Ending the world’s many conflicts may seem like an impossible task, but if we help developing countries achieve peace and security this will help bring about our aim of eradicating poverty.
The price of conflict
The cost of violent conflict is enormous. Not only is there an immediate toll on lives and property; development too is a victim, with, for example, education and health systems suffering.
The links between conflict and development are strong. During the 1990s, half of the countries where progress slipped on life expectancy, income and education had experienced violent conflict. By 2010, half of the world’s poorest people could be living in states that are experiencing, or at risk of, violent conflict.
Although the number of violent conflicts has fallen in recent years, there is no guarantee that this trend will continue. There are many potential causes of violent conflict. Marginalisation or inequality between groups, fragile political systems, mounting pressure on natural resources, aggravated by climate change, and global competition to secure sources of energy and other minerals can all serve as drivers of conflict. It is now more essential than ever that we address the causes of violent conflict in order to defeat extreme poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Preventing violent conflict
In 2007 DFID published a policy paper, Preventing Violent Conflict. This lays out three broad areas of work:
- Putting more emphasis on preventing violent conflict, i.e. preventing conflict before it turns, or returns, to violence and supporting local, national and international mechanisms to manage and resolve disputes peacefully.
- Making our response to armed conflict more effective, i.e. improving our support to peace processes and helping to build the capacity of international and regional organisations and citizens’ groups, as well as national governments, so that they can manage conflicts better.
- Making our development work more 'conflict-sensitive', i.e. ensuring that development work takes better account of its possible effects on conflict.
The Conflict Pool
The Conflict Pool supports the UK government’s efforts in conflict prevention. It is a source of funding to support the UK government’s aims for a more peaceful world.
The pool brings together the UK government’s development, diplomatic, and defence interests and expertise to ensure a coherent response to conflict prevention. This means DFID works with the Foreign and Comonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence to pool our knowledge and ensure conflict prevention programmes take into account all aspects of a country's situation.
The Conflict Pool has a budget of £171 million in 2009/10 and this money will fund conflict prevention interventions across Africa, Middle East, Wider Europe (Balkans and Russia CIS) and South Asia. It will also support stabilisation efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Conflict Pool aims to improve long-term conflict prevention capacities through regional programmes focused where the UK can be most influential and through a thematic programme (Strategic Support to International Organisations) to deal with cross-cutting conflict prevention issues.
Below are three examples of where Pool funding has had a positive impact:
Ending post election violence in Kenya
An example of the UK's pooled approach was the efforts made to resolve the Kenyan crisis following disputed elections in December 2007. Funding was provided to the Panel of Eminent African Personalities, led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The Panel led successful negotiations which both ended the violence and set an agenda for reform to tackle Kenya’s weaknesses in the constitution, governance, land and impunity.
Combating sexual violence in Rwanda
This project tackled sexual and gender-based violence in the Great Lakes area of Africa. This included sexual abuse by peacekeepers in various peace support operations. An innovative project was established with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) which helped the Rwandan Defence Force to set up hotlines and a support desk within the army to receive and deal with reports of abuse.
Supporting non-violent elections in Nigeria
The Pool funded a consortium of organisations to promote non-violence during the April 2007 Presidential elections in Nigeria. Through radio spots, art and public events the campaign enrolled the support of many influential people from various spheres of Nigerian public life and generated strong interest from the population. This was an important factor in reducing levels of violence compared with the past two presidential elections.