Conflict and Violence Prevention Works. How Do We Sell It Politically

In an era of rising violence and shrinking budgets, the case for prevention has never been stronger—or harder to make.

The hardest thing to communicate in public policy is a non-event. Few news headlines describe when a city’s homicide rate falls quietly over a decade, when a community at risk never quite tips into gang recruitment, when a potential terrorist is redirected by a counsellor rather than arrested by a counter-terrorism unit, or when a conflict is narrowly averted. Successful prevention is often invisible. And that is why it often keeps losing to the politics of urgency.

The system designed to prevent conflict and organized violence is breaking down, and the timing could not be worse. For the past 80 years, preventing conflict and promoting peace has been at the heart of an international system anchored by the United Nations (UN). Measures were put in place to prevent major forms of organized violence from breaking out. Mechanisms were deployed to coordinate responses to crises as they emerged. Programs were financed to anticipate violence and address its root causes. It did not always work, but it held.

It is holding no longer.