The Impacts of Armed Conflict on Human Development: a Review of the Literature

Abstract:

The detrimental impacts of wars on human development are well documented across research domains, from public health to micro-economics. However, the compartmentalized study of conflict impacts has led to incongruities whereby macro-level assessments of war damages largely exceed the sum of costs identified by micro studies. A possible explanation for this puzzle lies in the linkages among conflict impacts: as several dimensions of development are inter-dependent, the combined effect of conflicts on societies and individuals may be much greater than the sum of their domain-specific impacts. Macro-economic growth depends on political institutions and trust, which in turn affect the provision of public health services; the spread of diseases depends on access to clean water and is affected by economic performance; migration impacts the distribution of resources, the risk of infections, and the job market – all of which are affected by conflicts. Studying conflict impacts in silos may thus severely under-estimate the total damage of war, hinder a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of conflicts, and limit our ability to effectively sustain human development. A more holistic approach is needed to understand how various impacts mutually interact. This article takes a first step in filling this gap by providing a comprehensive review of the literature on the impacts of armed conflicts on development, and discussing how these impacts intertwine and reinforce each other. An inter-disciplinary team reviews the impacts of conflicts across 9 dimensions of human development: health, schooling, livelihood and income, macro-economic conditions, water access, food security, political institutions, migration and displacement, and socio-psychological processes. Attention is paid to both direct and indirect impacts of violence, and to the spatial and temporal extent of the damages caused by conflict. As these impacts likely differ by conflict intensity and type, as well as according to individual and group-level characteristics of the exposed populations, the review also discusses how the effects of wars vary across contexts and conditions, and how different age, gender or societal groups are unequally vulnerable to wars. We conclude by outlining implications for future research. By systematically reviewing conflict impacts across different domains, the present review contributes to a deeper understanding of how war reverberates across society. In turn, this multidisciplinary understanding of conflict impacts may help reconcile divergent estimates, encourage cross-disciplinary analyses, and enable forward-looking policies that minimize the costs of war.

Authors:

Paola Vesco, Ghassan Baliki, Tilman Brück, Stefan Döring, Annelie Eriksson, Hanne Fjelde, Debarati Guha-Sapir, Jonathan Hall, Carl Henrik Knutsen, Maxine R. Leis, Hannes Mueller, Christopher Rauh, Ida Rudolfsen, Ashok Swain, Phaidon T.B. Vassiliou, Johan von Schreeb, Nina von Uexkull and Håvard Hegre