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Overview
“The incidence of civil war globally has been rising over the past 40 years. In the past 15 years, 80% of the world’s 20 poorest countries have suffered a major civil war. Countries coming out of war face a 50% chance of relapsing in the first 5 years of peace” (The World Bank)
Most wars now take place in the poorest countries - and within states rather than between them. Most of their victims are poor people,
and most of those killed, hurt, and disabled are civilians. A reduction in the incidence, duration and destructiveness of armed conflict is therefore an essential precondition for the achievement of the targets
of sustainable international development.
A World Bank study Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy analyzed 52 major civil wars that occurred between 1960 and 1999. The typical conflict lasted about seven years and left a legacy of persistent poverty and disease. The study found that the negative effects of these wars extended far beyond the actual fighting, to neighboring countries and to even to distant, high-income countries.
"Failure to develop greatly increases the chance that a country will be caught in a civil war, and such conflicts in turn destroy the foundations for development," … "Countries can break this conflict trap by putting in place the policies and institutions necessary for sustained growth. Our new understanding of the causes and consequences of civil wars provides a compelling basis for international action" says Paul Collier (Author of World Bank Study on conflict)
Human Security Report: War and Peace in the 21st Century By Human Security Centre. The Report tracks and analyses trends in political violence around the world. Its findings are sharply at odds with conventional wisdom. It shows that most forms of political violence have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War and finds that the best explanation for this decline is the huge upsurge of conflict prevention, resolution and peacebuilding activities that were spearheaded by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Sources of Information:
UN Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit -assists in the planning, conduct, management and support of peacekeeping operations by learning from experience, problem solving and transferring best practices in United Nations peacekeeping.
The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. Crisis Groups approach is grounded in field research.
OMCT - Human Rights NGO, World Organisation against Torture.
The BBC map provides information about conflicts around the world. Why are people fighting? How long have the wars been going on? And how many have died?
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