Repatriation and International Development Assistance: Is the Relief-Development Continuum Becoming in the Chronic Political Emergencies? KOIZUMI Koichi In the 1990's the main focus of the global refugee problem has moved to the issue of 're-integration' of repatriated refugees and displaced persons in the transitional states from warfare to 'peace'. The relation between refugee relief and development assistance has been discussed for a long time. The two activities overlap and influence each other. Finally, what assitance agencies thought was to link the two forms of assistance. The nature of this linkage is more adequately expressed as a continuum from initial responses of emergency relief for refugee survival to the longer range issues of area and national development assistance. The name of the collaboration of the UNHCR and the World Bank is called 'Brookings Approach'. However, this approach apts to apply to the current war-prevalent situations substantially in terms of technical and administrative matters in the obscure distinction between 'genuine post-conflict situations' and 'the situations of continuing conflict and violent rule'. The UNHCR strategy of re-integration is based on a 'post-conflict' concept which assumes a gradual transition from warfare to peace and a corresponding transition from relief to development assistance. In cases where the majority of refugees return to a situation of ongoing conflict, applying the post-conflict concept is confused by several assumptions. First, the concept as is currently applied does not sufficiently reflect the fragility of the most war-afflicted states and the characteristics of states with chronic conflict situations. Secondly, the use of that term often assumes that refugee-producing countries have legitimacies as states, and are able to carry out a reasonable number of their administrative and technical responsibilities in coordinating their development policies. The idea that the assistance process contributes to conflict prevention and its mitigation assumes that we have sufficient understanding of the dynamics of violence. However, the conflict-analysis tools are not yet equal to that task, and also do not clearly indicate the appropriate direction of humanitarian intervention. In states where chronic political emergencies exist, development assistance accomplishments are limited. Before international assistance agencies enter these states, they should distinguish, from among the primary assistance factors, both the ones causing conflict and the ones -11-

associated with outside assistance. Both groups of these factors contribute to social instability. Next, they must ascertain the possible practical programme goals while acknowledging their assistance limitations. -12-