Preventing conflict: promoting security for the poor and increasing aid effectiveness
Saferworld submission to the UK Conservative Party's Globalisation and Global Poverty Group
Summary The Conservative Party's "Built To Last"paper states that it is the Conservative Party's "moral obligation to make poverty history". A future UK Government will have the opportunity to make this possible if it ensures that stronger links are made between promoting development and promoting human security, across the Government's work, and particularly in DFID.
If the key aim of the Globalisation and Global Poverty Policy Group (GGPPG) is "to put the interests of the poor people on our planet first", tackling insecurity must be a priority. Insecurity has been identified as the greatest barrier to development for poor people in developing countries. That was the conclusion of the World Bank's "Voices of the Poor" report that interviewed thousands of local people across Africa, Asia and Latin America; and 22 of the 34 countries most away from reaching the Millennium Development Goals are in or emerging from conflict. Conflict negatively impacts on all of the globalisation and global poverty policy review's key issues: aid, trade and economic development; and in turn, each of these issues impacts on conflict. Violent conflict deters foreign investors, and can reduce a country's growth rate by an average of 2%. Nine out of ten countries with the highest infant and child mortality rates have suffered conflict in recent years. Insecure environments also provide fertile breeding grounds for organised crime and terrorism worldwide. Half of all countries that emerge from conflicts return to conflict within five years. Secure environments are therefore a fundamental prerequisite to the achievement of human and economic development, private sector development, investment, trade and for defending the freedoms of the poor.
The links between development and security are increasingly gaining international recognition. Last year, the UN High Level Panel Report on Threats, Challenges and Security, the Commission for Africa report and international statements such as the G8 communique highlighted the interrelationship between conflict, security and development. All of these produced policy recommendations to help improve global development and security. Despite UK Government commitments to implement these, little action has been taken to take the recommendations forward. A future UK Government must expedite the implementation of the recommendations made, if it is serious in tackling global poverty.
Referring to the questions outlined in the issues and options document, we focus on a number of key issues. Under Promoting secure environments for poverty reduction, we highlight what policies a future UK Government must promote and support to create safe and secure environments in which development can prosper. This covers activities such as security sector reform and arms control.
Under Delivering development, we illustrate how the mainstreaming of conflict assessments across all of DFID's and international donors' programming, as recommended by the Commission for Africa, will help to ensure that any aid intervention does not exacerbate existing tensions or fuel conflict.
And finally, in section D, under International community and conflict prevention, we look at how a UK Government can promote preventive policies to the international community through the African Union and the UN.
