Violent Conflict, Poverty and Chronic Poverty, Papers of Sociology

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VIOLENT CONFLICT, POVERTY AND

CHRONIC POVERTY

Jonathan Goodhand, May 2001

INTRAC

CPRC Working Paper 6

Chronic Poverty Research Centre

ISBN Number: 1-904049-05-

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

SECTION ONE: CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

1.1 Understanding Conflict

1.2 Understanding Poverty

1.3 Understanding Chronic Poverty

SECTION TWO: LINKING CONFLICT AND POVERTY

2.1 What are the linkages between conflict and poverty?

2.1.1 Chronic conflict causes chronic poverty Macro effects of conflict Conflict and entitlements Differentiating the impacts of conflict

2.1.2 Poverty causes conflict The creation of grievance From grievance to violence

2.1.3 Resource wealth causes conflict

2.2 Analysis; cause or consequence?

SECTION THREE: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

3.1 Mapping current policy debates Working around conflict Working in conflict Working on conflict

3.2 Mapping current practice

3.2.1 Poverty and chronic poverty

3.2.2 Aid and conflict

3.3 Emerging challenges for policy and practice 3.3.1 Objectives, mandates and capacities

3.3.2 International Policies International regulation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background This paper is one of a number of studies prepared for the Chronic Poverty Research Centre. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literatures on chronic poverty and conflict, map out current policy debates and identify areas for future research.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, over four million people have been killed in internal and regionalised forms of conflict. It is estimated that one third of the world’s population is exposed to armed conflict. While violent conflict is not confined to the global South, a disproportionate number of conflicts take place in poor countries. More than half the countries in Africa are affected by armed conflicts. These conflicts are not temporary emergencies but have systemic and enduring features. The chronically poor increasingly live in contexts of chronic insecurity.

In addition to their direct impacts, violent conflicts have major development costs Development donors have set themselves ambitious global poverty targets but these are unlikely to be achieved in a context of growing insecurity. Violent conflict is therefore not a ‘side issue’ that can be ignored by developmentalists. It needs to be better understood, accounted for and tackled if development goals are to be achieved. To date however, there has been limited empirical research, which examines the nature of the relationship between poverty and conflict (and virtually no research, which focuses on chronic poverty and conflict).

Linking chronic poverty and conflict The nature of the links between conflict and poverty are explored by critically examining three propositions:

Conflict causes chronic poverty The macro and micro impacts of conflict are examined with a particular focus on how rural livelihoods and entitlements are affected. Conflict has a more severe impact than other external shocks because of the deliberate destruction of livelihoods. Chronic insecurity increases chronic poverty , but the impacts vary according to a range of factors including age, ethnicity, gender and region. Classic conceptualisations of vulnerability may not apply; conflict may reverse pre-existing power relations causing new groups to become politically vulnerable.

Poverty causes conflict The processes through which chronic poverty generates grievance leading to violent conflict are examined. Chronic poverty by itself is unlikely to lead to conflict - the chronically poor often lack political voice and organisation. However, horizontal inequalities and social exclusion, particularly when they coincide with identity or regional boundaries may increase a society’s predisposition towards violent conflict. Such background conditions can be exploited by political entrepreneurs. Chronic poverty may also be a significant factor in sustaining wars as violent crime and predation become the only viable livelihood strategy for the chronically poor.

Resource wealth causes conflict

Finally, the argument that greed rather than grievance causes conflict is briefly examined. High value primary commodities such as diamonds and timber provide opportunities for rebel groups to finance their military activities. It is argued that rebels generate a loud discourse of grievance to hide their real economic motives. The ‘greed’- ‘grievance’ debate merits further examination, but rather than framing the debate in ‘either-or’ terms, the key seems to be in understanding the interaction and synergies between the two.

Policy responses It is argued that academic debates about the relationship between poverty and conflict have important policy implications. Three broad alternative approaches can be mapped out for poverty focused donors:

Working around conflict : donors avoid the issue of conflict or treat is as a negative externality. Macro reform processes therefore adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach irrespective of a country’s vulnerability to conflict. In areas of open conflict donors withdraw activities and put development ‘on hold’.

