Answers to the Armed conflict quiz

Most of these statistics come from Shattered Lives: The case for tough international arms control (Oxfam International and Amnesty International 2003). You can see more details of this report, download an 8-page summary, download the whole report or order a printed copy online.

1. 42
   Since 1989 – the end of the Cold War between East and West – there have been more than 120 wars worldwide. In the mid-1990s the number of wars increased sharply but the annual total has begun to decrease since the turn of the century.
2. One-third
   An average of 22 billion US dollars a year is spent on arms by countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America – a sum that would otherwise enable those countries to be on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals of achieving universal primary education, as well as targets for reducing infant and maternal mortality. From 1998 to 2001 the USA, the UK and France earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid.
3. Kuwait
   The USA is the fifth biggest spender on arms per head of the population and the UK is the eighth.
4. 56%
   Wars today are concentrated in the poorest countries and these countries can very easily get caught up in a cycle of poverty and conflict.
5. 14%
6. 67%
7. 90%
   This is the figure since the end in 1989 of the 'Cold War' which marked a change in the types of conflicts waged and how they were financed and waged.
8. Iran
   At the end of 2002, around 22 million people across the world were internally displaced – that is, they had to move within their own country to find security. There were 13 million refugees and asylum seekers seeking protection outside their own countries, most of them women and children.
9. 300,000
   It is estimated that roughly 300,000 children under the age of 18 are still participating in armed conflicts around the world. The UK was the last country in Europe to use child soldiers in wars – in 2002 the UK government committed itself legally to end the deployment of under-18s in military activities.
10. 15
    Part three of Article 38 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states: ‘Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of 15 years into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of 15 years but who have not attained the age of18, parties shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.’

Lesson Plan: Finding out about armed conflict

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