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Survey charts cost of armed violence

Survey charts cost of armed violence

By Frances Williams in Geneva

Published: September 12 2008 02:40 | Last updated: September 12 2008 02:40

About three quarters of a million people die each year as a result of armed violence, and the majority of deaths result from criminal acts rather than war, according to a new study.

While war reduces the growth of affected economies by around 2 per cent a year for the duration of the conflict, the cost of armed violence that is not conflict-related also imposes huge economic costs and holds back development, the study by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey notes.

It estimates that on a global scale non-conflict armed violence may cost up to $160bn annually in lost productivity, equivalent to nearly 1 per cent of poor nations’ GDP.

The report’s findings form the backdrop to a meeting in Geneva on Friday of the 94 signatories to the 2006 Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, sponsored by the Swiss government and the United Nations Development Programme, which aims to achieve “measurable reductions�? in the global burden of armed violence by 2015.

“Armed violence feeds on socio-economic inequalities and underdevelopment with devastating consequences for the poor, innocent and vulnerable,�? says Kathleen Cravero, director of UNDP’s crisis prevention and recovery bureau.

Policies to curb armed violence include weapons collection programmes, tougher firearms legislation, community policing and measures to support livelihoods and create jobs, which have been used successfully by countries such as Brazil.

The report, The Global Burden of Armed Violence, says war is now only one of many forms of armed violence and in most regions not the most important one.

Moreover, “the changing nature of armed violence – including the rise of economically motivated wars, the blurring of the line between political and non-political violence, the growth of transnational criminal gangs, the expansion of non-state armed groups, and persistently high levels of insecurity in most post-conflict situations – makes drawing clear distinctions between different forms of armed violence practically and analytically impossible.�?

Recorded violent deaths of combatants and civilians in armed conflict were about 52,000 a year, according to the report, with three-quarters of those deaths occurring in just ten countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka.

To these should be added a minimum of 200,000 deaths annually from starvation and disease related to conflict, though the report warns that its estimates should be treated as conservative. For instance, some groups have put the number of indirect deaths from war in the Democratic Republic of Congo at up to 400,000 per year.

Still, violent deaths in non-conflict settings are estimated at 490,000 a year or two thirds of the total, twice the number dying directly or indirectly as a result of armed conflict. Countries in southern Africa and Latin America, including Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, South Africa and Venezuela, have among the highest recorded rates of violent death in the world.

Some 60 per cent of all homicides are committed with firearms, the report says, ranging from three quarters in Central America to a fifth in western Europe.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c56a66e0-8015-11dd-99a9-000077b07658.html

By august on Sep 12, 2008, 11:38 in Politics & the war.