Since 2010, almost 700,000 people have been killed as the direct result of warfare. But war kills and injures far more people than those who die directly on the battlefield. War destroys health systems, increases infant mortality, reduces life expectancy, increases poverty, and deprives children of education.
Author: Håvard Mokleiv Nygård
Which Countries Win (and Lose) When We Add Democracy to the Human Development Index?
The UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) is a major achievement. It has focused the world’s attention on the human aspects of development, highlighting and featuring not just economic gains but also schooling and education and life expectancy. In this, it was a hugely important corrective for a development community that tended to have a pure… Read more »
Is 2020 = 1968?
People around the world are grappling to understand events in the United States at the moment regarding the current wave of protest and protest policing. A few events readily come to mind in this comparison but the one that probably carries the greatest resonance would be the uprisings/disturbances/riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther… Read more »
Coronavirus and the (Wannabe) Dictators
In December of last year, the Chinese state jailed a physician in the city of Wuhan. His crime? Attempting to warn authorities against the occurrence of a potentially contagious and deadly new virus. The physician, Dr. Li Wenliang, has since died from the same disease whose spread he tried to contain.
Ceasefires in the Time of COVID-19
This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near future and long after we… Read more »
Improved Data to Assist in the Prevention and Management of Conflicts
Today, the Praia City Group on Governance Statistics is launching its Handbook on Governance Statistics. The Praia Handbook on Governance Statistics provides improved data that can assist in the prevention and management of conflicts. What is the Handbook about? the … handbook is in itself nothing less than a historical achievement There have been many… Read more »
This Is How Countries End up in the “Inequality Trap”
Inequality fosters violent conflict, which again causes inequality, triggering a vicious cycle.
What “Chernobyl” Teaches Us About the Superiority of Democracy
Authoritarian structures made Chernobyl an unavoidable accident. The HBO series “Chernobyl” has garnered rave reviews all over the world. Norwegian newspapers have been almost unanimous in their praise of the series. And with good reason. This is television drama at its very best. One largely overlooked aspect of the series is what it teaches us… Read more »
Producing Reliable Data for SDG 16: The Case of Conflict Data
In 2015, the United Nations stated unequivocally in the last progress report for the Millennium Development Goals that “conflict remains the largest obstacle to development”. Yet, reducing conflict and violence in the world was never a target in and of itself under the MDGs. This changed with the inclusion of Goal 16 as part of the Sustainable… Read more »
U.N. Peacekeeping Really Can Be Effective. Here’s How We Tabulated This
Syria’s seven years of conflict have had devastating consequences, with hundreds of thousands of people dead and more than 4 million refugees. Would the story be different if the United Nations Security Council had managed to come to an agreement and deployed a peacekeeping operation (PKO) early in the conflict? Would a PKO have been… Read more »