Rapid Conflict Prevention Support

Earlier this summer, I read a book called Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations by Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. The book draws on number of correlations between seemingly random things that have important policy implications in economic development.

While Enviro Boys does not directly write about international/economic development, the book reveals important ideas that pertain to climate change which we know is a global issue that requires expertise from several disciplines. I wanted to share one concept from the book that has the highest degree of relevance to this blog. The concept is called Rapid Conflict Prevention Support (RCPS) which is a form of aid that targets countries suffering temporary income drops due to poor weather or commodity price declines. It would provide immediate financial aid to such countries to help stabilize sectors of the economy before conflict erupts.

One of the rationales of this idea stems from Chapter Five titled “No Water, No Peace” where the authors discuss the country of Chad and its complete dependence on rain-fed subsistence agriculture. When the country goes through intense droughts, farmers suffer as their crops die and this affects the entire country's economy. Research from Miguel and his NYU colleagues found that a 5% drop in per capita income due to drought, increases the likelihood of a civil conflict in the following year by nearly one half. Thus when water does not fall from the sky, not only does the economy suffer but there is a risk of greater instability.

To partially remedy this problem, the authors discuss the merits of RCPS as it could provide temporary public work jobs for unemployed young men; the group most likely to participate in armed violence. The authors suggest how donors of RCPS would be able to track rainfall and famine conditions through publicly available websites. As the authors write "Rwanda relies heavily on coffee export earnings to provide for its people, so when the world price of coffee plummets, so do most Rwandans' income. In this way, a sudden drop in key commodity prices acts a lot like a drought, leading to an unexpected decline in income that leaves the population desperate and violence-prone". Miguel explains how potential donors of an RCPS program could track coffee prices on the Chicago Board of Trade and respond to falling prices accordingly.

Similar to large scale environmental issues, the need for prevention is far more critical and cheaper than dealing with the aftermath – floods, droughts, earthquakes or whatever else it may be. Forecasting precipitation, monitoring commodity prices or even an imminent earthquake are not always easy to predict. As such, there is a need for some precautionary mechanism to ensure that matters are not worsened when the event actually happens. Miguel’s RCPS idea would use economic indicators to identify nations most likely to suffer future strife, increasing aid before violence erupts. Such prevention is better than a more costly cure.

Sure, there might be some corruption that takes place through a program such as RCPS, but in a time when droughts are bound to get worse, RCPS can provide immediate funds to help prevent and or alleviate the economic hardship. It could supplement investments in education and infrastructure for long-term sustainability.

If you want to learn more about this topic (and other topics in violence, corruption and poverty) read their book; it's very insightful and a fun read in general. They identify a number of remarkable correlations and provide policy solutions such as RCPS.

Check out Edward Miguel's Bloomberg article here.