You can watch the seminar live here:
Local Peacebuilding
In conflict-affected countries, at the local level, community peacebuilding groups are actively working to resolve conflicts, prevent relapses into violence, and build more peaceful societies. One challenge for the UN is how to best include and leverage this local expertise and capacity in its peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts. While mechanisms exist to engage with civil society and local actors, their perspectives are not always taken into account when international responses are shaped.
In 2015, the United Nations is conducting high-level reviews of its peace operations and peacebuilding architecture, as well as a global study on women, peace and security in advance of the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325. At this policy forum, panelists will share success stories from community-led initiatives, and draw lessons for the UN—including how to support local efforts to sustain peace in its work, from analysis and program design to implementation and monitoring. Panelists will offer creative approaches to broadening participation in peacebuilding processes and discuss how the important roles of women, youth, and civil society groups can be linked to the work of UN missions in the field and the UN’s peacebuilding architecture in New York.
The NGO Peacebuilding Group in New York is a gathering of organisations (the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, the International Peace Institute, Interpeace, PAX, Peace Direct, the Quaker United Nations Office, and World Vision) engaged on various peace related issues at the UN and in the field. Since September 2014 these organizations have worked together to strengthen the role of civil society at the UN in peacebuilding and create space for dialogue and collaboration with the UN and member states.
Panelists:
Adrien Niyongabo, Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (Burundi)
Oulie Keita, West African Network for Peacebuilding (Mali)
Luis Ximenes, Belun (Timor-Leste)
Martine Ekomo-Soignet, GPPAC & Peace Direct (Central African Republic)
Bernardo Arévalo de Léon, Interpeace (Guatemala)
Moderator:
Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, Senior Policy Analyst at the International Peace Institute
To attend, e-mail: Ms. Ricky Velez-Negron, velez-negron@ipinst.org