The Global Partnership For Conflict Prevention

The Global Partnership For Conflict Prevention Is a development we ought to be participating in and supporting. I will be posting materials from this effort as they come in. The Global Partnership is gaining steam rapidly. This is the next step beyond the conference work of the last two decades towards building a world wide peace and violent conflict prevention movement; During that period the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (NCPCR), the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution (ECPCR) and the Latin American La Conferencia IberoAmericana de Paz y Tratamiento de Conflictos grew, were linked informally and either withered or sought new directions. The next step would be a worldwide structure with regional conferences feeding into a central world body. Such an effort is under way, and it is inspired by a recommendation of UN Secretary-General Koffe Annan

“I urge NGOs with an interest in conflict prevention to organize an international conference of local, national and international NGOs on their role in conflict prevention and future interaction with the United Nations in this field.”

The European Centre for Conflict Prevention has taken up the challenge and is in the early organizing stage. They have a solid reputation, particularly for taking on impossibly large tasks and completing them.

The overall objective of the program is to develop a common platform for effective action in conflict prevention from the community to the global level. For this platform to be genuinely global, it needs to be genuinely inclusive. This means that northern/western interests should not predominate and that international preoccupations should not drown the voice of the local community. The regional structure of the program is designed to prevent such distortions.

They will establish regional conferences to build regional agendas for conflict prevention that then will come together in 2005 for a United Nations sponsored worldwide gathering building on the regional findings. You can get a list of “Regional Initiators” from all over the globe by contacting the International Secretariat, European Centre for Conflict Prevention, Korte Elisabethstraat 6, PO Box 14069, 3508 SC Utrecht, The Netherlands, Tel +31 30 242 7777, Fax +31 30 236 9268, Email: [email protected], URL: www.conflict-prevention.net .

Summary Outline

THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE PREVENTION OF ARMED CONFLICT
An integrated program of research, discussion and network building

Goals

• To explore fully the role of civil society in conflict prevention and peace-building
• To improve interaction between civil society groups, the UN, regional organizations, and governments.
• To strengthen regional and international networking between conflict prevention actors.
• To promote the development of conflict prevention theory and practice.
• To integrate regional experiences into an International Agenda for conflict prevention.

Action- 2003-2005

• Regional Consultation (2003 and 2004). Fifteen (sub)regional processes, covering the greater part of the globe, designed to engage relevant civil society actors at all levels in research, consultation, and discussion of the conflict prevention issues that face them.
• Regional Conferences (end 2004) which will produce: a) Regional Agendas for conflict prevention ~ firmly rooted in cultural, geographic, and operational realities.
  b) Recommendations for an International Agenda for conflict prevention.
• International Conference at United Nations Headquarters in New York (2005). Working from recommendations submitted by the fifteen regions, the Conference will frame an International Agenda to guide future conflict prevention initiatives.

For more information, please contact: the International Steering Group: www.conflictprevention-dialogue.org

Japanese website leads the way

This emphasis on avoiding Western domination shows up on the Internet. The most comprehensive Conflict Prevention website I have found so far is run by the Japanese Center for Conflict Prevention. www.conflict-prevention.org . I believe this initially was an unrelated site – a parallel invention. However now the Japanese center now is in contact with the global initiative, which should strengthen both. The site, in good English, shows a good deal of potential but is not yet loaded with much information.

                       

Paul Wahrhaftig

Paul Wahrhaftig, has been active in organized conflict resolution since its modern beginnings in the early 1970s, both as a practitioner and organizer/networker. While maintaining an active mediation practice he continues to maintain contact with conflict resolvers around the world. Recently retired from his  position as President of the Conflict Resolution… MORE >