The countries affected by conflict and extreme criminal violence
fall far behind in development and worsening the poverty situation in
the low income countries making it difficult for them to achieve a
single Millennium Development Goal (MDG).
These are contained in the 2011 World Development Report released
on Monday by the World Bank.
The World Development Report Dubbed: “Conflict, Security and
Development” said some 42 million people out of the number were
displaced as a result of conflict, violence and human rights abuses,
with 15 million being refugees outside their country.
The report says: “To break these cycles, it is crucial to
strengthen legitimate national institutions and governance in order to
provide citizen security, justice and jobs to alleviate international
stresses that increase the risks of violent conflict.”
According to the report, more than 90 per cent of civil wars in
the 2000s occurred in countries that already experienced a civil war
30 years earlier.
The report noted that without a basic level of citizen security
there could not be enduring social and economic development, adding
that without a sufficiently broad coalition based on confidence in
improved justice and shared economic prospects, it was difficult to
sustain the momentum of change.
The report said exceptional efforts were needed to restore
confidence in national leaders’ ability to manage the crisis through a
combination of actions that signalled a break with the past and
gestures that locked in these actions, thus giving people confidence
that they would not be reversed.
According to the report, youth unemployment, inequality between
social, ethnic, regional or religious groups, economic shocks as well
as infiltration of trafficking networks and foreign security
interference were some of the negative effects.
It observed the current system of diplomatic, security and
development institutions designed to address the problem of interstate
and civil war had helped many countries to recover from civil war.
The report called for the need to invest in prevention through
confidence-building, citizen security, justice and jobs, reforming
internal agency procedure to manage risks and results, acting
regionally and globally on external stresses, and marshalling the
combined experience and resources of low, middle and high income
countries in tackling violence.
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