Wandering Thoughts on Sustainability, Conflict, and Social Capital

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop at the Cyprus Institute on "Advancing Research and Science in Conflict Areas." This was organized by IPSO (the Israeli Palestinian Science Organization), Al Quds University (Palestine), Sapir College (Israel), the Cyprus Institute and our colleagues of RTI.

The three days were dedicated to developing a joint-research agenda on four main themes:

• Health, essentially psycho-social health—the area of my involvement as you may have guessed; but also 
• Water; Science Education; and Water History. 

We got exposed to the current situation in Cyprus, with presentations by Cypriot researchers involved on the two sides of the separation line (the "Green Line") between the Greek Cypriot (Republic of Cyprus) and the Turkish Cypriot (occupied by Turkey) zones. We got quite a taste for what researchers, as members of civil society, can do to advance intelligent dialog among people that have been alienated by conflict, notably through presenters from the Home for Cooperation / Association for Education and Research, a research association housed on the no-man's land / Green Line of Nicosia.

So - what does any of this have to do with sustainability?

Much, I'm afraid. And I won't go into all of it now. But I want to underline two main lessons, which actually hit me between the eyes on the first day of the workshop:

• [1] The ubiquitous importance of social capital to advance and sustain any social progress.

We speak a lot about social capital at CEDARS. It comes back again and again in the Sustainability Framework (Component 5), even if we usually use a less academic language a speak of 'Community Capacity.' We've mentioned before three types of social capital: bonding: bringing people together within a community (simplifying here)-- bridging: bringing communities together across a geographical or other divide-- and linking: linking community groups to authorities.

• During the workshop,stories made clear the erosion or destruction of 'bridging capital' through the Cypriot conflict; and of course the current situation in Israel-Palestine, where walls and check points keep communities almost totally apart except for "security" encounters.
• But the issue of 'linking capital' also came up, in conversations with people reporting progress in trying to work together on water management issues, or dealing with advocacy for peace initiatives, but identifying the next bottleneck of progress in reaching out to policy and decision makers.

So, end or mean, social capital and the processes that foster it are probably going to remain central to our--at least my interests for quite a while.

• [2] The progress achieved in Cyprus--while imperfect and with a long road ahead--illustrated to me another way in which complexity plays out between social, political, and development processes.

While our development efforts can create processes of social change, which can allow people to push for political and policy changes when needed; the acceleration of progress in Cyprus in very recent years also shows how political decisions are central in allowing more progressive, sustainable and scalable social and development processes to happen.

Situation of conflict or post-conflict just put a magnifying lens on these virtuous or negative spirals.

No simple take-home message, but the increased conviction that accepting to work on processes within complex systems is a necessity for all of us aiming to not just achieve results now, but be part of advancing sustainable human development, as researchers, implementers, policy agents, donors, partners, technical specialists, evaluators, and others.

--Eric