Beyond Disasters: Creating Opportunities for Peace

by Michael Renner, Zoe Chafe

Overview

In Beyond Disasters: Creating Opportunities for Peace, Michael Renner and Zoë Chafe examine the recent experiences of Indonesia’s Aceh province, Sri Lanka, and Kashmir, among others, and suggest ways to better integrate disaster and conflict responses.

The authors note that the human toll taken by natural disasters is increasing, adding to the list of deadly challenges faced by poor communities and countries worldwide. Recorded disasters nearly doubled between 1987 and 2006, while the number of people affected by these disasters increased more than 10 percent. Women, children, and the elderly are among those most vulnerable.

The report concludes that the intersection of disasters, conflict, and peacemaking requires interdisciplinary responses from governments, international donors, and civil society.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013979857
Publisher:	Worldwatch Institute
Publication date:	06/01/2007
Series:	Worldwatch Reports , #173
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	56
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael is a Senior Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, which he joined in 1987. His work has been motivated by a desire to understand the forces that drive our complex, fascinating world and to use his research and writing talents to ensure that Earth will remain a habitable place not just for his two (grown) children but for all those who share this fragile planet in the next generation.

His work has principally focused on two topics--the connections between environment and employment (“green jobs” / "green economy"), and linkages between environment and peace and conflict. He has managed various editions of the Institute’s two annual publications, State of the World and Vital Signs. In 2007-2008, Michael was the lead author of a report on green jobs commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme, and he has also consulted for the International Labour Organization on this topic. Michael has given presentations on green jobs around the world, including most recently at the International Green Economy Business Exchange in Sao Paulo, at Nueva Sociedad in Buenos Aires, at the the University of Sydney, and at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. In 2005-2007, Michael directed Worldwatch’s Global Security Project, which included the 2005 edition of State of the World, and a 2007 report on natural disasters and peacemaking.

Prior to joining Worldwatch in 1987, Michael was a Corliss Lamont Fellow at Columbia University, and a research associate at the World Policy Institute in New York City. Born and raised in Germany, Michael received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Konstanz in southern Germany, and a Master's degree in international relations from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He spent a year as an intern at the UN Center on Transnational Corporations in 1979-80.

Michael is a Senior Advisor to the Institute for Environmental Security (The Hague/Brussels), serves on the board of the Global Policy Forum and is a member of the International Program Advisory Committee to CoCooN (Conflict and Cooperation over Natural Resources in Developing Countries), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.