Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development

Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development Order Description   Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development Case Study: Mali Assessment 1: A briefing for non-specialists This assessment is designed to get you to present a press briefing for people who lack specialist knowledge. This is fairly typical of reports that are used as briefing papers for politicians and policy makers and also for the press and interested members of the public. As an example, look at the series of ‘Birmingham Briefs’ on the university website for examples of style and approach. All of these are clear and well structured. They include no academic references and also try to use clear and non-academic English. They also might include short lists of bullet points and other means to break up the text to make it more accessible. The idea of this assessment is to mirror the sort of work you might end up doing writing for blogs and other outlets. The word limit for this exercise is 1500 words. This is a maximum limit. Feel free to use relevant illustrations one might find in a blog post. The due date for this assignment is 11 December 2017. Task The task is based on the current situation in Mali and the deployment of foreign intervention since the January 2012 Tuareg rebellion and March 2012 coup d’etat, which was widely condemned by the international community. The conflict in Mali is largely considered to be ongoing, with MINUSMA reporting as recently as 28 September 2017 of a deteriorating political and security situation. There remain serious security issues alongside the development challenges and therefore Mali is a current, difficult case of what we have been discussing in class. Your task is to draft a briefing paper for a non-specialist group – that can be read and understood by policymakers and the public – on the advantages and disadvantages of international intervention and the implications for reconstruction given the dreadful record of repeated interventions. This assignment is designed to test your ability to get across a lot of detailed information in a relatively small space. It is typical of many publications that many of you will be expected to produce as researchers or through work in NGOs or Government. It is a test of being clear and concise. It is entirely deliberate that there is far too much information for you to cram in to one paper, but one of the aspects that this is testing, is your ability to pick and choose relevant information and to construct a relevant presentation for a casual reader.   Remember that there are a lot of similar documents on line and your assessment will be run through anti-plagiarism software – so don’t be tempted to cut and paste!