INTRODUCTION

The rule of law is essential to good governance and development. In the words of Alexander Downer, Australia's former Minister for Foreign Affairs, ‘Sustainable broad-based [economic] growth is impossible in countries which cannot guarantee public safety.… In violent or insecure environments, inevitably the poor pay the highest price.’

The foregoing chapters have illustrated that debt exchanges can be used to address a broad range of development goals. This chapter argues the mechanism has a largely untapped potential – to fund security-enhancing projects. Two examples are explored in this chapter: using debt exchanges to fund peace initiatives in Mindanao and nuclear nonproliferation activities.

MINDANAO

Civil conflict has being going on for five centuries in Mindanao in the Philippines, and it is now the second-oldest conflict in the world. This insecurity encourages people to join vigilante groups while discouraging them from investing in their future through agriculture, education, infrastructure and resource protection.

Conflict in Mindanao is a complex problem. It is concentrated in rural Muslim-majority communities and originated from the Moro clans' resentment of the increasing number of Christian settlers and Christian central control. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) emerged in the 1960s, and Muslim resistance developed into armed conflict. More recently, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has also emerged. The MNLF is the government's main opponent, and the MILF is a more religiously focussed resistance group.