page_title: The World Development Report 2011
section_title: The WDR framework
hierarchical_section_title: The World Development Report 2011 / The WDR framework
caption_attribution_description: English: The 2011 WDR conflict resolution framework
context_page_description: The 2011 World Development Report: Conflict, Security and Development is a document by the World Bank on the challenges organised violence poses to the advancement of less developed countries. The report finds that over the last 30 years poverty has been reduced for most of the world's population - but this is not the case for the estimated 1.5 billion people living in countries blighted by on-going conflict. Not one low income country suffering from on-going violence has achieved a single Millennium Development Goal. Once mass violence takes root in a society, it can take a generation or more to restore stability.
  Organised violence as defined by the report includes civil and inter-state war as well as the violence resulting from criminal activity, especially drug and human trafficking. The WDR does not address interpersonal and domestic violence, though it acknowledges they are also relevant to development.
  The report finds that overall mass conflict has become less prevalent over recent decades, with the average number of worldwide battle deaths dropping from 164,000 per year in the 1980s to only 42,000 in the 2000s.
context_section_description: The WDR framework is a process model showing how countries can break free of cycles of violence by establishing legitimate and effective institutions to promote stability and prosperity. Rather than being a top-down recommendation from the World Bank, the framework reflects the experiences of what worked best for various countries which have already successfully overcame prolonged violence.  Case studies showing this are given for Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Rwanda and many other countries. The two key stages identified are confidence building and institutional transformation. The report details a number of "core tools" for use during each stage, which  have been commonly used by those countries which have successfully resolved their long-running conflicts.
  To create conditions where attempts at institutional transformation are likely to succeed, various factions with the power to make or break the undertaking need to gain confidence that the transformation will deliver worthwhile results.  Two key tactics for building trust are for national governments to deliver early, tangible results that demonstrate a commitment to reform and work through building "inclusive enough" coalitions.  After delivering any available "quick wins", the coalitions build national and local support for peaceful change. Getting previously competing factions to work together often requires signals of a clean and irreversible break with the past.
  Once sufficient trust has been built up to attempt institutional transformation, the first priority is to increase the capability of institutions to provide security, justice and jobs.  As experience has shown there is a limit to how much change a society can absorb at one go,  it is rarely advisable to attempt a "big bang" transformation that will achieve everything at once. Rather a "virtuous cycle" seems to work best, with alternating periods of confidence building and institutional transformation. Both the key stages should be nationally led, but the framework encourages international agencies to provide much needed support, and to help guard the process from being derailed by external stress.
  The WDR says the cycle can often take a generation to reach the end goal, which will involve the formation of stable, legitimate institutions able to support a satisfactory standard of citizen security, justice and jobs.
caption: The WDR framework depicts conflict resolution as a cyclical process where periods of confidence building among stakeholders alternate with the strengthening of legitimate institutions.
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