Addressing symptoms but not causes: stabilisation and humanitarian action in Timor-Leste

Asia's newest nation--Timor-Leste--has an unenviable track record of two Australian-led military stabilisation missions, five United Nations (UN) missions, and a vast humanitarian and international response over the course of the past decade. Two distinct approaches to stabilisation can be observed on this small half-island. The first is a 'security-first' approach, where development activities are complementary and serve to support security sector assistance, while the second emphasises traditional development activities and institution-building as the foundation for a stable country. Whereas these different approaches highlight various interpretations of the underlying problems and the task at hand, efforts aimed at stabilisation have crystallised the challenges of coordinating and integrating activities that are clearly interlinked and interdependent, whether within a UN integrated mission or implemented by bilateral actors. Consequently, the question of whether, or how, to measure progress towards this shared objective has gone largely unaddressed.