The Cost of Conflict and the Economics of Peace

We’re inviting you to join us for our forum series focusing on the relationship between economics and conflict. We’ve already held a session on corruption and future forums will look at the role of business in conflict zones, how money can fuel violence and the role that monetary aid can play, both positive and negative.

tomorrow’s forum is on:

The Cost of Conflict and the Economics of Peace

Tuesday, July 13th from 9:00 to 10:30am
at Johns Hopkins SAIS
BOB Building, Room 500,
1717 Massachusetts Ave. NW,
Washington D.C., 20036

Conflict has an extremely high economic cost: violence destroys infrastructure, shutters store fronts, and scares investors away from potential and existing markets.  Paying soldiers and building the machinery of war can be an enormous cost, driving government debt and directing funding away from productive projects. The Global Peace Index concludes that the global economy lost $28.2 trillion in direct and potential losses due to violence between 2006 and 2009. How and why is violence so costly to the global economy? Given the massive cost of war and the subsequent potential for preventing and resolving conflict,  how can this information be leveraged to make the world a more peaceful place?

Don’t miss your chance to participate in this exciting event!

Register here.

For speaker biographies

Bios

Gary Milante – Gary Milante came to the World Bank in 2003 as a researcher, focusing on the causes and impacts of conflict and fragility as well as on effective post-conflict recovery. His interests are in applied game theory and modeling the political economy of peaceful compromise. Before joining the WDR 2011 team, Gary held a joint position in the Development Economics Research Group and the Bank’s Fragile and Conflict Affected Countries Group. He led the Bank’s “Peace and Development” research project focusing on successful post-conflict economic recovery through effective powersharing arrangements, political systems and macroeconomic policy. He has conducted research in Sudan and has recently written on the upcoming referendum. Additionally, he manages research projects on landmines and geography of conflict data, has written on the “Arab Democracy Deficit” and was a guest editor for a special edition on post-conflict transitions for the Journal of Peace Research.

Gary has taught the World Bank’s core course on fragility and conflict for internal and external audiences and leads the “Carana” post-conflict recovery simulation exercise for the course. He received his PhD in economics from the University of California at Irvine.

Raymond Gilpin – Raymond Gilpin directs USIP’s Sustainable Economies Center of Innovation. He leads the Institute’s work on analyzing complex economic relationships during all stages of conflict (including prevention, mediation, resolution and post-conflict). Gilpin collates sound practices from practitioners and experts and designs appropriate capacity-building and reach-back tools for conflict environments.

Before joining USIP, he served as academic chair for Defense Economics at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University (2003-2007); where he pioneered work on development economics and resource management in Africa’s security sector. He was also lead faculty for Center’s work on energy, maritime security and China. Prior employment includes: director for International Programs, Intellibridge Corporation (now part of Eurasia Group); senior economist at the African Development Bank Group; research director at the Central Bank of Sierra Leone; and economist at the World Bank.

Gilpin holds a doctorate from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. His thesis was on Macroeconomic Stabilization and Parallel Markets (1993). He also holds an Executive Certificate in International Finance and Capital Markets from Georgetown University.

Zoë Cooprider is the US Program Manager for the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a global think tank dedicated research and education on the linkages between business, peace and economics. Zoë represents IEP in the US, primarily dedicating her time to the Global Peace Index, which ranks the nations of the world by their peacefulness and identifies some of the drivers of peace, and Building Blocks of Peace, an innovative 4-module series of education resources. Zoë joined the Global Peace Index team in 2008. In 2008-2009, also served as Program Manager for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, where she helped produce the Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations and organized the Collaboration Connections discussion series. Zoë previously served as a Research Assistant at the US Institute of Peace where she helped launch the center on Economies and Conflict. During her tenure at USIP, she contributed to special reports on post-conflict employment generation and conflict-sensitive infrastructure planning and published a brief on the political economy of revitalizing state-owned industries.  Zoë has also held positions at Search for Common Ground, the Business Humanitarian Forum (Geneva, Switzerland), and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Zoë has an MA in International Affairs from Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, from which she was awarded the 2007 Alumni Prize, and a BA in Urban Studies from Vassar College, awarded with honors