An unaided peace? The (unintended) consequences of international aid on the Oslo peace process

Abstract

International aid played a significant role in the inception and implementation of the Oslo Accords between 1993 and 2000. This article assesses the nature of that impact in order to gauge how successful donors were in their objective of ‘consolidating and encouraging progress towards peace.’ In some respects, aid played a useful role in facilitating the signing and the rolling out of the Oslo peace process. It was, however, also responsible for a series of unintended consequences which undermined the short-term objectives of the Accords and prospects for peace in the long run. Broadly speaking, donors also declined to make their financial assistance conditional on the performance of the signatories, which allowed signatories to engage in activities detrimental to the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the peace agreement itself. The article concludes that aid cannot ultimately be disconnected from the peace process it is supporting, which in the case of Oslo was insufficiently balanced and unambiguous to allow a broadly supported peace settlement to be established on the ground.