UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY CONCLUDES TWO-YEAR LONG MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON COMPLEX HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES

Press Release
UNU/191

UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY CONCLUDES TWO-YEAR LONG MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON COMPLEX HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCIES

The United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU/WIDER) and Queen Elisabeth House, Oxford, United Kingdom, have just completed a two-year long multidisciplinary research project on "The Wave of Emergencies of the Last Decade: Causes, Extent, Predictability and Response".

The project comprises 40 papers, including a dozen country case studies which address the root causes, triggers and manifestations of complex humanitarian emergencies with particular attention to the significance of such causal factors as economic decline and worsening inequality, slow growth in food production, inflation, patterns of past conflict and external economic shocks. The policy implications of these findings for preventing or ending conflicts are also explored. In this regard, the project stresses the need for preventive strategies which address both the political and economic underlying causes of complex humanitarian emergencies and promote greater political, economic and social inclusiveness.

Complex humanitarian emergencies pose a major challenge to the international community today, and it was with a view to stimulating a process of collective reflexion that would contribute to the formulation of effective responses to this challenge that this study was undertaken. As part of this process, the United Nations University will organize a special briefing on 22 March. The three main contributing authors and coordinators of the project, Professor E. Wayne Nafziger, Professor Frances Stewart and Professor Raimo Vayrynen, will present the result of their work and respond to queries. The meeting will be moderated by Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Director of UNU/WIDER. It will take place in Conference Room 8 of the United Nations Secretariat.

For further information, interested members of permanent missions, Secretariat and representatives of non-governmental organizations are invited to contact the United Nations University Office in North America (tel: 963-6345; fax: 371-9454; e:mail: UNUONA@IGC.APC.ORG).

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