Dr. Paola Vesco, Deputy Director of the Violence & Impacts Early-Warning System (VIEWS), was recently featured in El Tiempo—one of Colombia’s leading newspapers—discussing findings from a new literature review published in World Development.
In the article, titled “Los impactos ‘olvidados’ de los conflictos en el desarrollo humano”, Dr. Vesco explores how the impacts of armed conflict reach far beyond immediate violence. Drawing on the review’s insights, she explains how war can undermine education, health systems, economic stability, and governance—often for years or even decades after fighting ends.
She also highlights how these impacts are deeply interconnected, suggesting potential for positive spillover: “Mitigating or preventing some effects could also have a positive externality on others; there could be a cascading effect across multiple dimensions,” Vesco notes.