Conflict and Development: Organisational adaptation in conflict situations (Oxfam Working Papers Series) - Softcover

Adams, Mark; Bradbury, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0855983205 ISBN 13: 9780855983208

Verlag: Oxfam GB, 1995

Inhaltsangabe

This book considers the adaptations that organisations and institutions need to make when working in situations of armed conflict, and draws together current thinking on the causes and impacts of conflict, and suggests a series of questions which aid organizations working in situations of armed conflict need to address.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mark Bradbury is a social analyst and an experienced aid practitioner and researcher. He has lived and worked in Sudan and Somalia. His research has covered Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, conflict and development, complex emergencies, conflict resolution, and human rights. He is Director of the Rift Valley Institute Horn of Africa Course.

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Conflict and Development

Organisational Adaptation in Conflict Situations

By Mark Adams, Mark Bradbury

Oxfam Publishing

Copyright © 1995 Mark Adams and Mark Bradbury
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-85598-320-8

Contents

Preamble, 4, 
Acknowledgements, 5, 
1 The problem: trends in world conflicts, 7, 
2 The impact of armed conflict, 9, 
3 Understanding conflict, 12, 
4 The political analysis of conflict, 14, 
5 Gender and conflict, 25, 
6 The turbulence of change, 28, 
7 Responding to conflict, 32, 
8 Organisational adaptation in conflict situations, 36, 
Notes, 67, 
Bibliography, 69, 
Information on the organisations involved in the workshop, 75, 

CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM: TRENDS IN WORLD CONFLICTS

The end of the Cold War, symbolised in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, offered hopes for a 'new world order' based on cooperation rather than fear. These hopes have not been met, despite negotiated settlements to several proxy wars (Namibia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Africa, Cambodia). Instead, the Gulf War, the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and the Republics of the former Soviet Union (Armenia-Azerbaijan, Tadzhikistan, Georgia), the continuation of long-running wars in Asia (Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Burma and East Timor) and in Africa (Angola, Sudan), and the outbreak of new wars (Liberia, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda), have ushered in a new period of regional instability, global fragmentation, and deepening poverty. The policies and activities of development agencies need to be re-appraised in the light of continuing and probably increasing levels of political violence.

Aggregate statistics on armed conflicts reveal some disturbing trends in the extent and nature of armed conflicts in the 1990s. While the numbers of wars and exact numbers of casualties are surprisingly still open to interpretation, there is a clear upward trend in both the number of wars and the number of people affected by war. In 1960 there were 10 major wars; by 1992, there were 50, 10 of which had started since 1985 (Gantzel, 1994). Not all wars are on this scale. In 1993, for example, 84 wars causing casualties of less that 1,000, and 60 disputes causing under 100 casualties, were recorded (see map NCO, 1994).

The character of warfare is changing. While primitive weaponry when organised (as in Rwanda) can be devastating, the proliferation of small arms, the use of landmines, and the tactics of modern counter-insurgency operations and low-intensity warfare, such as the clearance of land and manipulation of food supplies, have increased the incidence of civilian casualties. In World War II, 52 per cent of war-related deaths were of civilians; in today's wars, civilian deaths make up 90 per cent of deaths (Summerfield, 1990).

Historically, most wars have been associated with interstate relations and state formation. Today, interstate wars appear to be diminishing while internal, domestic, or intra-state wars are on the increase; with the formation of newly independent states this may change. The increase in 'internal' wars is reflected in a growth in war refugees, from 2.5 million in 1970 to 17.5 million in 1992, with a further 24 million displaced persons (USCR, 1993). Of these, 45 per cent are found in Africa and over 80 per cent are women and children. Unless the conflicts which have produced these refugee flows are contained the number of refugees could rise to 100 million by the year 2000 (Rupesinghe, 1992a).

Most of the current internal wars are taking place in the South. In 1993, of 79 countries experiencing war and political violence recorded by UNDP (1994) in 1993, 65 were in the South.

In Africa, in particular, armed conflict and political instability appear to be on the increase. While the end of the 1980s saw reduction in conflict in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, Morocco, and Ethiopia, and democratic elections in several countries, the 1990s have brought new wars in Liberia, Rwanda, and Burundi, a return to war in Angola, and the intensification of conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, and Djibouti.

Patterns of refugee flows suggest a changing geography of political instability. Refugee populations have declined in East Asia and Latin America, while political instability in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia has led to increased refugee flows in those areas (Suhrke, 1993).

Wars are also tending to last longer. The war in Angola, for example, has been running for 19 years; there has been war in Mozambique for 13 years, in Sudan for 10, Somalia 5, Liberia 4, Sri Lanka 14, East Timor 19, Afghanistan 15, and Peru 14 years. For the millions of refugees and displaced persons, and the generations who have grown up in the midst of war, conflict has become the daily reality, and development a process of adaptation to insecurity and a state of permanent crisis (El Bushra and Piza-Lopez, 1994a; Duffield, 1994b).

CHAPTER 2

THE IMPACT OF ARMED CONFLICT

Armed conflicts are occurring in some of the poorest areas of the globe, and affect the psychological, social, and material conditions of individuals, communities, and whole nations. In many areas social welfare services have been crippled, productive agricultural areas have been laid to waste, and industry has been destroyed or has collapsed. In the 1990s millions of people in Africa consistently face the threat of famine because of war.

The disastrous conditions created by these conflicts have become labelled as 'complex emergencies'. A complex emergency (a term which emerged in the late 1980s in reference to Africa) has been defined by the UN as a major humanitarian crisis of a multi-causal nature that requires a system-wide response. Complex emergencies are distinguished from so-called 'natural' emergencies. They are protracted political crises, which characteristically involve predatory political organisations which survive on war economies sustained through the violent transfer of assets (Duffield, 1994b). Under these conditions famine, food insecurity, nutritional stress, and vulnerability are not the product of 'simple' demographic, climatic, environmental or economic change, but the result of political victimisation. In 1993 there were 26 UN-designated complex emergencies affecting 59 million people (UN, 1994).

In present-day internal conflicts civilians are not just incidental victims, but the main targets, of violence. Guerrilla and counter-insurgency campaigns take civilian populations as their targets. The dehumanising acts of torture, rape, and mutilation carried out against families, communities, and ethnic groups are attempts to destroy the social fabric of society, and thus the first level of 'coping* mechanisms. The trauma, dislocation, and loss of a sense of community (Macrae et. al., 1993; Nordstrom, 1992), and the destruction of community-level organisations, makes survival and recovery more difficult.

The impact of conflict on individuals is mediated through social, political structures, and personal attributes (Bastian, 1993). War disrupts social security networks provided by households and extended kinship systems. In Rwanda and Bosnia, the manipulation and mobilisation of 'ethnic' identities has hardened differences between groups and destroyed long-standing reciprocal relations. In Somalia, where war has hardened segmentation between clans, the practice of exogamy has been relaxed. This has the effect of disrupting economic relations and increasing inter-clan hostility, insecurity, and therefore...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Oxfam GB
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1995
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0855983205
• ISBN 13: 9780855983208
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 76
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland