i. Civil war threatens development
It is widely perceived that civil war threatens development, particularly in the developing world where the great majority of civil wars occur. The conventional wisdom has been to try to bring the civil war to a close as quickly as possible in order to allow development to restart. But recognising that half of civil wars restart within ten years, we argue that development isn't simply something that happens when the fighting has stopped, but needs to inform the peace. As such, a developmental perspective needs to be brought to bear in understanding the roots of war, and in addressing the road to peace. The role of outside interveners, be they the United Nations, bilateral aid agencies or NGOs, is critical here as they can provide the necessary resources, climate of confidence and energy to engage with a developmental peacebuilding process. We argue that interveners need to work together to bring about a durable and just peace. In particular, we identify an urgent need for the building of inter-organisational relationships that will enable interveners to make better contributions to peace and development than when working alone.