• GOVERNANCE: Corruption and Armed Conflicts: Some Stirring Around in the Governance Soup • LANDMINES: Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities • CRIMINAL VIOLENCE: Colombia's New Armed Groups • CONFLICT RESOLUTION: Partial Peace: Rebel Groups Inside and Outside of Civil War Settlements • POST-CONFLICT: Post-Conflict Recovery: How Should Policies be Distinctive? • NATURAL RESOURCES: Reform of the Coffee Sector in Burundi • PEACE OPERATIONS: Protection of Civilians in African Peace Missions • DISPLACEMENT: When Displacement Ends: A Framework for Durable Solutions • DEVELOPMENT: Addressing Armed Violence as a Development Priority • SMALL ARMS: Border in Name Only: Arms Trafficking and Armed Groups at the DRC-Sudan Border • DEVELOPMENT: Horizontal Inequalities, Political Environment, and Civil Conflict • CHILDREN: Sudan's Children at a Crossroads: An Urgent Need for Protection GOVERNANCE Corruption and Armed Conflicts: Some Stirring Around in the Governance Soup Norwegian Institute of International Affairs The paper discusses the impact of corruption on the probability of violent conflict events and traces the shifts in the composition of corrupt transactions during and in the aftermath of violent conflicts. So far there has been little interaction between empirical corruption research and the empirical research into civil wars. By bringing the two strands of research together and combining their results, the author claims that anomalies arise that would have been difficult to detect within each field in isolation. Continue Reading More on Governance and Security LANDMINES Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities Handicap International Ninety-eight percent of cluster submunitions casualties are civilians killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive. These are some of the findings of Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities, the new Handicap International report which documents the impact of cluster munitions on the lives of people and communities in 25 countries and areas. Despite a general lack of information on casualties both during and after strikes, it is clear unexploded cluster submunitions turn homes, livelihood and social areas of 400 million people living in affected countries into de facto minefields (2). A total of 13,306 casualties due to cluster submunitions are confirmed. However, as 96 percent of casualties occur in countries where there is no or limited data collection, there are undoubtedly more casualties. In high-use locations, such as Iraq there were more than 1,000 casualties during strikes and more than 4,000 casualties in Lao PDR after strikes. Continue reading More on Small Arms, Light Weapons and Landmines CRIMINAL VIOLENCE Colombia's New Armed Groups Crisis Group Following demobilisation of the paramilitaries, Colombia is threatened by the rise of new illegal armed groups heavily involved in drugs and other illegal activity. There is extensive, disturbing evidence that paramilitary disarmament/demobilisation/reintegration (DDR) is being undermined by new groups, some of which have established drug business ties with the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN), which continue to fight the government. At risk are the success of the government’s demobilisation strategy and the reintegration of some 32,000 paramilitary fighters and their support networks. Continue reading More on Criminal Violence CONFLICT RESOLUTION Partial Peace: Rebel Groups Inside and Outside of Civil War Settlements World Bank Previous research proposes that for peace to become durable it is essential to include all rebel groups in any settlement reached. If actors are excluded, continuing to pursue the military course, this could have a destabilizing effect on the actors that have signed an agreement. This article evaluates this claim and argues that all-inclusive peace deals are not the panacea for peace that many seem to believe. Given that the parties are strategic actors who are forward-looking when making their decisions, the signatories should be anticipating that they could face violent challenges from excluded parties. Hence, any spoiler activities from outside actors are likely to already be factored into the decision-making calculus when the signatories decide to reach a deal, thus, not affecting their commitment to peace. But inclusion should still be of importance, as the signatories have revealed enough information to strike a bargain, whereas the non-signatories have yet to converge their beliefs about the outcome on the battlefield, making them likely to continue the military struggle. Continue reading More on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking POST-CONFLICT Post-Conflict Recovery: How Should Policies be Distinctive? Centre for the Study of African Economies Should post-conflict economic policies be distinctive? Evidently, policies need to differ according to national circumstances, but is there anything that is systematic about the post-conflict situation which implies that as a group post-conflict countries will tend to need policies that differ from those of countries that are identical other than not having had a recent conflict? Allowing that post-conflict countries typically emerge from war with a legacy of unusually bad economic policies, should priorities for policy reform post-conflict be any different from those of countries such as Zimbabwe, peaceful but with equally poor policies? In this paper the author will suggest that policies indeed probably need to be distinctive for two overarching reasons. One is that the risk of further conflict is considerably higher in post-conflict societies than in other societies. Hence, bringing this risk down becomes the over-riding priority and this rebounds on policy choices. The other is that the economic consequences of conflict create both constraints and opportunities that are distinctive. Continue reading More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction NATURAL RESOURCES Reform of the Coffee Sector in Burundi: Prospects for Participation, Prosperity and Peace International Alert Coffee farming plays a vital role in the Burundian economy. It is the main industry and export product of the country and provides important income for the roughly 600,000 families (about 40% of the population) who grow it. Reforms of the coffee sector have continued with greater deregulation and privatization, but this process takes places in a specific political and economic context: on the one hand there is a new democratically elected government and generalized poverty which has been aggravated by 10 years of civil war. On the other hand there is a turmoil of diverging interests which will only intensify as reforms proceed. Meanwhile, the movement of coffee growers claims ownership over coffee production and thus seeks control over a good part of the state’s shares in the sector, as well as active participation in all decisions concerning the sector. Faced with this issue, International Alert wishes to contribute to the debate and to propose solutions that will allow the reforms to proceed in a way that serves the common interest of all the players involved. The ultimate aim of the report is to contribute to the prevention of conflicts that could arise in connection with the reforms. Continue