dj-chefron
10-11-2007, 08:16 AM
:mecry:
NAIROBI, Kenya — Years of bloody conflict in Africa have drained funds from education, health care and battling diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and advocacy groups have now put a price tag on the continent's recent battles.
Armed conflict cost African countries an estimated $284 billion over 16 years — roughly equal to the amount of aid that major donors gave to the continent during the same period — according to a study released Wednesday by the aid agency Oxfam International and two nonprofit arms-control groups, Saferworld and the International Action Network on Small Arms.
The study found that the economies of 23 African nations shrank by an average of 15 percent a year during conflicts. The losses amount to about $18 billion annually, which the researchers said was enough to address the entire continent's shortfalls in education, clean water and sanitation, and to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and malaria, which kill millions in Africa every year.
Africa is experiencing fewer and less deadly conflicts now than it was five years ago, despite renewed violence this year in Somalia, the Darfur region of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report doesn't examine actual military expenditures by governments, but focuses on the economic costs — such as debt, high unemployment and lost natural resources — that often linger after the fighting is over.
"It's certainly clear that there have been success stories, and that democracy is increasing in Africa," said Debbie Hiller, an Oxfam policy adviser who wrote the report. "But even if all conflict ended tomorrow . . . it does take many years for economies to get back to where they should have been."
The study covered 23 of the 24 African countries that experienced wars, civil wars or insurgencies from 1990 to 2005. Researchers estimated the decline in gross domestic product by comparing each warring country with a peaceful country of similar size and economic status, based on indicators from the World Bank. Most of the benchmark nations weren't in Africa.
For example, the economy of the tiny central African nation of Burundi shrank by an average of 1.1 percent during each year of a 13-year civil war that ended in 2005. Researchers projected that a peaceful Burundi could have posted 5.5 percent annual growth, meaning that the conflict cost the economy some $5.7 billion.
The continent-wide estimates don't include Somalia, which has been so lawless since 1991 that numbers weren't available. They also don't count the costs of humanitarian and peacekeeping operations or the lingering impact on postwar economies of rapid urbanization and population displacement, two key features of African conflicts.
"There's no totally accurate way of coming up with this number," Hillier said. "It just gives a sense of scale of the problem, which is quite scary."
The report, titled "Africa's Missing Billions," was released as part of a campaign at the United Nations for stricter controls on the global trade in small arms and light weapons. The U.N. General Assembly has begun hearing proposals for a new treaty regulating the arms trade, a process that only the United States, by far the world's leading arms dealer, voted last year to oppose.
Gun-control opponents, led by the National Rifle Association, worry that a treaty would infringe on private gun ownership. Oxfam and other advocates have called for a framework that restricts only sales of arms that are likely to be used in conflicts or to violate international law.
African nations broadly favor stiffer controls on small arms sales. The most commonly used weapon in African conflicts is the Kalashnikov assault rifle, 95 percent of which come from outside the continent, according to the report.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Years of bloody conflict in Africa have drained funds from education, health care and battling diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and advocacy groups have now put a price tag on the continent's recent battles.
Armed conflict cost African countries an estimated $284 billion over 16 years — roughly equal to the amount of aid that major donors gave to the continent during the same period — according to a study released Wednesday by the aid agency Oxfam International and two nonprofit arms-control groups, Saferworld and the International Action Network on Small Arms.
The study found that the economies of 23 African nations shrank by an average of 15 percent a year during conflicts. The losses amount to about $18 billion annually, which the researchers said was enough to address the entire continent's shortfalls in education, clean water and sanitation, and to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and malaria, which kill millions in Africa every year.
Africa is experiencing fewer and less deadly conflicts now than it was five years ago, despite renewed violence this year in Somalia, the Darfur region of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report doesn't examine actual military expenditures by governments, but focuses on the economic costs — such as debt, high unemployment and lost natural resources — that often linger after the fighting is over.
"It's certainly clear that there have been success stories, and that democracy is increasing in Africa," said Debbie Hiller, an Oxfam policy adviser who wrote the report. "But even if all conflict ended tomorrow . . . it does take many years for economies to get back to where they should have been."
The study covered 23 of the 24 African countries that experienced wars, civil wars or insurgencies from 1990 to 2005. Researchers estimated the decline in gross domestic product by comparing each warring country with a peaceful country of similar size and economic status, based on indicators from the World Bank. Most of the benchmark nations weren't in Africa.
For example, the economy of the tiny central African nation of Burundi shrank by an average of 1.1 percent during each year of a 13-year civil war that ended in 2005. Researchers projected that a peaceful Burundi could have posted 5.5 percent annual growth, meaning that the conflict cost the economy some $5.7 billion.
The continent-wide estimates don't include Somalia, which has been so lawless since 1991 that numbers weren't available. They also don't count the costs of humanitarian and peacekeeping operations or the lingering impact on postwar economies of rapid urbanization and population displacement, two key features of African conflicts.
"There's no totally accurate way of coming up with this number," Hillier said. "It just gives a sense of scale of the problem, which is quite scary."
The report, titled "Africa's Missing Billions," was released as part of a campaign at the United Nations for stricter controls on the global trade in small arms and light weapons. The U.N. General Assembly has begun hearing proposals for a new treaty regulating the arms trade, a process that only the United States, by far the world's leading arms dealer, voted last year to oppose.
Gun-control opponents, led by the National Rifle Association, worry that a treaty would infringe on private gun ownership. Oxfam and other advocates have called for a framework that restricts only sales of arms that are likely to be used in conflicts or to violate international law.
African nations broadly favor stiffer controls on small arms sales. The most commonly used weapon in African conflicts is the Kalashnikov assault rifle, 95 percent of which come from outside the continent, according to the report.