Conflict and Development: Causes, Effects and Remedies

Abstract

There is a Dutch metaphor about a little boy at a dike, who did not have enough fingers to put in the dike’s holes, yet the ocean was pressing from the other side. This metaphor reflects the acute current situation for the United Nations, struck by an explosion of crises and enormous demands on peace-keeping, peace-making and peace-building. The urgent task for the UN now is to deal, much more than we have done up until now, with root causes instead of symptoms. Moreover, the ‘growth industries’ of the UN are peace-keeping and humanitarian action, obviously areas that deal with the symptoms, not with the causes. This gives rise for concern.