ANNOUNCEMENTS
Conflict in this century has changed in character and incidence, intensity and duration of conflict have increased. It has become a primary development challenge of our time. One-and-a-half billion people live in areas affected by fragility, conflict, or large-scale, organized criminal violence. The reasons for conflict are manifold, ranging from poverty and inequality, poor governance to ethnic issues, natural resource endowment and economic measures besides others. A lot of these get heightened and exacerbated by disasters, which can either lead to conflict or exacerbate prevailing conditions of conflict. Climate change and increasing incidences of natural disasters make this a very potent mix. Annually, approximately 400 disasters triggered by natural hazards occur, with a large proportion in countries affected by conflict. From 2005-2009, more than 50% of people affected by natural disasters lived in fragile and conflict-affected states. Disasters are highly politicised events and have far reaching effects, from economic impacts, displacement of people, environmental degradation and effect on social contract, besides many others. All these feed into grievances which may get either generated or exacerbated by disasters and lead to conflict. In the recent past, there has been an increased understanding and recognition in both the humanitarian and development communities of the intersection between crises, risk and vulnerability.
Conflict and fragility affect vulnerability to disasters, and measures to manage disaster risk are more difficult to operationalise in fragile and conflict-affected states. Conflict increases exposure to environmental hazard, human vulnerability, epidemic diseases, crop failure and loss of livelihood. It may also lead to adverse demographic reconfiguration with unregulated flows of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). There has been no let-up in the international response to crises, however, enabling and ensuring political and peaceful solutions which are enduring and sustainable has been a challenge.
There is an urgent need to realign our efforts from the current crises response mode to effectively preventing and managing both conflict and disasters. Risk analysis and monitoring mechanisms need to be developed by Governments and regional as well as international organizations. Indicators need to be picked up, monitored, evaluated and acted upon across a vast cross section. Similarly, there is also an urgent need to make people more resilient, assist them in mitigation and adaptation and reducing their vulnerabilities as the primary areas of focus, rather than focus on post disaster efforts.
Conflicts and disasters are major tipping points and disasters in particular, provide a window of opportunity for change and renegotiation, which has the potential to end conflict too. We must strengthen alliances, international organisations, regional forums, capacities of nation states and their people. People must be the centre of gravity and at the heart of whatever measures we take. Preventing or reducing the risk of disaster is only one part of dealing with long term consequences of humanitarian crises. The underlying processes of chronic poverty, environmental degradation, global climate change and political marginalisation are the true issues to address. Shifting the focus from curing maladies to preventing them presents challenges at multiple levels, for the humanitarian community and, even more so, for governments and development actors.
Keywords: Disasters, conflict, vulnerability, displacement of people, governance.