Working in conflict; donors recognise the need to be more sensitive to conflict dynamics and adapt policies and programmes accordingly. This may mean adapting SAPs and conditionalities according to an analysis of conflict-related risks. It might also involve greater experimentation with sustainable livelihood approaches in unstable contexts. Donors could develop more politically informed poverty programmes which address underlying sources of grievance. These programmes may not address conflict in the short term but may decrease a country’s presdisposition to conflict in the long term.

Working on conflict: this would involve a more explicit focus on conflict management and resolution. This would entail a more explicit focus on ‘greed’ as well as ‘grievance’. Policies which limit the opportunities for greed would need to be developed, including the development of international regulatory systems, targeted conditionalities or providing profitable alternatives for conflict profiteers.

It is argued that working around conflict is in the long run likely to be counterproductive. If chronic poverty is going to be more effectively addressed, donors need to develop approaches for working ‘in’ and ‘on’ conflict, drawing upon and adapting rural livelihoods approaches that were developed in more stable contexts.

questions that could usefully be explored further to inform poverty-focused development policy and practice. Finally in Section 5 we map out some tentative conclusions and recommendations.

SECTION ONE: CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

1.1 Understanding conflict Conflict is a struggle, between individuals or collectivities over values or claims to status, power and scarce resources in which the aims of the conflicting parties are to assert their values or claims over those of others (Goodhand and Hulme, 1999: 14). In this study we do not assume a model of functional harmony, with conflict in some way representing a departure from the norm. It is recognised that conflict has a positive dimension and is an essential part of the process of social and political change. Conflict management or resolution is not about preventing conflict but about supporting institutions which are able to manage conflict in an inclusive and non violent way.

Conflict is embedded in society and cannot be separated from ongoing political and social processes. Mainstream analysis often tends to reify conflict. It is seen as somehow being detached from society and can be ‘impacted upon’ and influenced by external agencies, in isolation from other processes. We have attempted to take a holistic approach, in which human security or insecurity is the result of wider social, political and economic processes.

In this paper our focus is on militarised violence, although it is recognised that the distinctions between war, predatory violence and crime are becoming increasingly blurred^1. It has been estimated that over one third of the world’s population is exposed to armed violence (Stewart and FitzGerald, 2000). Although a recent study 2 found that armed conflicts within and between states have declined during the 1990s, serious armed violence persists in many parts of Asia and Africa. Poor countries are at a greater risk of falling into no-exit cycles of violent conflict. Going by the standard definition of war, a total of 1,000 battlefield deaths per year, more than half the countries in Africa are affected by conflict. 75% of the global arms trade is directed at poor countries (Ul Haq, 1999: 129).

It has become commonplace to cite that most conflicts and protracted political crises today do not occur between sovereign states but are of an internal or regionalised type (Duffield, 2000: 73). Of the 27 major armed conflicts that occurred in 1999, all but two took place within national boundaries (Collier, 2000). The term Complex Political Emergency (CPE) has been coined to describe what are essentially hybrid conflicts that combine transnational and internal characteristics. CPE, is not an analytical tool but a descriptive category which provides a short hand expression for many, often dissimilar conflicts. To an extent conflicts have always been complex and had political characteristics. What is different about the post-Cold War era is the 'complexity' of the politics of humanitarian intervention itself. Some writers prefer the terms ‘emerging

(^1) In ‘post conflict’ settings levels of militarised violence and crime may increase. In South Africa for

instance, there were 12,000 murders in 1986 and 25,000 in 1997.

(^2) Gurr et al (2001)

political complexes’ or ‘situations of chronic political instability’ (SCPIs) (Schafer, 2001) as they better capture the enduring, structural nature of such phenomenon.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, over four million people have been killed in internal and regionalised forms of conflict. While death and disablement are a common feature of both 'classic' and contemporary CPEs there has been a horrifying shift in the distribution of suffering; at the beginning of the century, 90% of the casualties were combatants, whereas the majority of casualties are now inflicted on civilians. CPEs have fuelled a rapid rise in the global number of refugees and internally displaced, from 22 million in 1985 to a current level of around 40 million. In 1995 one in every 115 people on the earth was forced into flight from war, starvation or genocide (Weis, 1995).

