May 2000 - Of the 27 major armed conflicts that occurred in 1999, all but two took place within national boundaries. As an impediment to development, internal rebellion especially hurts the world's poorest countries. What motivates civil wars? Greed or grievance? Collier and Hoeffler compare two...

At the time of the creation of the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UNDHA), now the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), no-one working in the relief and rehabilitation programs of Liberia, Kurdistan or the former Yugoslavia could be heard to question "where is the...

This note, summarizing recent research by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effects of economic policy and aid on the risks of conflict. It finds that aid and policy do not have direct effects on conflict risk. However, both directly affect...

July 2000 - Poverty in the developing world will decline by roughly half by 2015 if current growth trends and policies persist. But a disproportionate share of poverty reduction will occur in East and South Asia, poverty will decline only slightly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it will increase in...