Monday, May 30, 2016

Effects of Social Conflicts on Sustainable Development in the Society

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

Human history is characterized with conflict. There is now consensus among scholars on the inevitability of conflict in relations among human being (Weeks 1992, Fraiser and Hipel 1984, Burton 1997, More 1987, Okoh and Ewhariemen 2001). What therefore differs is the approach or strategy adopted to resolve or manage a particular conflict situation. The effectiveness or otherwise of the management of conflict is itself largely dependent on how the causes of the conflict have been understood.

Conflict refers to contradictions arising from differences in the interests, ideas, ideologies, orientation and precipitous tendencies of the people concerned. These contradictions are inherent at all levels of social and economic interactions of human race. It may therefore exist at the individual, group, institutional, regional, national and international levels. Conflict is thus a pervasive phenomenon in human relationships and has been seen as the “basic unit for understanding social existence (Nnoli, 1998:3-5).

A social conflict occurs “when two or more actors appose each other in social interaction, reciprocally exerting social power in an effort to attain scarce or incompatible goals and prevent the opponent from attaining them”.
Social conflicts constitute one of the major recurring problems bedeviling the socio-economic and political landscape in Africa and Nigeria in particular. Achieving sustainable development has become a difficult task for developing nations, in spite of efforts by development experts to bring about desired development.

The term “sustainable development was brought into common use by the world commission on Environment and Development (WECD) in its 1987 seminar report entitled “our common future”. In a more broad and encompassing definition, sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Abah, 2005).

Its scope covers economic, ecological social and political dimensions to development. The economic component consists of optimizing the use of limited resources and the management of material and energy saving technologies. It provides for the integrity of biological and physical sciences and oriented to human development, preserve stability of public and internal systems.

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