Blog
Conflict Prevention

by Frances Stewart

The number of humanitarian emergencies has been escalating since the early 1990s. Between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, humanitarian crises rose from around 25 a year to around 70, with an increasing number of deaths from fighting, famine and disease, as well as mass displacement. These humanitarian crises are mainly the result of internal wars. They are to be found in all parts of the world: in Asia (for example Afghanistan and Sri Lanka), in Africa (Sierra Leone, and Somalia - to name just two), in Latin America (for instance Colombia) and, of course, the Balkans. Not only do these wars cause huge suffering as a result of the fighting and the consequent human flight, but they are also a major cause of underdevelopment and poverty. Indeed, eight out of ten of the countries with the lowest income per capita have been at war in the recent past, or are so today. In the international community’s fight against world poverty - now the central objective of the World Bank and the UK’s Department for International Development - the prevention of such wars needs to be given the highest priority.

A recent UNU/WIDER research programme ‘The Wave of Emergencies of the Last Decade’ has explored the economic and social causes of civil wars, alongside the more accepted political and cultural factors. The study - which includes a dozen case studies - confirms that it is the interaction of economic and social factors with political and cultural divisions that leads to large-scale conflict. Low and stagnant per capita incomes are predisposing factors - in fact over half of the least developed countries have been subject to major conflicts, with causation working both ways - from conflict to low incomes and from low incomes to conflict. But the most important element seems to be horizontal inequality, i.e. inequality among groups in economic, social and political access and resources.

Groups are generally differentiated along cultural dimensions, for example religion (Northern Ireland), tribe (Rwanda and Burundi), clan (Somalia and Afghanistan), but sometimes class (Cambodia and El Salvador) or region. Group differences arise in part from genuine cultural differences that have developed historically. But they are accentuated, and sometimes created, by ambitious leaders who wish to use such differences as ways of mobilising people to fight, to further their own ambitions. The Balkans presents many clear examples. Yet ethnic or religious differences do not cause conflict unless they are associated with differences in access to political power, economic assets and incomes, as well as social access (to education and health services, for example) and social indicators.

Political power is clearly important, particularly as it is usually an instrument for acquiring economic resources and social access. In every one of the case studies, there were sharp group differences in political power - usually at every level, ranging from the top leaders including the cabinet, to the military, the civil service, the police, and so on. But these political differences were in turn associated with sharp economic and social differences; in Cambodia and El Salvador land was distributed very unequally among groups. In many countries, educational access was sharply differentiated - including Rwanda, Burundi, and Kosovo. In each case, policies of deliberate exclusion from access to education were adopted in order to prevent identified groups progressing economically and politically. These horizontal inequalities are a major cause of war, especially when they are consistent along a number of dimensions and when they are widening.

Policies to prevent conflict must address these horizontal inequalities, ensuring inclusive and balanced participation not only in political power, but also in the economic and social spheres. The need to reduce horizontal inequalities should be a prime criterion of aid in all conflict-prone countries, and should also inform the policy debate with governments in such countries. Yet at present, neither political conditionality (which insists on majoritarian democracy, which can exclude minority groups) nor economic and social conditionality as practised by the IMF and the World Bank, incorporates considerations of horizontal inequality. The IMF and the World Bank give priority to economic efficiency and poverty reduction in their policies - these will only coincidentally improve horizontal inequality. The same is true of the unregulated market, widely promoted by the international community. Explicit policies are needed to correct horizontal inequalities.

A few countries with sharp horizontal inequalities have recognised the need to take corrective action to sustain political stability; Malaysia is a prime example. The New Economic Policy introduced in the 1970s effectively corrected much of the imbalance between Malays and Chinese and probably prevented ethnic conflict. Today, South Africa is recognising the need for such an approach, but has so far only partially implemented it. But elsewhere, the need to reduce horizontal inequality should be a central aspect of policy towards conflict-prone countries. These include all low-income countries (because of their high propensity to conflict), any country which has experienced significant violent conflict over the last thirty years, and any country where horizontal inequalities are evidently high.

​Professor Frances Stewart is the Director of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University and a coeditor of the volumes resulting from the research project on ‘The Wave of Emergencies of the Last Decade’, with Professors E. Wayne Nafziger and Raimo Väyrynen. Policy Brief No.2 summarises the main findings. Policy Briefs are available free of charge (see page 15 for ordering instructions or visit www.wider.unu.edu).