in.
Petty princes and oligarchs love it. Economists and local communities do not.
The US has lavishly expended lives and treasure in this hopeful approach long before Iraq and Afghanistan. But hope is not a strategy.
It is time for a better approach to nation building. Not from the top down, but rather from the natural building blocks of a society – its local communities. Nations are built from communities. From the ground up.
So as the war in Ukraine grinds on, the question becomes how can the Ukrainians transition from war to win the peace? They win by fostering a vibrant society, sidelining endemic corruption, and building a functioning market economy and engaged democracy. Ukraine 2.0 will necessarily be built from the ground up.
Recent research released by the World Bank and the United Nations Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment estimates post-war reconstruction to cost nearly $500 billion, mainly for housing, transportation, energy, and industry—not to mention explosives management. The first $15 billion of humanitarian relief is desperately needed now for the Ukrainians struggling to access shelter, water, food, and health services.
However, succor is one thing; economic reconstruction and development is another. We cannot use the same principles to underpin both efforts.
Conventional approaches to foreign aid dictate donor-driven priorities folded into program plans developed in four-year political policies and rolled out through the often grabby hands meant to distribute the last mile to its intended beneficiaries. Yet even with the most beneficent administration, this traditional approach has failed time and again because it fails to harness the inspiration, work ethic, and drive of those that these development programs are meant to serve. No one from the outside can do that for them. The hands that must do the hard work of reknitting their societies and rebuilding their economies ravaged by conflict and poverty are bound by strings stretching back to glass-walled offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City.
Instead, let the last mile be the first.
Ukrainians lead, we support. In fact, we follow. The role for outsiders in Ukraine’s reconstruction, then, is to step back, and take on an accompaniment approach. We back their locally-drive initiatives with targeted resources, advice when requested, and access to opportunities. The role extends to troubleshooting when the Ukrainians encounter barriers to their own progress. Like a big brother. Not bossing around the little brother, but rather providing a safety net.
We can take a page from the reconstruction efforts in Colombia after the end of its 50+ year civil war. At heart was the transparent process of resource allocation based on “territorial development plans” which pushed down the responsibility for planning and then executing reconstruction efforts on local communities rather than Bogota ministers or international donors. This broad-based, widely-communicated approach accomplished two critical objectives: 1) it incentivized cross-sector collaborations of communities, businesses, NGOs, civic organizations, and the Church in each territory toward common development goals, and 2) it drew upon the creativity, energy, and hard work of millions of Colombians, who knew their context better than anyone from the outside and could launch new businesses and build markets based on their own competitive advantages. Given that many regions remained prone to violence despite the 2016 Havana Peace Accords, the Colombian process consciously combined business investments with targeted security initiatives and local support to foster stability at the community frontlines. What made sense in the agricultural and cattle region of Guaviare was different than mineral-rich Antioquia. Requiring repayment of loans to support “territorial development plans,” even on concessional terms, weeded out the wheat from the chaff. Technology was put to good use to keep these reconstruction investments honest and transparent to all of society.
The combined public-private effort launched in 2018. And then ran it again in 2019. And then again in 2020 and again. And again. Rome was not built in a day. Neither was Colombia rebuilt in five years.
This process is by no means perfect. Many criticized it initially for being cumbersome. Other criticized it for putting development in the hands of those without training or expertise – the local communities. Afro-Colombian communities protested their limited integration into the process. Only sporadic efforts have been made to support the millions of Venezuelan refugees. But overall, despite these criticisms, this underlying process and method has gradually enabled dedicated, enterprising communities to build Colombia toward a reasonably well-functioning middle-income country.
Community was the appropriate level—large enough for the needed economies of scale and small enough for a circle of trust. Critically, this circle of trust then broke the back of deep-rooted corruption.
Communities in Ukraine are demonstrating significant courage and commitment to driving their own inclusive recovery processes and they need continued support of their international partners.
– Denise Brown, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine
Despite being slow, experimental, and irregular, it fundamentally fostered opportunity rather than breeding dependency.
In Ukraine, community-led reconstruction initiatives are already springing up across the country. For example, the Promprylad Foundation is building a platform of social enterprises across Ivano-Frankivsk to ease the transition of internally displaced persons (IDPs) back home by providing jobs. The Volyn Resource Center coordinates and integrates labor training, business development and access to finance across the entire Rivne Oblast. The Ukrainian Cooperative Federation raises funds to support rural communities in rebuilding their farms. The business school faculty of the Ukrainian Catholic University is partnering with local NGOs and civic organizations to provide business problem support to these local efforts. Denise Brown, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine agrees, “Communities in Ukraine are demonstrating significant courage and commitment to driving their own inclusive recovery processes and they need continued support of their international partners.” Leaders from across the spectrum of society – professionals, priests, academics, businessmen, farmers – are organizing grass roots community efforts to launch businesses to create jobs and establish the economic conditions for growth to slowly rebuild their country. Step by step. From the ground up.
Is it easy? No. Is it messy and time consuming? Yes. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Columbia hasn’t been fully rebuilt in five years.
But such an unconventional nation building process based on local leadership and external accompaniment has the benefit of being local, sustainable, and fully owned by Ukrainians themselves. If the US or any organization supports true nation-building, they must support local Ukrainian communities—communities with the most to gain from and the most of offer to the future of their country.
Invictus
“I am the captain of my fate
I am the master of my soul”