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"There is near-universal agreement that prevention is preferable to cure, and that strategies of prevention must address the root causes of conflicts, not simply their violent symptoms."   From the Millennium Report

Vital Statistics

• The year 2000 marks 55 years without a conflict between the world’s major powers, the longest such period in the history of the modern system of States.
• The year 2000 also marks the end of a decade in which civil wars, ethnic cleansing and actions of genocide—fuelled by weapons widely available in the global arms bazaar—claimed more than 5 million lives, many or most of them civilians.
• Almost one third of all countries in the world have experienced violent conflict in the past 10 years.
• In the 1990s deadly conflict cost the international community an estimated $200 billion, not including the untold cost to the countries concerned, where economic development has been set back by decades.
• More than 40 eminent diplomats and senior United Nations officials are currently assigned by the Secretary-General as special representatives, special envoys or advisers to head peacekeeping or peace-building missions or to track evolving situations, provide good offices and act as mediators.