In response to growing conflict, there has been a substantial growth in spending on humanitarian relief and peacekeeping. In 1980 the value of relief aid (excluding food aid) from OECD countries was US$680 million. By 1996 this value had increased nearly fourfold to US$2.7 billion (Macrae, 1999: xiii) and during peak years it has reached 15% of all aid. The growth of relief funding has eaten into already declining development budgets. However the costs of peace keeping have been even greater. In 1994 the United Nations spent $4 billion on peacekeeping, the same figure as had been spent in the previous forty eight years of its existence (Ul Haq, 199: 137). Critics of the international response argue that it is highly selective and in areas of limited strategic interest humanitarian relief has become a substitute for robust political action.

Conventional theorising around war between states no longer appears to be so relevant. Neither do a number of contemporary forms of analysis which view conflict as either temporary (resulting from development malaise), irrational (based on misunderstandings or communication breakdown between groups) or backward (the result of a return to ancient enmities) (Duffiield, 2000). More illuminating analyses in recent years have focused on the political economy of conflict. Mark Duffield for instance links the spread of CPEs to the related processes of the declining power of the nation state and the intensification of transnational commerce. Firstly, the end of the Cold War era and the impacts of globalisation have led, particularly in the South to a decline in the competence and capacity of the nation state. Increasingly, as Duffield argues we are entering an era of weak states often with multiple and overlapping centres of authority. Secondly, today's conflicts are characterised by expanding networks of parallel (illegal) and grey (semi-legal) economic activity.

Afghanistan is illustrative of these two interrelated processes. The collapse of the state has left a power vacuum that has been filled by competing non state military actors. The end of super power patronage has meant that controls on such entities have declined and increasingly they have had to develop their own means of economic sustainability to service their military activities and maintain their patronage networks. This has meant moving beyond the Afghan State in pursuit of wider alternative networks in the regional or global market. In the case of Afghanistan it has been drugs and cross border smuggling, with Liberia’s Charles Taylor (who earned an estimated $400 million per year from the war) it was largely timber and diamonds. While liberalisation may not have caused these new forms of instability, market deregulation has made it easier for warring parties to develop the grey or parallel international linkages necessary for survival. As Duffield notes, warlords may act locally, but they think globally.

Box 1: New forms of security and insecurity in Sri Lanka

The secessionist war in Sri Lanka started in 1983. The conflict is spatially defined, with the main theatre of war in the North East, however, militarised violence has become an island wide problem and has had a corrosive affect on Sri Lanka’s political, economic and social institutions. The government’s armed forces have grown from 12,000 to 200,000 in less than 20 years and military expenditures accounted for 6% of GDP in the 2000 budget. Protracted conflicts (in the North East and South) have undermined democratic political processes and there are limited restraining influences on military actors. In one third of the island, it is the military who make the key decisions. There has been a growth of para military groups fighting on the government side who are only loosely controlled by the state. Violence has in effect been ‘franchised’ out to such groups. The LTTE has grown into a highly effective fighting force of over 5,600. In addition to their military arm they have a political and civil administration which have assumed quasi state like function in the North East, including a taxation system and law courts.

The use of terror and show killings are widespread. Increasingly violence has become normalised and routinised, not only in the north east but in rest of the country where election violence and violent crime (often from army deserters) have become endemic. Chronic insecurity exacerbates poverty, which has deepened in the North East due to the war and an economic blockade. In the South liberalisation has accentuated regional differences as growth has mainly occurred in the urban Western province, leaving significant pockets of poverty in the deep South. Endemic insecurity is primarily a problem of the rural poor as the urban elite have largely insulated themselves from the problem.

Adapted from Goodhand, 2000

1.2 Understanding poverty

It is beyond the scope of this paper to review the extensive literature on poverty. Instead we have identified a number of key ideas and tools which can usefully inform our analysis of the linkage between poverty and conflict.

Livelihoods approach: this approach replaces traditional income based definitions of poverty with a much more broad, inclusive and context specific examination of livelihoods. The division of household assets into forms of human, social, natural, financial and physical capital provides a useful framework for analysing how conflict impacts upon livelihoods.

