This evaluation assesses the performance of the Community Officer (CO) project, a trial community policing mechanism initiated by the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) in late 2009, with assistance from the Participating Police Force (PPF) of the Regional Assistance to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Current interest in community policing in Solomon Islands is occurring in the larger context of the rebuilding and reform of the RSIPF that has been taking place with the assistance of RAMSI. The Solomon Islands Government (SIG) and RSIPF are committed to introducing a viable form of community policing across the country.
Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands examines a crisis moment in recent Solomon Islands history. Contributors examine what happened when unrest engulfed the capital of the small Melanesian country in the aftermath of the 2006 national elections, and consider what these events show about the Solomon Islands political system, the influence of Asian interests in business and politics, and why the crisis is best understood in the context of the country's volatile blend of traditional and modern politics. Until the disturbances of April 2006 and subsequent deterioration in bilateral relations between Australia and Solomon Islands under the Sogavare government, experts had hailed the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) as an unqualified success. Some saw it as a model for 'cooperative intervention' in 'failing states' worldwide. Following these developments success seems less certain and aspects of the RAMSI model appear flawed. Using the case of Solomon Islands, this book raises fundamental questions about the nature of 'cooperative intervention' as a vehicle for state building, asking whether it should be construed as a mainly technical endeavour or whether it is unavoidably a political undertaking with political consequences. Providing a critical but balanced analysis, Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands has important implications for the wider debate about international state-building interventions in 'failed' and 'failing' states.
Evidence gleaned from media, anecdotal, and hitherto unpublished sources suggests that violence resulting from small arms and light weapons in PNG is distinctly gendered. While it is important to recognise that conflict and post-conflict situations affect men and women in different ways, it is instructive to go further, and examine the different experiences of men and women in the context of the 'gun culture' that has developed in parts of PNG in recent years. Our research uncovers both important gender differences in perceptions of security and the gendered nature of gun violence. By situating the proliferation of small arms in the context of culture, power, and security in PNG, our contribution is grounded in a social and political history of PNG, with an account of the changing pattern of conflict and violence, gender relations, and in particular, the role of firearms. Our investigation proceeds through a discussion of the three broad and overlapping settings in which the gun culture has emerged. These are raskolism, tribal fighting, and election-related violence. The investigation then moves to an overview of the gender of violence in PNG, and concludes with a discussion of the alternative responses of the state and community-based organisations to violence and conflict. A number of policy implications follow. ; AusAID
This case study examines contemporary experiences of conflict in four contexts: Papua New Guinea, with particular reference to the island of Bougainville and the Highlands region; Solomon Islands; and Vanuatu. We find common themes in these experiences, despite the regions famous sociolinguistic diversity, fragmented geography and varied experience of globalization. Melanesia offers distinctive lessons about how conflict may be understood, promoted and avoided. The paper is organized in two broad parts. The first part is contextual. It provides a brief account of conflict and violence in social life before and after colonization. It then tracks, largely chronologically, through the local, national and transnational dimensions of contemporary conflict, how it was avoided, how it has changed, and how it has been managed in different contexts. Particular attention is given to global and regional influences, and to how governments, local people, and external security, development and commercial actors, have worked to mitigate and, at times, exacerbate conflict. The second part of the case study is more analytical. It steps back from the particulars to address themes and propositions in the overall conceptual framing of World Development Report (WDR) 2011 about the nature of conflict, and the underlying stresses and interests that may render it more likely. Part two draws lessons from the histories and contexts discussed in part one. The report organizes these around three themes that reflect views shared with us by people during consultations. The first highlights the need to recognize conflict as an inherent part of social change and thus the need to distinguish between socially generative social contest, and forms of conflict that are corrosive and destructive. The second examines how the ways people 'see' and understand the world directly shapes systems of regulation and 'the rules of the game' and thus directly affect responses to conflict. The third theme argues that capable and legitimate institutions to regulate social contest requires not just capable state institutions, but as much, relationships with local and international agents and organizations operating below and above the state.
