#theme:conflict

The United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 2011/2012 annual report outlines UNDP’s field programmes and its contributions to raising awareness and changing policy. The report describes activities and achievements under each of UNDP’s four focal areas: poverty reduction and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); democratic governance; crisis prevention and recovery; and environment and sustainable development, including access to sustainable energy. Each chapter also includes a section spotlighting a UNDP initiative, such as increasing public consultations in Vietnam, rebuilding in Haiti and reviving mangroves in Senegal. Moreover, the report highlights UNDP's efforts to help countries adopt initiatives to increase access to sustainable energy and combat climate change.

Donors increasingly recognize the important role that local/non-state actors play in the provision of justice and security services in many of the world's fragile and (post-)conflict countries. However, it is proving challenging to include such actors in support for justice and security development programmes. This report looks at how to effectively support local/non-state security and justice actors and includes three case-studies (Burundi, South Kivu in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and Colombia). It concludes that supporting such actors is possible, and might generate positive effects for human security in the short to intermediate term, but that such support requires: a willingness from donors to take risks; a focus on ensuring linkages between local/non-state actors and the security and justice agencies of the central state; communication, advocacy and knowledge management strategies; flexible and innovative funding mechanisms; and a focus on accountability mechanisms.

The objective of this report is to provide a comprehensive, long-term and regional framework for thinking about water in the Middle East, which can be implemented with specific policy decisions, beginning in the immediate future, by individual countries or small groups of countries without waiting for all the countries in the region to move forward. Such a framework recognises the potential of water to deliver a new form of peace – the blue peace – while presenting long term scenarios of risks of wars and humanitarian crisis. The report takes a comprehensive view of rivers, tributaries, lakes and underground water bodies. It is based on the recognition of linkages between watercourses. It is not only impossible for any one country to manage a water body in isolation from other riparian countries but it is also impossible to manage a water body without examining its linkages with other watercourses in the region.

The study of violence has expanded recently, concurrent with a rise in the use of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods in research throughout the social and health sciences. Methodologists have also begun to engage in a thorough theorization of both the epistemological foundations and empirical practice of mixed methods research. Mixed methods enable us to tie the broader patterns revealed by quantitative analysis to underlying processes and causal mechanisms that qualitative research is better able to illuminate, examining and explicating the interactions of structure and agency. This paper examines how qualitative and quantitative research methods may best be integrated in the study of violence, providing and critiquing examples from previous work on different forms of violence. Through the use of mixed methods, we can both improve the accordance of theories and empirical studies with social reality and gain a nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of violence.

This paper investigates the relationship between violent conflicts and risky sexual behavior in Uganda. The authors use geographical and temporal variation in conflict intensity and a difference-in-differences approach to evaluate how individual exposure to conflicts in the past 5 years influences the decision to engage in risky sex. They find that exposure to more conflicts leads to safer sex practice. They further investigate how the relationship between risky sexual behavior and violent conflict exposure varies depending on the malaria risk in the region where individuals live. They find a heterogeneous effect highlighting that behavioral response to an increase in conflict exposure varies by the burden of diseases an individual faces: additional conflict exposure leads to safer sex practice in places with high malaria-related mortality and to riskier sex practice in places with low malaria-related mortality.

This flagship report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides a global update on the status of refugees since 2006. The report examines the international response to displacement resulting from climate change and natural disasters. It highlights that natural disasters are displacing more people than conflict and the long-term effects of climate change are expected to lead to large scale population movements within and across borders. Climate change, the report notes, has the potential to accelerate other global trends that create or affect refugees and internally displaced peoples (IDPs), such as conflict, urbanisation and economic inequality. The report states that although UNHCR’s core mandate does not include displacement caused by natural disasters and climate change, the agency has a clear interest in such movements of people and the capacity to respond to their humanitarian needs.

This annual report by the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) highlights that climate-related emergencies top all categories of humanitarian assistance with 149 million US dollars provided in financial assistance. The report details the early response activities the fund has provided to several crises. It indicates that climate-related emergencies, including the impact of droughts, floods and storms, expose the poor and the most vulnerable to long-term health risks and disrupt livelihoods and wellbeing. The report notes that almost a quarter of CERF funds in 2011 were allocated to drought-related emergencies in eight countries and the largest humanitarian emergency was to respond to the drought and food insecurity in the Horn of Africa.

This publication explores current global security issues, their development in west Africa and their potential impact on regional stability. It takes a close look at issues such as terrorism and trafficking, climate change and the links between security and development. The publication draws attention to the risk of oversimplified analyses and biased perceptions of security risks. It also highlights the need for coordinated policies and dialogue between west Africa, north Africa and the OECD countries.