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11. Conflict Prevention and Development Cooperation

Author:
Robert Picciotto and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
Violent conflicts are concentrated in the countries farthest behind in achieving the MDGs. Much work has been done to develop a better understanding of conflicts and their relationship to development, but the development community has yet to engage fully with the need for new policy approaches that can help prevent conflict. Structural conditions that increase vulnerability to political violence and conflict are rarely addressed by current conflict prevention policy work. Without addressing the root causes, sustainable peace cannot be achieved. Surprisingly few studies have analyzed the contribution of aid to the full human security agenda and the current aid policy framework still favors countries with institutional and policy characteristics that are deemed to generate good growth performance. As a consequence, many fragile states (who are also the most vulnerable) have ended up with limited little donor support. A systematic study of aid in relation to conflict prevention is proposed as a policy objective to help fill a significant dimension of the current knowledge gap. Specifically, this project will seek to demonstrate that only by targeting structural risks and state fragility will development cooperation achieve human security. Engagement with fragile states requires a coherent combination of aid and non-aid policies in areas such as international trade and debt.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, International Cooperation, and War

12. Unequal Development in the 1990s: Growing Gaps in Human Capabilities

Author:
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and David Stewart
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper assesses poverty trends by using human development outcomes rather than by using income measures alone. It shows that the decade of the 1990s was a decade of prosperity and progress for the world but also of development disaster for many of the world's poorest countries where key indicators of human development not only failed to progress but began to register reversals based on both income and capability indicators. The paper goes on to identify the poorest performing countries and examines their characteristics. These characteristics suggest common constraints that they face, constraints that merit attention in the fight against global poverty.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Political Economy, and Poverty

13. Justice and Developing Country Debt

Author:
Barry Herman
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:
This paper draws on recent discussions by lawyers, theologians, philosophers and economists to reach some conclusions about the just international treatment of the government over-indebtedness and insolvencies that have occurred and recurred many times in many developing countries. It asks what should be considered “fair” expectations in the relationship of government borrowers and their lenders. It also considers some proposed reforms in the international treatment of sovereign borrowing and debt that are prompted by the ethical analyses.
Topic:
International Relations, Debt, Development, and Post Colonialism