As a result of civil wars, some of the world's least developed nations are now further away from achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals than they were when the goals were first adopted.

Håvard Mokleiv Nygård, Senior Researcher at PRIO, writes in his article, published on the PRIO blog, that "the world's least developed countries are generally failing to achieve the UN's Millennium Goals."

"One of the main reasons for this failure is civil war. Several of the countries that are furthest from achieving their millennium goals are also those countries most affected by civil war in recent decades. These countries are caught in what Paul Collier (visiting PRIO this month) called the 'conflict trap'."