Congo M23 rebels. Jerome Delay/Press Association. All rights reserved. Over the past three decades, the face of fighting has changed significantly. In 1986, Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan were conducting arms talks, while mass uprisings and violence were breaking out in Northern Ireland.
Today the Cold War is over. In fact, the quiet good news story of the last three decades was that, after a spike in armed violence at the end of the Cold War, the zone of peace globally was expanding. In 1990 there were 50 wars; by 2010 – there were 30 wars, with fewer people killed in violent conflict and key peace deals being hammered out in Myanmar, in Colombia, in the Philippines.
Sadly violence is now on the rise again - from the brutality of Syria to inter-community violence in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, to violence linked to crime and gangs as in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. Global challenges, such as the rise in violent extremism and climate change, are ever-growing threats to peace. By 2014, people were fighting 40 wars, with terrorism reaching an all-time high, and battle deaths reaching a 25-year high.
