Paper short abstract:

This research is to create a better understanding of dangerous places, especially in the Asian region, where the world's poverty, insecurity, and underdevelopment have been concentrated, and to explore how development assistance to the dangerous places could be improved.

Paper long abstract:

The evolving concept of development has been expanded in the SDGs and is now far more ambitious. The prospects for delivering this agenda are most demanding in places affected by violence, referred to in this paper as dangerous places. The status quo that left many behind in the era of the MDGs is unlikely to lead to development progress in dangerous places. Nonetheless, these are not hopeless cases. Progress has been made in a number of previously fragile situations and the new development agenda opens the door for doing things differently in the next 15 years.

In response to the growing attention to situations of conflict and fragility as well as challenges faced by the international development community, this research is to create a better understanding of dangerous places where the world's poverty, insecurity, and underdevelopment have been concentrated, and to explore how development assistance to the dangerous places could be improved.

To this end, first, the paper defines dangerous places, an alternative to the term 'fragile states'. Through a quantitative analysis, it will remap dangerous places at the geospatial level. It then reviews trends in development, humanitarian and security situations and examines development/humanitarian aid and strategies in these dangerous places. With a specific focus on selected dangerous places in Asia, it will demonstrate how relief, security and development are interlinked in these dangerous places and explore better bridging the humanitarian/development divide in the region.