reading More on Natural Resources and Armed Conflict PEACE OPERATIONS Protection of Civilians in African Peace Missions: The Case of the African Union Mission in Sudan Institute for Security Studies The war that broke out in the Western Sudan region of Darfur in February 2003 has thrown into the international spotlight the challenges of protecting Darfur’s 4 million people now trapped in the complex emergency. Four years on, a mix of attacks by government forces, state-sponsored militias, Darfur rebels, diseases and malnutrition have killed an estimated 200 000 to 400 000 people, while 2.5 million others have been forced to flee their homes, either as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in camps strewn across Darfur or as refugees in Chad. The neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic have also become sucked into the depths of this regionalised conflict, which has metamorphosed into one of Africa’s deadliest humanitarian crisis. The ongoing challenge of protecting civilians in Darfur has also refocused attention on the role of the 7 000-plus African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) – and, indeed, the very future of Africa’s embryonic peace and security architecture, designed to protect noncombatants caught in the continent’s festering conflicts. Continue reading More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction DISPLACEMENT When Displacement Ends: A Framework for Durable Solutions Brookings Institution // University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement The Framework is intended to assist governments in devising national legislation, policies and programs that promote solutions to internal displacement. It also is expected to provide guidance to international organizations to assist their work in different country contexts, in particular to promote a coherent transition from humanitarian aid to reconstruction and development as well as to provide a framework for assisting governments in devising national legislation, policies and programs that promote solutions to internal displacement. The Framework also should enable civil society organizations to monitor the extent to which governments fulfill their responsibility to find durable solutions for IDPs and as a basis for their own work promoting the creation of conditions enabling these solutions. Continue reading More on Refugees and Internally Displaced People DEVELOPMENT Towards Safe and Sustainable Communities: Addressing Armed Violence as a Development Priority Project Ploughshares This paper was prepared as a briefing document for a joint project of Project Ploughshares and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). The project was designed to provide CIDA with policy guidance on the challenge of integrating sustainable development with reductions in armed violence and small arms misuse. The paper explores these linkages as well as recent related multilateral and domestic policy advances. It proposes steps that CIDA can take to contribute to Canada’s commitments to address armed violence through development programming. Continue reading More on Development and Security SMALL ARMS Border in Name Only: Arms Trafficking and Armed Groups at the DRC-Sudan Border Small Arms Survey Small arms trafficking across the western half of the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has remained largely unexamined. The legacy of armed conflict in both countries, the presence of armed groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on both sides of the border, and poor border control would suggest the possibility of a robust trade in small arms. This study finds that the trade is in fact modest, and overwhelmingly in one direction, from Sudan to DRC. Evidence reported here suggests that South Sudanese communities remain saturated with small arms, while, in northern DRC, rigorous civilian disarmament efforts by the army and a lack of perceived need for arms among civilians have kept demand low. These findings help illuminate the importance of demand factors in driving small arms acquisition in a highly insecure region. Continue reading More on Small Arms, Light Weapons and Landmines DEVELOPMENT Horizontal Inequalities, Political Environment, and Civil Conflict: Evidence from 55 Developing Countries International Peace Research Institute, Oslo Several studies of civil war have concluded that economic inequality between individuals does not increase the risk of internal armed conflict. This is perhaps not so surprising. Even though an individual may feel frustrated if he is poor compared to other individuals in society, he will not start a rebellion on his own. Civil wars are organized group conflicts, not a matter of individuals randomly committing violence against each other. Hence, we should not neglect the group aspect of human well-being and conflict. Systematic inequalities that coincide with ethnic, religious or geographical cleavages in a country are often referred to as horizontal inequalities (or inter-group inequalities). Case studies of particular countries as well as some statistical studies have found that such inequalities between identity groups tend to be associated with a higher risk of internal conflict. However, the emergence of violent group mobilization in a country with sharp horizontal inequalities may depend on the characteristics of the political regime. This paper investigates the relationship between horizontal inequalities, political environment, and civil war in developing countries. Continue reading More on Development and Security CHILDREN AND GENDER Sudan's Children at a Crossroads: An Urgent Need for Protection Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict The protection and well-being of children and youth in Sudan are at a crucial juncture. While children in the South are enjoying increased protection and access to services, those in Darfur and other areas of Sudan are enduring unspeakable acts of violence and abuse. Watchlist is concerned about apparent deliberate efforts by the Government to suppress information and prevent agencies from collecting and disseminating details on attacks against children and their protection needs, particularly in Darfur and the East. This report addresses violations against children in six major categories identified by the United Nations Security Council. These categories include killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, abduction, denial of humanitarian assistance, attacks on schools and hospitals and recruitment and use of children into armed forces and groups. In addition, the report discusses various other violations that continue to be committed against children and their families, such as forced labor, displacement and trafficking. Continue reading More on Children and Armed Conflict and Gender and Security Compiled by Robert Hartfiel Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Report Project at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University. The Human Security Report Project is funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information on human security visit the Human Security Gateway, an online research and information database that contains a broad range of human security-related resources. 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