Every war cloud has its silver lining: World Bank

Rijo Jacob Abraham

New Delhi: The maxim “every cloud has its silver lining” seems to hold true even for some of the worst conflict affected regions. A recent World Bank report says conflict in fact subdues old ways of thinking and social divisiveness for a brief period, which if capitalised by the government and aid agencies yield rewarding results. According to the report released early this month, “Moving out of Poverty: Rising from the Ashes”, in war-torn countries people have a greater tendency of climbing out of poverty. The study found that conflict offers opportunities that no other economic or political upheavals can bring. There is no correlation between people moving out of poverty in peaceful communities and conflict affected communities, contrary to the popular notion that rebuilding is a difficult task. In fact, the opposite could be truer still -- In strife-ridden countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Colombia, and Sri Lanka, communities showed higher mobility rates than their counterparts in peaceful countries. Though in conflict affected areas corruption tends to be rife, this is offset by the absence of any social divide. People in these regions reported a 121 percent increase in number of local associations. “The processes of post-conflict rebuilding efforts should focus in particular on the construction of a national identity beyond religious or ethnic identities,” says Patti Petesch, lead author of the study on Sri Lanka. The study is a microcosm on poverty and local realities of over 60,000 people living in 500 communities in 15 countries. The report, part of its “Moving out of Poverty” series, authored by Deepa Narayan, is based on the premise that mere aggregate statistics on poverty leads to poor policy framing. While some manage to climb out of poverty others fall into it. The study seeks to see poverty more as a process rather than a phenomenon. An earlier World Bank report, part of the series, conducted in India’s four states -- Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh -- revealed that West Bengal has the highest percentage of people, who have moved out of poverty. At the same time, it also had the maximum number of people, who slipped into poverty. In West Bengal, 18.8 percent people moved out of poverty during 1995-2005, while 7.7 percent fell into poverty during the same period. This points to the erratic policy framing which yields only partial results. The aid agencies pitching in the absence of the government must follow a bottom-up approach, provide direct fund transfer and adopt a long-term view among other things. Only this would help in healing the wounds and give peace a chance, said the report.