HOW SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CAN BE ACHIEVED IN COUNTRIES SUFFERING WITH CONFLICTS

This article aims at providing support to countries emerging from conflict in integrating sustainable development principles into comprehensive national strategies and development plans.

Observing the rule of law; in order for the state in Africa to perform its protective functions, at minimum, the protective state must maintain law and order, provide the where will be popular participation, enhance entrepreneurial activity, and maximize the national welfare. Participation of people in decision on resource use and allocation will overcome conflicts over resources. Also In its productive role, the state should produce the goods and services that citizens acting in their individual and separate capacities cannot undertake efficiently. This will bring proper use of resources hence, sustainable development.

State has the potential role to improve national wealth through the production and distribution of goods and services that cannot be organized efficiently by the private sector, such a function can only be carried out efficiently if the country's institutional arrangements adequately and effectively constrain the exercise of government agency, the government may be unwilling to undertake the activities as required, example controlling mining by the government rather than private sector could reduce conflicts where the government can give priorities to the natives in production but, because of corruption this is a problem, therefore in order  to have sustainable development the civil agencies should be considered first in development issues rather than private sector.

Social change; the transformation towards a developed nation is not solely based on economic and technological progress. It also needs progress in social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual fields. To achieve these, the enhancement of ethics and integrity to ensure that they become part of the society's culture is absolutely necessary. Only with these values and norms in place, our successes can be sustained and the people's well-being enhanced. At the same time, the first world infrastructure facilities already in place in in such state should not be wasted or misused, and sustainable development can be achieved.

The rise of people's awareness and concern for ethics and integrity and their demand for the elimination of corruption, abuse of power and incompetence should be increased. Integrity must not be compromised while concerted efforts must be undertaken to enhance the integrity of the government, private sector, political parties, media, trade unions, NGOs, youth, students and the general public. This will influence accountability and transparencies among integrated sectors which deals with natural resources and can lead achievement of sustainable development.

Integrated decision making; promotes coherent and coordinated approaches to institutional frameworks for sustainable development at all national levels, including through, as appropriate, the establishment or strengthening of existing authorities and mechanisms necessary for policy-making, coordination and implementation and enforcement of laws;

Take immediate steps to make progress in the formulation and elaboration of national strategies for sustainable development and begin their implementation by 2005. To this end, as appropriate, strategies should be supported through international cooperation, taking into account the special needs of developing countries, in particular the least developed countries. Such strategies, which, where applicable, could be formulated as poverty reduction strategies that integrate economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development, should be pursued in accordance with each country’s national priorities”.

                   

Reviewing of land tenure system; Proper demarcation of land use should be identified, land for pastoral, farmers, and other uses. Community land rights and the rights of community members within their boundaries are entitled to full legal protection, whether titled and registered or not. The same is true for persons who have occupied land for 10 years or more in good faith prior to the enactment of the law. The law should define each and every aspect of land ownership rights which will be used to supervise proper use of land in order to achieve sustainable development.

Institutional agreements; as a result of prolonged conflict, institutions in post-conflict states are often weak, and Trust in these institutions the major functions of which include public security and law enforcement may have been lost over the course of a conflict. In many countries suffering with conflicts is due to the luck of clearer agreement between the institution or the stakeholders of natural resources in the country, which can be either nongovernmental organization (NGOs) like financial institution, national bank and many other institutes. All in all institutional agreement helps to reduce the occurrence of conflicts in the country which can harm the production and the available natural resources negatively. Generally the availability of agreement between the institutions can enable people to engage in production hence the sustainable development. Example in Rwanda the institutions like the financial institutions, economic planning institutions and the national bank provides a lot of support in the sustainable development by providing fund for the financial sector as the part of the second economic development and poverty reduction strategies.

Recognition of peoples right and responsibilities; this means that the main causes of conflict is the government or community fail to recognize the needs of people, in achieving the sustainable development the rights and the responsibilities  of the people have to be recognized so as to avoid conflicts which may led to the destruction of properties or people to concentrate much in fighting than participating in different activities which can bring development, hence the reason to how the sustainable development can be achieved in the country suffering with conflict because the country with conflict like Rwanda and Burundi to achieve the sustainable development is not easy.

Equity distribution of wealth; Equity comes from the concept of social justice. It present the belief that there is something people should have, that their basic needs should be fulfilled. This means there should be a minimum level of income and environment equity below no body fall. Within community also means that everyone should have equal access to the community resources and opportunities. Presence of unequal distribution always brought conflict to the community, hence in order to make sustainable development the equity should encouraged. There are two ways of ensure sustainability of future generation to supply their needs. One is to view environment in term of natural resource or natural capital available for wealth creation, hence the future generation should have same ability to create wealth, and this refers as weak sustainability. But the other way to view environment offering more than economic potential that cannot be replaced by man-made wealth, this refers as strong sustainability. Hence by encouraging equity and distribution of wealth or natural resource the accessibility of sustainable development become high.

Birth control; this involves the control of population increase in the community. This means birth rate should be controlled through family planning and maintaining low birth rate. Increased birth rate leads to population growth and cause competition to the use of natural resources. As the population increase probability having over utilization of natural resources become high, hence conflict but for the aims of control it, birth rate should be controlled effective. Examples, China is one of the best state succeed in control of its population growth, sense 1970`s.for sustainable development always attained by control birth rate to area of high population which make sustainability of it by balance the natural resource available and population available to the community.

The use of biotechnology, the increase of post-conflicts in many countries has contributed to decrease of production. The reduction in production can be achieved through the use of biotechnology, this refers to the use of living things to make or change products. Among of the broad range of technologies with the potential to reach the goal of sustainability, biotechnology could take on important place especially in the field of food production, renewable raw material and energy, pollution prevention and bio-remediation. The use of biotechnology contribute to sustainable development since it encourage the reduction of environmentally damaging  and influence the adaptation of sustainable practice such as conservation tillage, precise agriculture and integrated crop management. Likewise the production of more foods on the same area of land reduces pressure to expand into the wildness which supports biodiversity and vital ecosystem.

Peace maintenance, many countries in Africa are experiencing or suffering with conflicts, which contributes to the increase of unsustainable development. Therefore the way to achieve sustainability in these countries is to insure that peace is kept. Peace maintenance can contribute to solve the misunderstanding or conflicts which are existing in the countries since lack of peace to any country drains away resources. In the armed conflicts destroy natural resources, infrastructures and human lives. Hence the establishment of peace maintenance permits the recuperation f stable condition for sustainable development and liberates resources for needed investment. For instance, the existences of misunderstanding in sub-Saharan countries are solved by United Nation Peace building Fund (UNPF). This is a multi-donor trust fund, it provide funding for peace building or maintenance activities that directly contributes to post-conflicts and stabilization.