Obama's speeches are conscious of the history of democratic conflict and development that has made them possible.
Nicholas van Praag is an adviser to the 2011 World Development Report on conflict and development, due to be published next month This article was amended on 1 April 2011.
He tried to convene a summit on the conflict and development issues in the Niger Delta, and announced plans to create a cabinet position to address to the region's problems.
He has also been offered a scholarship at the University of London to do a master's in conflict and development, a degree he hopes will help him when he eventually returns to Syria.
It is a place obsessed with the world and I had wonderful memories of my the masters in violence, conflict and development that I had completed there a few years earlier.
Also on conflict and development, you can read a medic's first-hand account of working in Yemen amid the ongoing civil war, as well as the UN's warning of economic collapse in South Sudan as fighting in the country continues.
Comprehensive assessments of the relationship between conflict and development have highlighted the need for "inclusive-enough" coalition building in order to lift countries out of violence (World Bank 2011).
This post originally appeared on the World Bank's Conflict and Development blog on November 30, 2010.
A key achievement of the agenda, particularly through Goal 16 on Peace, Security, and Inclusivity, is its emphasis on the interdependence between conflict and development; that underdevelopment and inequality are drivers of conflict, while violence undermines development.
Prior to establishing the magazine, Asif worked at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, conducting research on women, peace, conflict, and development in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