Exclusion and rights: the literature on war and famine emphasizes the importance of political marginality and the systematic denial of human rights. Bhalla and Lapeyre (1997) define exclusion as the denial of rights or incomplete citizenship. Galtung (1990) in a similar vein refers to ‘structural violence’, which manifests itself in structural inequity and the unequal distribution of power. The

UNDP’s political freedom index - which incorporates personal security, rule of law, freedom of expression, political participation and equality of opportunity -- provides a proxy indicator for the political dimension of exclusion and usefully highlights the link between politics and poverty.

Human security: UNDP’s concept of human security and the political freedom index highlight personal security as a central part of human well being. Recent PPAs also emphasize the fact that poor people place a very high value on personal safety. Law and order can therefore be seen as a public good or entitlement.

Poor people’s perceptions: Chambers (1997) stresses the importance of listening to poor people’s perspectives. In unstable contexts people’s perceptions of well being and security can be critical in determining whether conflict becomes violent or remains latent. Although there is limited research in this area, it appears that absolute measures of poverty are less significant, than poor people’s expectations and a sense of grievance, as triggers to violence.

Risks and vulnerability: household vulnerability is defined as the capacity to manage shocks and poor households have a low vulnerability to risk. The experience of living with high risk is becoming ever more central to the lives of a growing number of poor people. It is often the lack of viable economic alternatives that drives poor people to engage in violence (what Keen (1998) terms ‘bottom up’ violence).

1.3 Understanding chronic poverty

Transient and chronic poverty: the transiently and chronically poor are overlapping but distinct groups. Chronic poverty is usually distinguished from transitory poverty by its duration – the chronically poor are identified not so much by income in a year as by low variation in income over a period of several years. The literature on conflict and poverty tends not to distinguish between transient and chronic poverty. However, the distinction is a useful one in distinguishing between people who move into and out of poverty, often as a result of seasonal or random shocks (including violent conflict, market failure, famine etc) and the inter-generationally poor, who tend to live on the margins of the global economy in the most chronically insecure regions and benefit least from current development policy.

Spatial poverty traps: the links between remote rural areas, chronic poverty and violent conflict has received limited attention. One could hypothesize that spatial poverty traps are more prone to political instability and violent conflict. A weak state presence, the remote political status of certain groups and a lack of access to markets are likely to increase vulnerability and in certain contexts generate grievance. In Sri Lanka, for instance one of the key factors distinguishing the chronically poor from the transiently poor is the lack of access to state services. The remote rural areas in the deep South provided the main support for the violent JVP uprising in the late 1980s. The geography of risk, vulnerability and insecurity deserves further examination. More attention needs to be paid to the context specific nature of risks, the capacity of households to manage such risks and the potential for public action to bolster indigenous capacity through targeted development investments (Webb and Harinarayan (1999).

recently however, partly due to the problems of getting reliable data, there have been mainly descriptive accounts of the costs of conflict. This was largely dominated by economists who employed, what Keen describes as a ‘black box model’ of conflict; aggregate consumption and production declines, comparative advantages are lost and capital is destroyed: why do people behave so inexplicably?

However analytical work done in the 1980s and 1990s has contributed to increased understanding of how conflict impacts upon polities, economies and societies. This includes work which focuses on the macro level (Stewart and FitzGerald (2000), Duffield (2000), Collier (2000) and on micro level entitlements, vulnerability and coping strategies (de Waal (1997); Keen (1998), Richards (1996).

What this research shows is that the impacts of war vary according to the nature, duration and phase of the conflict and the background economic and social conditions. However, chronic internal wars are likely to produce chronic poverty. This particularly applies to collapsed state, war lord type conflicts like Sierra Leone, where the purpose of war may be to make money and the combatants ensure that it lasts long enough to make serious money (Smillie, 1996). “Poor societies are at risk of falling into no-exit cycles of conflict in which ineffective governance, societal warfare, humanitarian crises, and the lack of development perpetually chase one another.” (Gurr et al, 2001:13). Moreover as many of today’s wars are regionalised, the costs are often widely spread with neighbouring countries suffering from the spillover effects^4.

