Journal Article
Distributional Conflict, the State and Peace Building in Burundi

Burundi's successive conflicts are rooted in an unequal distribution of wealth and power which has strong ethnic and regional dimensions. It is therefore clear that, if the new Burundian leadership is serious about building peace, it must engineer institutions that uproot the legacy of discrimination and promote equal opportunities for social mobility for all ethnic groups and regions. Education is an especially important sector in this regard, and actions to decentralize secondary education, thereby improving access, and to subsidize loans for students attending public universities, could do much to reduce an important source of social exclusion and marginalization. The international community can assist demobilization and use debt relief and aid to support the reduction of inequality and the containment of sectarian tendencies on all sides.