The Sustainability of Post-Conflict Development: The Case of Algeria

Khaldoon A. Mourad and Helen Avery
Additional contact information
Khaldoon A. Mourad: Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty of Social Science, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden
Helen Avery: Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty of Social Science, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: The Algerian civil war, 1992–2002, affected all aspects of life in the country. Major development efforts were therefore initiated in the post-conflict era. Almost 20 years later, the economy remains fragile, and the country’s large hydrocarbon revenues have not been used to develop the infrastructure for sustainability, support energy transition or reduce structural vulnerabilities. This paper provides an overview of Algerian development strategies before and after the conflict, examining in particular the orientation of major development projects involving foreign financing. Two rural development programmes are described to illustrate the outcomes of such projects. The results show that the conflict stopped or hindered many ongoing and planned development projects in the country, especially in the agriculture sector, while new investments in industry started after the conflict. The review of individual development projects further revealed that many projects between 1980–2017 had doubtful benefits with respect to long-term development goals. Initiatives tended to be discontinued once the funding period closed, and the involvement of the private sector was low. It is therefore concluded that additional attention needs to be devoted to long-term and structural impacts of development projects, including considerations regarding sustainability, demographics, and climate-related future changes.

Keywords: post-conflict recovery; development strategies; rural development projects; sustainability transitions; long-term goals; hydrocarbon dependency; MENA region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3036/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3036/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:11:p:3036-:d:235244

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().