CPEs represent the systematic and deliberate violation of individual and group rights to produce and secure an adequate livelihood (Macrae and Zwi, 1994:21). The impoverishment and deliberate cowing of the population may be used as a weapon of war. In Afghanistan for instance, the Russians deliberately targeted irrigation systems in the countryside to cut off food supplies to the resistance. In Sri Lanka, an economic embargo is placed on the North East by the military to stem the flow of materials going to LTTE. The impacts of conflict also depend on the level of compensatory action by national governments or the international community. Therefore initial economic conditions and the nature of the war help determine economic, political and social consequences.

Macro effects of conflict

Conflict has direct and indirect costs. The direct impacts including battlefield deaths, disablement and displacement have long-term costs for societies. Chronic poverty is likely to increase due to higher dependency ratios caused by an increased proportion of the old, women and disabled in the population. Many more people die from wars as a result of lack of basic medical services, the destruction of rural life and transport and collapse of the state, than from direct battlefield deaths. Box 2 summarises the impacts of conflict on various types of capital and the possible links to chronic poverty.

Box 2: Impacts of conflict on types of capital and associated assets

(^4) Wallensteen and Sollenberg found that 55% of armed conflicts and 69% of wars belonged to what they

called ‘regional conflict complexes’

Political capital eg Decline of the state and democratic political processes. Increased influence of military actors. Decline in rule of law. Increased vulnerability and targeting of politically excluded groups.

Human capital eg. Deaths, disablement, displacement, , decline in capacity of the state to provide services such as health, education etc. Violence against women. Reemergence of slavery. Declining literacy, life expectancy, increased infant mortality rates, higher levels of stunting. Higher dependency ratios. Long term effects of a poorly educated and skilled workforce and a future generation which has known nothing but violence (Luckham et al 42: 2001).

Financial capital eg. Financial institutions, investments, markets, impact on rates of growth, investment levels, decline in markets, lack of credit, outflow of capital.

Social Capital eg. Disruption of social relations, social dislocation, decline in trust and reciprocity. Social capital deliberately targeted or used to generate perverse outcomes.

Natural capital eg. Break down of customary rights and rules of useage, predatory behaviour leading to resource depletion and environmental degradation, lack of management and investment in natural resources. Increased use of marginal lands

Physical capital eg. Destruction of, and lack of investment in infrastructure and services. Land mines

Source: adapted from Moser (1999)

At the macro level there are therefore large political, economic and social costs over and above the direct battle deaths. The World Bank estimates that conflict in Africa is causing a loss of 2% annual economic growth across the continent (DFID, 2001:11). Stewart and FitzGerald (2000) in a global analysis of conflict affected countries found similar patterns of macro economic effects including a fall in GDP per capita, food production and exports, a fall in gross investment, government revenue and expenditure. The negative impacts on food production lead to an increased reliance on imports and food aid^5. The destruction and migration of existing capital and the lack of addition to capital stock all have longer term development costs. Between 40% - 75% of available fiscal and foreign exchange earnings may be diverted towards fighting the war (Green, 1994:48). This contributes to an unsustainable debt burden and there are currently 13 Highly Indebted countries which are affected by conflict (DFID, 2001:12). The erosion of government services in turn contributes to chronic public health problems and the growing ‘silent disasters’ of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

As conflicts become protracted, organised violence increasingly shapes the economy. Free markets may become ‘forced markets’ with military actors using coercion to maintain protection regimes and price differences. Soldiers – the ‘entrepreneurs in khaki’ (Chingono, 2000) – are likely to exert a growing influence on economic activities. Economies become increasingly informalised and peripheral areas may withdraw from

(^5) It has been estimated that average agricultural production losses in Africa due to conflict were 12% (cited

in DFID, 2001:11).

