The role of parliament in conflict-affected countries becomes even more important when considering the contribution parliaments make to poverty reduction and the well-recognized correlation between conflict and poverty; namely that poverty increases societies’ vulnerability to conflict, while conflict itself generates poverty.  The objective of this parliamentary training module is to bring these two correlative relationships together to examine the nexus between conflict, poverty and parliament from the perspective of parliaments.   A closer examination of the parliament, conflict, poverty nexus suggests that parliaments have a vital role to play in managing conflict not just by addressing contentious issues and relationships but by helping to avert poverty, particularly in conflict-affected countries.   

A conflict-affected country, narrowly defined, often means those countries that have recently experienced, are experiencing, or are widely regarded as at risk of experiencing violent conflict.  However, this is a relatively blunt definition of the intricate concept of conflict.  For the purposes of this parliamentary training module, conflict is defined as, the “pursuit of incompatible goals by different groups.”  This is a much broader definition than armed or violent conflict and enables parliaments to consider ways they can manage and transform conflict at all stages of the conflict cycle, not just when conflict reaches the crisis stage. 

Adopting this broader definition of conflict enables us to examine how to stop emerging conflict developing into violent conflict.  This is important as there has been a decline in the incidence of civil wars over the last couple of years, shifting the focus away from the resolution of violent conflict to an examination of how emerging conflict can be better managed to prevent an increase in the incidence of violent conflict.  It is believed that the strategies discussed in this parliamentary training module have a broad application, but are most applicable to those nations that are prone to civil violence.