News
Violence seen as villain in cycle of global poverty It’s no secret that violence is hazardous to health; less documented is how much it can damage a country’s economic well-being. A new World Bank study shows violence is not only one cause of poverty but possibly the primary cause. The 2011 World Development Report says peaceful countries are managing to improve economically while poverty is becoming more concentrated in countries with civil war, ethnic strife and organized crime. Add to that the affliction of poor government and a country becomes trapped in a persistent cycle of
The Marketplace July August 2011
poverty and lawlessness, it says. Countries with much political and criminal violence have poverty rates more than 20 percentage points higher than other countries. “Children living in fragile states are twice as likely to be undernourished and three times as likely to be out of school,” says World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. “And the effects of violence in one area can
spread to neighboring states and to other parts of the world, hurting development prospects of others and impeding economic prospects for entire regions.” The report lists strategic priorities for helping countries escape the trap of poverty. In addition to strengthening governance and civil society, it urges more attention to job creation, access to financial services to bring producers and markets to-
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gether, and women’s economic empowerment programs. The theme of youth employment comes up frequently in the report. While recognizing that organized violence has many causes (youth unemployment, ethnic/religious tensions, trafficking networks), it says citizen groups surveyed for the report cited unemployment as overwhelmingly the most important factor for recruitment into gangs and rebel movements. Of those who joined gangs, two fifths said they did so because they were unemployed. Only a tenth did so because they believed in a cause. ◆
