The biggest problem developing countries face is political turmoil and violence. Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford and Bjørn Lomborg, Professor at the Copenhagen Business School,
The commodity boom and discovery of mineral resources in fragile states have sown seeds of discord, while the spread of democracy in low-income countries – perhaps surprisingly – increases the statistical likelihood of political violence.
Their solution is the deployment of peacekeeping forces in conflict areas. They have carried out the first cost benefit analysis of such initiatives,
Compared with no deployment, spending $100 million on a peacekeeping initiative reduces the ten-year risk of conflict from around 38% to 16.5%. At $200 million per year, the risk falls further, to around 12.8%. At $500 million, it goes down to 9%, and at $850 million drops to 7.3%.
They suggest that "Peacekeeping is an even better deal when it is provided in the form of an ‘over the horizon’ security guarantee: a reliable commitment to dispatch troops if they are needed." A guarantee could be offered by the UN or a regional power like the African Union to protect governments that came to power through certified democratic elections.
The United Nations is the closest we’ve got to a world government. We need to use it to deal with conflicts in the poorer countries in a consistent way.
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