A major report analysing conflict trends in the Arab world from 1946 to 2019, written by researchers from the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS) and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) was released on Wednesday 25 August 2021, during a conference led by the authors and attended by researchers, experts and diplomats.
Opening remarks were delivered by the directors of CHS and PRIO, Sultan Barakat and Henrik Urdal, in which they touched upon the important and strong partnership that has developed between both institutions as well as the relationship between PRIO and the department of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University which provided the high-quality conflict data analysed in the report.
It was pointed out that this collaboration will not be the last, and that the report responded to a shared ambition to build high-quality and evidence-based policy advice that has transformative power.
In this conference, the authors discussed the most prominent findings of the report and the conclusions that have been reached. Their interventions began with a presentation of trends in the Arab World, analysis, and findings, followed by a global trends overview that contextualised and compared various regional trends.
The report documents and disaggregates the rise in armed conflicts in the region as a pre-requisite for understanding their causes and dynamics, and for addressing and identifying the possible solutions. Furthermore, it unpacks conflict trends in the Arab world beyond simplistic enumeration of conflict events or occurrences, offering a more comprehensive and accurate overview.
The publication of this report comes together as the Arab world continues to reel from a series of protracted conflicts and their long-term consequences, and is part of the wider effort by CHS and PRIO to examine and contextualise issues related to conflict and peacemaking within the region through a comparative and historical framework. It intends to act as a springboard from which to generate intellectual discussion and exchange in and beyond the Arab region.