The World Bank
yesterday identified fresh threats to efforts by countries to realise
most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United
Nations by 2015.
In its World
Development Report (WDR) 2011 on conflict, security and development,
the bank’s team leader, Sarah Cliffe, said though conflict and violence
continue to have a huge negative impact on the development of most
countries, new threats have surfaced in the forms of organised crimes
and trafficking in humans and drugs, civil unrests due to global
economic shocks, as well as terrorism.
“No low-income
fragile or conflict-affected country has yet to achieve a single United
Nations Millennium Development Goal (UNMDG),” she pointed out, citing
the example of the experiences in South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, and Rwanda, which have gone through
series of conflicts at different times.
Conflict and poor education
The WDR, which is a
product of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(IBRD), identified other threats to include poverty and poor education,
conflict over natural resources, external aggression, ethnic/religious
conflict, as well as injustice and corruption.
“Conflict and
violence have a huge impact on development. Some 1.5 billion people
worldwide, many of whom are in Africa, live in countries affected by
political and criminal violence. People living in these countries are
twice as likelihood to be malnourished and in poverty, while they are
three times likely to have their children out of school; twice as
likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice
as likely to lack clean water,” Mrs. Cliffe said.
The report, which
offers ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond
trans-border conflicts, political fragility and secure developments,
particularly in crisis-prone developing countries, was compiled at the
end of visits and consultations with government and civil society
groups in countries affected by conflict, to seek their views,
priorities, and experiences.
On Africa, the
report focused on the traditional conflict situation as well as cross
border violence affecting the people, particularly trafficking in drugs
and natural resources, as well as criminal activities in rural areas.
Specifically, on
Nigeria, the WDR team leader agreed that the risks associated with
violence in sub-national areas such as the Niger Delta region are
significant and capable of negatively impacting on national
development, adding that the challenge for government and other
stakeholders is to find a lasting solution to oil bunkering and its
associated violence in the area.
She identified
corruption as one of the major challenges to national development,
considering its international links through illicit trafficking, money
laundering, and the extraction of rents from sales of national
resources or international contracts and concessions to multinationals,
adding that this has doubled the negative impacts on the risks of
violence, by fuelling grievances and undermining the effectiveness of
national institutions and social norms.
“Where states,
markets, and social institutions fail to provide basic security,
justice, and economic opportunities for citizens, conflict can
escalate. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens,
guard against corruption, or provide access to justice, or when
communities have lost social cohesion; when security, justice, and
employment stresses meet weak institutions, the result is the
likelihood of violent conflict increases, which has enormous impact on
national development,” she pointed out.
The report outlined
five practical programmes to boost rapid confidence-building and ensure
longer-term institutional transformation.
These include
support for community-based programmes to prevent violence; creation of
employment and service delivery; providing access to local justice and
dispute resolution systems in insecure areas; transformation of
security and justice institutions to focus on basic functions; as well
as recognition of the linkages among policing, civilian justice, and
public finances.
Other
recommendations include job creation schemes; access to finance to
bring producers and markets together; and expansion of access to
assets, skills, work experience and finance; women empowerment, and
focused anti-corruption actions that draw on external and community
capacity for monitoring.
World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, in his foreword to the
report noted: “If we are to break the cycles of violence and lessen the
stresses that drive them, countries must develop more legitimate,
accountable, and capable national institutions that provide for citizen
security, justice, and jobs.”
