Targeting conflict

The graph - taken from the most recent CIDCM-INSCR Peace and Conflict report - illustrates the decline in armed conflict since the early 1990s, which may come as a surprise. As the report says:

"Despite the prevailing sense of global insecurity,the positive trends traced in previous editions of this report have continued into early 2005. The decline in the global magnitude of armed conflict, following a peak in the early1990s, has persisted and few of the many societal wars contained in the last decade have resumed. Major societal wars are down from twelve at the end of 2002 to eight in early 2005."

The report does a great job of listing and as far as possible quantifying the effects of armed conflict. It's worth mentioning in this blog because it shows the extent to which much of the quantitative work that would be needed for targeting such goals as armed conflict is already being done. Put it this way: if there were the political will to issue Social Policy Bonds that aim to eliminate war, civil war and armed political conflict, then measurement issues, difficult as they might seem, will not be an insurmountable obstacle.