War has a range of effects on poor people’s entitlements. Firstly there is likely to be an increased reliance on direct entitlements as households retreat into subsistence. However resource endowments are likely to decline. There is a serious and progressive depletion of the rural asset base, in particular the loss of land to production by mining and other activities and the decline of livestock herds (Cliffe and Rock, 1997:81). Shortened time frames lead to more opportunistic behaviour and the consequent degradation of natural resources. Conflicts over access to resources often intensify when the resources in question become scarce in absolute terms. In Afghanistan for example there has been increased conflict over grazing and irrigation rights as resources become more scarce and customary rules of usage have broken down. Market and civic entitlements are likely to decline due to insecurity, lack of mobility and lack of trust. The erosion or collapse of state services lead to a decline of public entitlements, often manifest for instance in a sharp rise in infant mortality rates. Finally, extra legal entitlements may become increasingly significant with a rise in opportunistic or predatory behaviour. For the poor, taking up the gun becomes a rational livelihood strategy. As one commentator on Liberia noted “the law in force here is this: whoever has weapons eats first.” (Kapusckinski, 2001). Box 4 illustrates the effects of violent conflict on household entitlements in Nepal.

Box 4:

Impacts of violent conflict on household entitlements in Nepal

Direct entitlements: (net decline) migration of men leading to loss of on-farm labour; internal displacement; sale of assets – livestock, farm implements etc; inability to maintain and farm land due to insecurity, leading to a decline in the value of assets e.g. erosion of farm land. However in some Maoist base areas a redistribution of land and assets may have increase direct entitlements for some families

Market entitlements: (net decline) disruption of markets and increased transaction costs of going to the market. However within base areas new internal markets may have been formed, with for example the introduction of a barter system.

Civic entitlements: (mixed) perhaps positive impacts within groups – an enhanced sense of group identity and increased collective activities within base areas. However, erosion of social capital across groups – lack of trust, politicisation of life in the village. Displacement may have adversely affected traditional forms of reciprocity.

Public entitlements: (decline) decline of government’s role and consequent loss of entitlements; declining donor and NGO activities in affected areas; lack of voice to make claims on the state.

Extra legal entitlements: (rise) criminality may be on the rise – robberies, land grabs, petty theft, growth of protection regimes and Mafia activity. Decline in other forms of entitlements, may have led to an increase in extra legal activities like trafficking, smuggling etc.

Source: Goodhand, 2000

The state may play a critical role in protecting its citizens from the various economic and social costs of conflict. Much depends on the capacity and commitment of the government to poverty alleviation. Mozambique, for instance compares favourably with Angola in this respect (Green, 1994). Government services and expenditure in rebel held areas are likely to decline, as for example in the Maost occupied mid-West of Nepal. In Sri Lanka however, the state continues to be an important source of public entitlements for the war-affected population in the North East. This has played an important role in mitigating some of the effects of the conflict on the chronically poor. Quasi governments may also emerge in rebel held areas and can play a role in upholding security and administering services, as has happened in Sri Lanka and Nepal. The impacts of war, are therefore a product of the nature of the conflict itself and of government structures and capacity - which are themselves affected by conflict. The state is profoundly reshaped by conflict. In extreme cases, war leads to state collapse as for example in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. In other cases, democratic institutions and processes are corroded as a result of the systematic redistribution of power, wealth and status to military actors. Failing state may become increasingly criminalised. As Reno (2000) argues, rulers of ‘shadow states’ use patronage as a means of political control and in fact seek to make life less secure and more materially impoverished for subjects:

“..a shadow state ruler will minimize his provision of public goods to a population. Removing public goods, like security or economic stability, that are otherwise enjoyed by all, irrespective of their economic or political station, is done to encourage individuals to seek the ruler’s personal favour to secure exemption from these conditions.” (Reno, 2000: 4)

External intervention also plays an important role and may aggravate or mitigate conflict and chronic poverty. International market forces and intervention can have a major impact particularly on poor countries, which are critically dependent on external finance. Vulnerable economies tend to be highly indebted economies and aid flows tend to be volatile and unpredictable (Stewart and FitzGerald, 2000). Conflict leads to capital flight, and the loss of FDI. Growing insecurity encourages speculative activities rather than investment in production and employment and may attract ‘rogue companies’ such as the diamond companies in Angola or Liberia, who have a high tolerance of risk.

