[Comment] The burden of violence

from Ottawa Citizen

John Siebert and Robert Muggah

Poor countries are less safe than rich ones. Most of the world's 30-odd armed conflicts are raging in the global South. As a country's human development ranking declines, its risk of succumbing to violent conflict grows. More than one-third of all countries mired in poverty experienced war since the late 1990s. Fewer than two per cent of rich countries experienced conflict over the same period.

The international aid community has been slow to grasp the real and urgent implications of the linkage between armed violence and human development. Armed violence disrupts markets, displaces populations, destroys schools, clinics and roads, and scars families, communities and societies. More than 300,000 people die violently every year, most in the developing world.

The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is grappling with the relationship between armed violence and development in particularly troublesome hotspots such as Afghanistan, Haiti and Sudan. It is finding that armed violence exacts massive costs in terms of lost lives, distorted investment, spiralling reconstruction bills and reduced aid efficiency.

While CIDA recognizes the challenges presented by armed violence in theory, it has been slower to react in practice. Perhaps this is not surprising. CIDA has been subjected to sharp criticism for not focusing its resources in the right places, at the right time or in the right number of countries. Its inability to provide timely and coherent support to the ongoing Afghanistan operations is often singled out. As the agency embarks on a top-to-bottom reorganization this year, it must ensure that the issue of how armed violence undermines development efforts is not overshadowed in the drive to simplify how and where Canadian aid dollars are spent.

Especially in post-conflict zones and in countries afflicted by high levels of organized crime, development agencies must pay attention to the impact of insecurity on the effectiveness of their programs.

Addressing armed violence through a development lens is not straightforward. It requires adapting professional toolkits, generating solid evidence, investing in personnel and learning from good practice.

But preventing and reducing armed violence is more necessary than ever, especially since development practitioners themselves are often on the front line, working in increasingly hostile and violent environments. More than 85 per cent of the more than 1,000 aid workers who died since the mid-1990s were killed in targeted attacks.

Canada is well positioned to contribute positively to efforts to stem armed violence and to encourage sustainable human development. In 2006, Canada signed the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, which states that "living free from the threat of armed violence is a basic human need. It is a precondition for human development, dignity and well-being." It also sets out to make "measurable reductions in the global burden of armed violence" by 2015.

The declaration calls on all signatories, including Canada, to strengthen efforts to integrate strategies for armed violence reduction and conflict prevention into national, regional and multilateral development plans and programs. Such declarations commit countries to making good on their promises, and to backing these commitments with adequate resources and leadership.

The Canadian government had earned a leadership role in these efforts. Canada encouraged the rest of the world to ban anti-personnel land mines and to attempt to eliminate the scourge of child soldiers. It highlighted the "responsibility to protect" the most vulnerable in conflict zones. And Canada emphasized the importance of dealing directly with the sources of insecurity and their effects.

Yet Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with CIDA, is increasingly stepping back from international diplomatic efforts such as the Geneva Declaration. Canadian diplomats are now only rarely seen playing a leadership role in multilateral forums. Despite uncertain leadership from above, Canadian NGOs are actively integrating armed violence reduction planning into their projects around the world.

Integrating priorities for armed violence reduction into development programming will take time. CIDA can and should lead in this area, and should ensure that its reorganization can meet the challenges of an insecure and violent world. Otherwise Canadian aid investments run the risk of being wasted.

John Siebert is executive director of Project Ploughshares in Waterloo and Robert Muggah is research director of the Small Arms Survey.