Civil Conflict and Conditional Cash Transfers: Effects on Demobilization

Conflict in Africa during COVID-19: Social Distancing, Food Vulnerability and Welfare Response

“…6 An example of such initiatives is the conditional cash transfer introduced in Colombia in 1999 in response to the major economic crises that affected Latin America (Familias en Acción). This conditional cash transfer reduced the probability of conflict and demobilised combatants, mainly children aged 10-17 (Pena et al, 2017). Similar evidence has been found in the Philippines (Crost et al, 2016).…”

“…Nonetheless, there is more promising evidence that cash transfers are successful in reducing food vulnerability and poverty in the Africa context (Chakrabarti, Handa, Natali, Seidenfeld, & Tembo, 2020). There is also evidence that (conditional) cash transfers can reduce the incidence of violent conflicts if adequately tailored to local contexts (Crost, Felter, & Johnston, 2016;Pena, Urrego, & Villa, 2017). Our results resonate with these encouraging findings on conflict reduction.…”

“…Nonetheless, conditional cash transfers designed with the implicit aim of dismantling guerrilla groups have been found successful in reducing conflicts. 6 The literature suggests that these type of anti-poverty programmes can reduce the capacity of insurgents to recruit combatants from villages, increase electoral support for the incumbent government (Labonne, 2013), and increase the cost of opportunity of joining illegal activities in settings with long-entrenched civil conflicts (Pena et al, 2017).…”

Conflicts increased in Africa shortly after COVID-19 lockdowns, but welfare assistance reduced fatalities

“…Aid, food programs, and cash transfers have also historically been implemented to mitigate the risk of conflict, resulting in mixed findings. Sufficiently tailored conditional cash transfers have been shown to demobilize combatants ( Crost et al, 2016 ; Pena et al, 2017 ). However, insurgent groups can also sabotage welfare interventions to maintain their influence and further increase violence and conflicts ( Berman et al, 2011 ; Nunn and Qian, 2014 ).…”

Contribution of science, technology, and innovation to post-conflict in Colombia

“…The history of the armed conflict in Colombia shows that since the mid-sixties, groups of peasants in regions abandoned by the State took up arms as a protest against the lack of an inclusive State consistent with the attention to basic health needs, education among many other needs of these regions. In this context, armed insurgent groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), EPL (Popular Liberation Army) and the ELN (National Liberation Army) emerged (32), (39). Their left political ideologies were supported by the communist governments of Russia, China, and motivated by revolutionary actions in Cuba, Argentina, and Chile.…”