Aid policies and programmes may also be a significant factor. Stewart and FitzGerald argue that orthodox SAPs may well have counterproductive results in chronically poor and vulnerable countries. Economic conditionalities can undermine the capacity and legitimacy of the state, which is forced to cut back on social services. Moreover, aid often fails to ‘trickle down’ and reach the chronically poor - a problem experienced in stable contexts but accentuated in areas of conflict because of problems of security, access, and voice. Research also points to the potential for aid to undermine social contracts between states and citizens (de Waal) or to inadvertently ‘do harm’ by fuelling the war economy (Anderson, 1999). In Liberia warlords practiced ‘people farming’ to loot food aid (Atkinson, 1997) while in Afghanistan, donors were willing to accept ‘wastage levels’ of up to 40%.

19

Group Table 1: The links between conflict, identity and chronic poverty

Links between conflict and identity

Links to chronic poverty

RegionalSub-national/

In conflicts

which

are

spatially

defined,

as

for

whoin such borderland areas is filled by rebel groupsservices are at skeletal levels. The political vacuumGovernment services including policing and welfaresuffering tends to be geographically concentrated.instance in Sri Lanka and Nepal the distribution of

establish

their

own

systems

of taxation

(^) and

predation.

the North Eastand is most severe in ‘heart land’ areas, as for instance inChronic poverty tends to follow the contours of the conflict

and mid West

of Sri Lanka and Nepal

Outmigration(Bird, Shepherd and Hulme, 2001).ie areas where physical, social and human capital is lowof regions that already had low levels of ‘geographic capital’respectively. Violent insurgency has increased the isolation

and/or

repeated

displacement

lead

to a

The residual and highly dependent population.

poor

living

in such

areas

as

Keen

aptly

describes, fall

‘below the law’, in the sense of losing the

state (Keen, 2000:32).partially outside the physical and economic protection of thelaw’s protection. Populations therefore come to fall, at least

groups Minority

their Certain groups may be politically vulnerable due to

ethnicity,

religion

or

language.

Research

war.hardened identities are primarily a consequence ofsuggests that rather than identity causing conflict,

dying during infancy or before the age of 5 years.significant differentials between ethnic groups in the odds ofchronic poverty. Brockerhoff and Hewett for instance foundtranslate into political and social exclusion and resultingIn peace time a lack of protection of minority rights may

Krings, T (1993) found that

economic and ethnic

factors

play

an

important

role

in the

degree

of

people’s vulnerability to famine.

Conflict

may

reinforce

(^) these

relationships,

or in certain

cases, they may be challenged or reversed

. This either^6

deepens existing poverty or creates a ‘new poor’.

differences:nal Intergeneratio

Intergenerational

tensions

are

both

a cause

and

consequence

of

militarised

violence.

Chingona

highlights

the

role

of young

men

as

both

the

Generational hierarchies may be reversed.perpetrators and victims of violence in Mozambique.

Conflict

maycan be empowering for the youth and the elderly

be

targeted.

In Sierra

Leone,

for

instance

military groups as potential or suspected fightersvulnerable in that they are likely to be targeted byOn the other hand young men are likely to be morelocal ‘big men’ (Keen, 1998).teenager fighters ritually humiliated the chiefs and

The

elderly

are

one

of the

groups

most

likely

to be

kinshipfamily members forced to flee. They are most dependent onThey are likely to be less mobile and may be left behind bychronically poor as a result of the effects of violent conflict.

and

extended

family

(^) networks

(^) which

may

have

families,factors make children vulnerable including the break up ofMany of the above points also apply to children. A range ofadversely affected by war.services such as pensions and health servicex that may beThey are also likely to depend more heavily on governmentbroken down as a result of conflict.

the

loss

of

educational

opportunities

and

recruitment as child soldiers.

Gender

hasMen and women experience war differently. Conflict

mixed

impacts

on

gender

roles

and

relationships.

Women may be vulnerable to acts of

weaponviolence, including rape, which has been used as a

of war.

An

increased

proportion

of

Women may also take on new roles. In Sri Lanka forhouseholds may become female-headed.

Female-headed

households

are

likely

to be

chronically

In some respects conflict may be empowering as womenby their society (Luckham et al 44: 2001).has poverty implications for women who may be ostracisedSexual violence has severe health consequences and rapepoor, although not automatically so.

For instance the Tajik-dominated government established in Afghanistan in the early 1990s temporarily reversed the previous decades of Pashtun hegemony.^6