This article explores the potential contribution of public works programmes to post-conflict reconstruction and demobilisation, with a case study of Liberia.

It is part of a book with contributions from more than twenty leading practitioners and thinkers – politicians, military officials, academics, economists and development specialists – in the field of international peace-building, this new Whitehall Report advances detailed recommendations for overcoming many of the generic problems that have beset recent interventions from Afghanistan to Rwanda. These individual papers provided the foundation for the final ‘Tswalu Protocol’ – included at the beginning of this publication – which articulates a consensus derived from the experience of leading figures who have been at the epicentre of peace-building operations. Both the Tswalu Protocol and the supporting papers are presented in this Whitehall Report as an informed guide to peace-building, for use by international and non-government organisations, armed forces and civil society alike.