Armed violence reduction: enabling development

This policy paper explains why development policy makers and practitioners should aim to prevent and reduce armed violence. It targets the OECD-DAC donors and development practitioners, but it is equally relevant to developing country civil servants and NGOs. It defines armed violence as the use or threatened use of weapons to inflict injury, death or psychosocial harm, which undermines development. It reasons that armed violence undermines development in the conflict, post-conflict and non-conflict contexts. It outlines the emerging patterns and trends in armed violence, the growing overlaps between conflict and crime and the resulting programming gaps identified as follows:

• inadequate capacity to deal with the combination of criminal violence and conflict
• incorrect identification of the risk and impact of armed violence
• ineffective programmes during the post-conflict transition
• poor planning at sub-national and regional levels
• inexperience on urban armed violence issues
• challenges of dealing with youth gangs
• insufficient understanding and investment in violence and crime prevention
• inadequate awareness of the correlation between organised crime and underdevelopment.

Development programming is evolving to respond to the emerging landscapes of underdevelopment and insecurity, the paper states. It demonstrates how development practitioners can combine different assessment methods and programming responses for more effective interventions to reduce violence. It analyzes how emerging approaches to armed violence reduction (AVR) are important to the broader goals of state-building, peace-building and development. It outlines the need to reinforce government responses that synchronize development, political, military, policing and diplomatic efforts.

The paper recommends the following tools for AVR:

• conflict, stability and fragility assessments, analyzing the underlying structural conditions of instability including institutional capacities and fragilities, socioeconomic and political dynamics, and key actors. AVR recommends that conflict assessments be adapted and applied in non-conflict contexts affected by armed violence
  
• a public health approach, to map armed violence patterns, 'hot spots', risk factors and protective factors
  
• governance and justice sector assessments to generate vital information on the role, capacities and challenges of the formal institutional environment with respect to enabling, or protecting against, armed violence. They can also serve as a barometer of government legitimacy
  
• various survey instruments, such as victimization surveys, security and safety audits, and small arms and multidimensional armed violence surveys. Various existing surveys can help capture people's views of insecurity, as well as data on trade and demand for weapons.