India’s Development and Peacebuilding Assistance to the Conflict-Affected States: Case-study of Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

The rationale for India’s development and peacebuilding assistance and the mechanisms employed have changed over the period. India’s assistance is starkly different from the way the developed countries do peacebuilding. This difference is due to India’s different historical experiences, socio-economic conditions and lived experience. The conflict-affected states have appreciated India’s assistance due to the suitability and appropriateness of technical assistance, training and educational programs to their socio-economic context. India’s ways of development and peacebuilding assistance have similarities with the 2016 UN concept of ‘sustaining peace’, which has been formulated to liberate peacebuilding from the strict limitation to post-conflict contexts. However, both the western and non-western donors have a certain reservation about ‘sustaining peace’ concept, for different reasons. The way forward to implement the UN ‘sustaining peace’ is to facilitate both the western and non-western donors to learn lessons from each other’s experiences and view their varied approaches as complementary rather than contradictory.