Today’s violence occurs in repeated cycles
Recurring civil wars have become a dominant form of armed conflict in the world today. Every civil war that began since 2003 was a resumption of a previous civil war.
Development impacts of violence
Poverty reduction in countries affected by major violence is on average nearly a percentage point slower per year than in countries not affected by violence.
One reason for the persistence of low growth in conflict-affected countries may be the difficulty of reassuring investors, both domestic and foreign. A civil war reduces a country’s average rating on the International Country Risk Guide by about 7.7 points (on a 100-point scale); the effect is similar for criminal violence. For the first three years after conflict subsides, countries have a rating 3.5 points below similar non-conflict countries.
When military spending increases and commensurately reduces investments in development and human capital.
Economic stresses
Low incomes reduce the opportunity cost of engaging in violence....Capturing this perspective, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, John Garang, said, “Under these circumstances the marginal cost of rebellion in the South became very small, zero, or negative; that is, in the South it pays to rebel.”Transformation takes time
Leaders, stakeholders, and the international community must remember that societies will go through multiple cycles of confidence-building and institutional reform before they can achieve the resilience to violence necessary for “development as usual.”
Going Forward: "Peace Infrastructure”
More effective international support to risk reduction requires (1) combined tools that link citizen security, justice, jobs, and associated services, and (2) structural investments in justice and employment capacity.Where infrastructure is constructed in violence-affected areas, care should be taken to use labor-intensive technologies and provide for local labor to avoid tensions over the benefits. In some regions, discussions about shared economic infrastructure with joint benefits could also create an opening for later political or security discussions.
