INTERNATIONAL: UN Population Report Targets Conflict

The UNFPA's 2010 State of World Population report, released today, focuses on the effect of conflict and protracted humanitarian emergencies on women and girls, and shows why the development community should be talking, and talking seriously, about conflict.

Timed to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the UN security council resolution on Women, Peace and Security, the report tries to answer the question: "Are women in war-torn countries faring any better today than they were a decade ago?"

The conclusions are mixed, and the report criticises the over-simplified but well-circulated images of women in conflict.

Instead, the report pulls together first-hand experiences of conflict and natural disaster from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, Jordan, Liberia, Timor-Leste, Uganda, and the West Bank, stressing the plurality and diversity of women's experiences of war.

Unlike the dry, academic tone of past UNFPA reports, this year's edition takes an explicitly journalistic (and quite upbeat) approach, and comes with a flashy trailer.

It also looks at ways in which conflict can sometimes provide opportunities for the renegotiation of gender roles.

Through the experience of conflict, "Many women became the economic lifelines for their families, finding ways to earn enough money for food and other necessities when times were tough. When they returned home, they felt a new sense of confidence and sought to keep their financial independence," says the report.

It suggests we need to take a broader look at the relationships between women and conflict, paying special attention to the role of women in preventing conflict and the role of women in rebuilding after conflict.

"Experience over the past decade underscores the need to tear down the false barriers between crisis, recovery, and development," says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA executive director.

A comment could not be more timely.

David Cameron's plan to double the amount of aid money spent on war-torn countries suggests that such barriers don't exist when it comes to policy, though there does seem to be a substantial gap in how the development community talks (or doesn't talk) about conflict.

It is difficult, for example, to find more than an off-hand mention of conflict, war or occupation in the dozens of reports that flooded out of September's millennium development goals summit in New York.

However, a quick look at the data used to support many of these reports shows a complicated story where development seems as much about ending conflict as reducing poverty.

As an example, a 2010 interagency report on maternal mortality shows that Afghanistan – followed closely by Chad and Somalia – has the highest rate of maternal mortality, the words "conflict" and "war" are not mentioned even once in the report's 55 pages.

By taking a broad look at the effect of conflict on women, the UNFPA report shows us that the unveiling of a new national security strategy is not the only reason the development community needs to find a way to talk seriously about conflict.a