Somalia could fall into the same trap as Afghanistan and Iraq where massive influxes of aid create a short-term boom in the economy but don’t necessarily lay the groundwork for sustainable growth, said Aisha Ahmad, assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and chief operation officer of the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation, an internationally renowned organization in Somalia that has provided emergency relief to people throughout the civil war.

This paper analyzes the recent history of relations between the UN Security Council and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) with respect to peace operations. Collaboration in this area was born out of the comparative advantages of both institutions, but it has suffered from several problems, including the AU’s weak bureaucratic, logistical, and financial capabilities. This has resulted in an unequal partnership where the AU’s major peace operations remain dependent on the UN and other partners for support.

With the adoption of the new Arms Trade Treaty and the G8 Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, the international community has taken major steps towards creating an international framework of deterrence for sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict.

Half a million people die violently each year from interpersonal violence, organized crime, and civil wars. Not only do premature deaths result in productivity losses and inconsolable pain and suffering, they represent a drag on economic growth. In the fragile societies where most violence occurs, the development trajectories of the families and dependents of those killed will be permanently set back, having lost fathers, mothers, siblings, breadwinners, and entrepreneurs.

Human Rights Watch’s latest report “Death From the Skies” on atrocities in Syria covers the aerial attacks perpetrated by the Syrian security forces. Since these started in July 2012, they have only intensified to a disastrous effect on the Syrian people, killing at least 4,300 civilians, according to a source it quotes.

Cell phones, social media, crowdsourcing, crisis mapping, blogging, and big data can help to forestall crises and to address the root causes of violence.

Kenya's peaceful March 4 elections was the result of hard work by both the Kenyans and the international community, said E.J. Hogendoorn, the deputy director for Africa at the International Crisis Group (ICG), though there is much that can be improved in the voting process.

"I think that to some degree the elections have been a success because they have been peaceful; they have not really been a success in terms of how they were logistically implemented," said Mr. Hogendoorn.

In this interview, Tobias von Gienanth, author of Peace Operations 2025, and Almut Wieland-Karimi, director of the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF), discussed how the publication, a collection of possible scenarios for the future of peace operations in the year 2025, came about and the different factors that were used to determine the scenarios.

“We thought a lot has been said about peacekeeping and peace building and peace operations, but no one has really applied modern scenario methodology to peace operations,” said Ms. Wieland-Karimi.

How is it that Kenyans, who have voiced consistent support for the International Criminal Court, voted for candidates who were about to be tried by the same court? The answer reveals a web of contradictions, partly fueled by Western government missteps.