Background
- Poverty and Violence
- Conflict for Profit
- Peace through Advocacy
CONFLICT FOR PROFIT
Conflict is one of the major reasons that millions of poor people are unable to escape poverty. Preventing conflict starts at the local level. Oxfam helps communities identify the root causes of conflict and find creative ways to build lasting peace.
Wars are often fought over the control of natural resources. Governments and individuals can grow wealthy from minerals, gemstones, or oil during wars, leaving little incentive to end a conflict that produces profits. It's a particular problem in areas that can produce a commodity indistinguishable from the same commodity produced in another non-conflict area, such as diamonds. Entire war economies have emerged from African war zones where diamonds are found, such as in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic republic of Congo, and Angola.
War economies take away the incentive for peace and prolong conflict. According to the Congressional Research Service, the fighting in Sierra Leone and Angola generated over four million refugees and internally displaced persons, 700,000 deaths, and over 12,000 child soldiers by 2000. The war in Congo attracted armies from a half dozen countries, all allegedly in search of a piece of that country’s mineral wealth.
Illicit commodity trading also fuels the illegal trade in small arms. The UN estimates that there are over 500 million small arms in circulation worldwide, and that between 40 and 60 percent of small arms trafficking is illegal. Cutting off the supply of illegal commodities is one step to control illegal arms sales, but much more needs to be done.
Oxfam, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), and Amnesty International are collaborating on the Control Arms Campaign, which is pushing for comprehensive arms sales regulations and other measures to cut the supply of arms to human rights abusers.