'Targeting the Unarmed: Strategic Rebel Violence in Civil War'

By Lisa Hultman

Rebel attacks on civilians constitute one of the gravest threats to human security in contemporary armed conflicts. But why do rebel groups kill civilians?
The dissertation approaches this question from a strategic perspective, trying to understand when and why rebel groups are likely to target civilians as a conflict strategy. It combines quantitative studies using global data on rebel group violence with a case study of the civil war in Mozambique. The overall argument is that rebel groups target civilians as away of improving their bargaining position in the war relative to the government.
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Paper I introduces new data on one-sided violence against civilians, presenting trends over time and comparing types of actors and conflicts. Paper II argues that democratic governments are particulary vulnerable to rebel attcks on civilians, since they are dependent on the population. Corroborating this claim, statistical evidence shows that rebels indeed kill more civilians when fighting a democratic government. Paper III argues that rebels target civilians more when losing on the battlefield, as a method of raising the costs for the government to continue fighting. A statistical analysis employing monthly data on battle outcomes and rebel violence, supports this argument. Paper IV takes a closer look at the case of Mozambique, arguing that the rebel group Renamo used large-scale violence in areas dominated by government constituents as a means for hurting the government.

United Nations Environment Programme: 'After the Tsunami: Sustainable Building Guidelines for South-East Asia'

In the aftermath of disasters, project managers are often overwhelmed by the challenges related to reconstruction. This manual addresses those challenges by providing project managers with guidance in various aspects of sustainable reconstruction.
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Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters: Announcement of EM-DAT’s new disaster classification

One of the major current challenges in the field of disaster data is to overcome the limitations induced by the lack of clear standards and definitions, which lead to inconsistent reliability and poor inter-operability of different disaster data compilation initiatives.

CRED militates since years for the creation of internationally recognized standards and definitions. That’s why we are particularly happy to announce a major step forward in the development of a standardized international classification of disasters. Indeed, CRED and MünichRe have recently led a collaborative initiative, agreed on and implemented a common “Disaster Category Classification for Operational Databases". This new common classification has been established through several technical meetings that brought together CRED, MünichRe, SwissRe, ADRC and UNDP and represents a first step in the development of a standardized international classification of disasters.
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United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: 'Securing Our Future'

The report on the state of HIV and AIDS in Africa focuses on the cultural factors, including gender inequalities, wife inheritance and some sexual practices that have a great influence on the AIDS epidemic and the responses that are specific to the continent, and must be better understood and changed.
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Getting Africa on Track to Meet the MDGs on Water and Sanitation: A Status Review of Sixteen African Countries

Is Africa on target towards halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015? This is one of the key questions that the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) has been addressing in a bid to support national initiatives to measure and track progress towards the MDG and WSSD global targets.

Recognizing that the continent requires a mighty effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on water supply and sanitation, AMCOW has been collaborating with regional partners to bring together current data so that African sector leaders and support agencies can assess progress and have a comparative basis for sharing country experience and identifying remedial action.

These MDG Country Status Reports are the result of collaborative inputs by AMCOW, the African Development Bank, the European Union Water Initiative, the United Nations Development Programme, the Water and Sanitation Program-Africa, and the World Bank.
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WFP: World Hunger Series 2007 - Hunger and Health

Hunger and Health explores the multiple relationships between hunger and poor health, and how they affect the growth of individuals, physiologically and psychologically, constraining the development of nations both socially and economically.

Examining the profound effect that hunger has on health, including disease prevention and treatment, it gives special attention to access to quality food and healthcare, in particular for the marginalized and poor. It also identifies critical junctures in the human life cycle when the benefits of reducing hunger and improving poor health have a profound impact. It demonstrates how aligning of hunger and health interventions can offer proven solutions that reach those most in need, and contains compelling evidence which confirms that hunger and poor health are solvable problems today. It encourages those involved in policy, programming and advocacy to take action to address some of the most urgent hunger and health problems.
Essential reading for anyone concerned about eliminating hunger.

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The Strategic Context: Peacekeeping in Crisis, 2006-08

By Richard Gowan

There is a consensus that the UN needs a stronger strategic culture, but its strategic circumstances militate against this. Since 2006, the UN has struggled with a series of crises that have overshadowed efforts to develop the idea of integration. It also faces a systemic crisis, in that its framework for deploying missions has been undermined in Darfur. In addition it faces a paradigmatic crisis, as many of its assumptions about transitions from war to peace have been shown wanting in cases from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. At a time of increasing rivalry among major powers, not least in the Security Council, the UN may not develop comprehensive strategies aimed at transforming post-conflict societies. But it may be able to achieve more limited but politically credible goals.

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