At the recent International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, an astonishing development in the campaign to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS was unveiled—a microbicide with the ability to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. This welcome development coincides with an intensified focus on women’s health and security needs among donors, especially the United States.

In the four years since the end of Nepal’s civil war, political progress in creating a multi-party unity government in Kathmandu has moved in fits and starts. While the effort to bring the Maoists into the fold has made some headway since 2006, continuing environmental and economic troubles in the Nepalese countryside threaten to undermine these tentative steps.

By signing the financial overhaul package on Wednesday, President Obama also enacted the first major U.S. government attempt to require transparency in the international oil, gas, and mineral trade, aimed at reducing the risk of “resource curse” scenarios that have plagued countries like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The amendment, sponsored by Senators Bill Cardin and Richard Lugar, requires extractive companies registered with the SEC to publicly disclose their tax and revenue payments to foreign governments. The amendment singles out the DRC for additional scrutiny: companies trading in tin, coltan, wolframite, and gold – minerals found commonly in eastern Congo – will need to report whether they are sourcing from the DRC or its neighbors and disclose what steps they have taken to ensure that their supplies are conflict-free.

The international community will be eagerly watching the results of this effort. Can a U.S. law on conflict minerals reduce violence in the DRC’s complex civil war? I recently argued that while the legislation is a great initial effort, it will have little immediate impact on the violence and suffering in the country. In a recent interview with New Security Beat, EITI expert Jill Shankleman called the Cardin-Lugar bill “an important step” but pointed out that it only covers companies who are listed with the SEC and does not reduce the need for countries to enter into EITI.

Will this new law help Afghanistan – with its allegedly vast stores of valuable minerals – avoid the fate of the DRC? While some fear that corruption and lack of transparency may lead to conflict around the new Chinese contract to operate Afghanistan’s Aynak copper field, a recent U.S. Army War College paper argues that contrary to prevailing opinion, the Chinese approach to large-scale extractive investments could complement Western-led military stabilization efforts.

Photo Credit: “Wolframite” from the DRC, courtesy of flickr user Julien Harneis.

In many post-conflict societies throughout the world, young people must deal with poverty, exploitation, and neglect. It is perhaps not surprising then that many youth eventually find themselves embroiled in violence, either as perpetrators or victims of crime. However, often overlooked are young people’s current and potential future contributions to peace, since with the proper support, youth can prove instrumental in a society’s rebuilding process.

In her new book Youth in Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change, Stephanie Schwarz examines the intersections between youth, war, and peace. These linkages were examined at a book launch and panel discussion held last week at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

According to Schwarz, youth are often ignored despite their potentially strong influence on society. Traditionally, children and adults—easier age cohorts to define—dominate the focus of aid programs and government outreach efforts in nations recovering from war, she said.

Yet in post-conflict environments, youth are highly vulnerable, since they often comprise a large portion of society, but have few opportunities available to lead a peaceful life.  Schwarz broadly defines youth to encompass those that should be targeted in order to improve the prospects for a successful post-war reconstruction process.

Schwarz challenged those that link “youth bulge” with instability, describing the concept as an “exaggerated youth theory.” She asserted that youth can play either negative or positive roles in post-conflict societies, but specifically emphasized young people’s positive contributions as community leaders, with their ability to raise a “coordinated political voice…through spontaneous motivation.”

Communities and governments need to support young people engaged in these positive roles, Schwarz added. Otherwise, youth could become a “resource for perpetuation of violence,” she warned, especially if they become apathetic toward the reconstruction process, or are recruited as child soldiers. Schwarz advised that young people need empowerment programs to “provide skills to be productive in [their] community,” as well as to boost their sense of belonging.

Marc Sommers, also with the U.S. Institute of Peace, described obstacles that youth programs currently face in post-conflict societies. He pointed out that although post-war populations are often “youth dominated,” many young people are disengaged from programs linked to reconstruction efforts, which he said exacerbates the feeling of exclusion. In turn, he said, it becomes difficult for youth to reintegrate themselves into their communities, increasing the likelihood that they fall victim to child-soldier recruiters, or become drawn into other negative roles.

Lessons From Kenya: Integrate Young People to Avoid Conflict

In an interview, Margaret Muthee, a scholar with the Wilson Center’s Africa Program, used her personal observations and experiences from Kenya to shed some light on the obstacles young people often face in the developing world.  She emphasized that while “youth are very resilient with lots of potential,” they often find themselves in a “disadvantaged position.”

In Kenya, Muthee said, youth suffer from a vicious cycle, where a lack of educational or economic opportunity places young people—especially men—on a slippery slope toward crime and violence. In turn, she explained, “male youth are vilified” and sometimes dealt with through government-supported “shoot to kill…[measures] designed to instill fear rather than reintegrate them into society.”

Muthee recommended countering the top-down approach of dealing with youth, asserting that with the right approach and improved support from government and civil society, peaceful paths can be developed for young people, which would help achieve a greater sense of security for entire communities.

Marie Hokenson is a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point and an intern with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program.

Photo Credit: “Joy Centre – BEC,” used courtesy of flickr user Ben Namibia.

We must do more than simply take our current understanding of climate-change risk and extrapolate it into the future, asserted Chad Briggs of the Berlin-based Adelphi Research in a video interview with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program.

Leaders from 49 African countries are meeting today in Kampala, Uganda, at the start of a scheduled week-long African Union (AU) summit on maternal and child health. Uganda is a fitting location, as it faces some of the toughest health and demographic challenges in Africa, including a very young and rapidly growing population and poor maternal health services. However, with the memory of last week’s twin bomb blasts still fresh, peace and security issues will surely be on the agenda as well.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a personal email posted by Wired, recently tried to explain to a concerned iPhone customer the complexity of ensuring Apple’s devices do not use conflict minerals like those helping to fund the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However much one might be tempted to pile on Apple at the moment, Mr. Jobs is on to something with regard to the conflict minerals trade – expressing outrage and raising awareness of the problem is one thing but actually implementing an effective solution is quite another.

As finely articulated in a number of recent articles about conflict minerals in the DRC (see the New York Times, Guardian, and Foreign Policy for example), the Congo is, and has been for some time, a failed state.

If we were to actually use less fossil fuel, what would happen to today’s petrostates? “If the oil revenues dry up or even decline a little bit you might have a real serious crisis,” said Stacy VanDeveer of the University of New Hampshire, during an interview with ECSP. We spoke to VanDeveer following his presentation at the Wilson Center event, “Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Mitigation and Adaptation.”