Mitigating 'Non-Conflict' Violence by Creating Peaceful Political Settlements

Understanding and addressing ‘non-conflict’ violence is a key challenge for development. Different types of ‘non-conflict’ violence, such as homicide, massacres, armed robbery and gender-based violence, which occur outside of armed conflict contexts involving state or other parties, are not only reflections of social problems like youth unemployment and gang culture. They should not be unlinked from political processes. Given the weakness of formal institutions and the strength of hybrid political orders in most violence-affected settings in the developing world, the political settlements approach helps to understand the political factors that underpin and drive ‘non-conflict’ violence; and develop policy responses that tackle the roots of the problem, not just its symptoms.UK Department for International Developmen

Education for Sustaining Peace through Historical Memory

Informed by the author’s long-standing work on violent conflict, peace and education in countries of the Global South, particularly Colombia, this open access book presents a comprehensive narrative about the relationship between peace education, historical memory and the sustaining peace agenda, advocating for the adoption of a new perspective on education for sustaining peace through historical memory. Education on and for peace in countries wrestling with, or emerging from, protracted violent conflict is up against major challenges, and both conventional and critical approaches to peace education are limited to address these. Incorporating a focus on historical memory, without losing sight of its own pitfalls, into peace education can support learners and teachers to come to grips with achieving positive, peace-sustaining change at both the micro (individual) and macro (social and institutional) levels, and to develop concepts and practices of effective and legitimate alternatives to violence and war. Conceived in these terms, historical memory-oriented peace education also stands to enhance the work-in-progress that is the UN-led sustaining peace agenda, including its Sustainable Development Goals

Nigeria's Post-1999 Political Settlement and Violence Mitigation in the Niger Delta

Almost fifteen years after transitioning to civilian-electoral rule, Nigeria is still wrestling with the legacy of a protracted period of military government and the ‘resource curse’ associated with its huge oil wealth. The ‘Niger Delta question’, as it is often referred to in Nigeria, is not close to resolution. The region has temporarily been pacified and oil production has gone up again, though it still falls short of Nigeria’s full production potential. But the reintegration of former mid-ranking militant commanders and fighters is faltering and social unrest persists due to high youth unemployment and poverty. Large scale organised criminal activity continues, and violence could quickly re-erupt and send the Delta back to where it was before 2009 if no remedying action is taken by the Nigerian authorities and their international partners.DFI

‘External Stresses’ and Violence Mitigation in Fragile Contexts: Setting the Stage for Policy Analysis

Following on from the World Bank’s World Development Report 2011 on conflict, security and development, a debate has emerged about the role of so-called ‘external stresses’ in generating ‘new’ forms of violence and insecurity in poor and fragile countries. The Bank posits that the combination of internal stresses (e.g. low income levels, high youth unemployment) and external stresses (e.g. cross-border conflict spillovers, illicit drug trafficking) heightens the risk of different forms of violence, which are not confined to inter-state and civil war but range from communal conflicts to criminal violence and terrorism. This perspective is useful, yet a more comprehensive and nuanced framework for policy analysis is called for, based on the recognition that external stresses: (a) tend to involve external, internal as well as transnational actors and variables that are often interrelated; (b) create both losers and winners, and can promote the interests of powerful state and non-state groups in and outside of the country or world region under ‘stress’; and (c) do not all have the same kind of impact on states and societies in terms of generating violence.DFI

Getting Real About an Illicit ‘External Stressor’: Transnational Cocaine Trafficking through West Africa

Concerns over West Africa’s increasingly prominent role as transhipment point of South American cocaine en route to Europe are mounting. Gathering pace in the mid-2000s, large-scale drug trafficking has been associated with recent episodes of political instability and violence in Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Mali. It is also perceived as a serious threat to democratic institutions, governance and development in other, more stable countries of the region, such as Ghana; and as potentially contributing to reversing the hard-won end to the armed conflicts that ravaged Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire in the 1990s and 2000s. Yet it is crucial to recognise that cocaine trafficking through West Africa has thus far not resulted in levels of violence comparable to those witnessed in several Latin American drug source and transit countries. The big policy challenge for West Africa is therefore not to curb the flow of cocaine through the region in order to reduce trafficking-related violence, but to effectively tackle the negative impacts – both existing and potential – of the illegal trade on governance and development in the region’s weak, unstable and impoverished states. Conventional drug control strategies, oriented towards law enforcement, are not well suited to help with this. Bold new policy responses are called for.UK Department for International Developmen

Education for Sustaining Peace through Historical Memory

Informed by the author’s long-standing work on violent conflict, peace and education in countries of the Global South, particularly Colombia, this open access book presents a comprehensive narrative about the relationship between peace education, historical memory and the sustaining peace agenda, advocating for the adoption of a new perspective on education for sustaining peace through historical memory. Education on and for peace in countries wrestling with, or emerging from, protracted violent conflict is up against major challenges, and both conventional and critical approaches to peace education are limited to address these. Incorporating a focus on historical memory, without losing sight of its own pitfalls, into peace education can support learners and teachers to come to grips with achieving positive, peace-sustaining change at both the micro (individual) and macro (social and institutional) levels, and to develop concepts and practices of effective and legitimate alternatives to violence and war. Conceived in these terms, historical memory-oriented peace education also stands to enhance the work-in-progress that is the UN-led sustaining peace agenda, including its Sustainable Development Goals

Core Collection Approaches and Genetic Diversity in \u3ci\u3eFlemingia macrophylla\u3c/i\u3e

Core collections are a useful means to optimise the management, including conservation, of forage germplasm collections. Such optimisation is warranted in view of increasingly limited research resources. As there are several potential options to create core collections, a project is presented in which three approaches are compared: (i) based on germplasm origin information; (ii) genetic diversity assessment by agronomic characterisation/evaluation; and (iii) DNA markers. As example-species for the project, the tropical legume shrub Flemingia macrophylla is selected because of its particular multiple-use potential in smallholder production systems. An important diversity descriptor is the content of tannins influencing feed and litter quality of this species. Data will be analysed using multivariate statistics and GIS tools. The results from the core collection approach comparison are expected to be applicable also to other wild legumes