Conflict Prevention

Please join the EastWest Institute for a luncheon discussion with the Honorable Fehmida Mirza, Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan and the Honorable Shinkai Karokhail, Member of the Afghan National Assembly and founder of the Afghan Women’s Educational Center (AWEC).

The guests are members of the EastWest Institute’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and its Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). This group was formed in 2010 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which declared that women’s active participation in conflict resolution is essential for building peace and stability. WPS works with parliamentarians worldwide to strengthen the role of women in political life, conflict resolution and peace building, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This event is part of a week-long U.S. advocacy trip, organized by the EastWest Institute, to highlight the work of the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention. The trip concludes with an Awards Dinner on September 27 where the two honorees will be given the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Award for Values-based Leadership. Click here for information about the dinner.

Please join the EastWest Institute and the Parents Circle for a screening of Two Sided Story, a 2012 documentary directed by Tor Ben Mayor and produced by Families Forum, the Israeli Production Company 2SHOT and the Palestinian News Agency MAAN.

The documentary follows the poignant process experienced both by Israelis and Palestinians, while learning and acknowledging the personal and national narrative of the other. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Robi Damelin of the Parents Circle, a grassroots organization for bereaved Palestinians and Israelis. Damelin will discuss her conversations with the Palestinian man who killed her son. Originally from South Africa, Damelin will also speak about her return visit to learn more about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a possible model for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

To help prevent violent conflicts, the EastWest Institute and its partners will launch the “Global Conference on Preventive Action,” convening experts from governments, international organizations and civil society on December 6 and 7 in the European Parliament in Brussels.

“We’re bringing together a truly global range of experts, from the United Nations to key regional organizations, national players and NGOs,” says Ambassador Guenter Overfeld, Vice President of Regional Security and Conflict Prevention at EWI. “Preventive action needs a review and a new push to overcome international fatigue in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The hope is that participants will walk away from the conference with concrete recommendations for early, effective preventive action.”

For Nick Mabey, advisor to former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and a keynote speaker, the first step for building the political will to prevent conflicts is reframing “small wars far away,” in places like the Sudan and Middle East, as immediate security threats to Europe. “Unless we invest in helping countries manage their conflicts peacefully, troops will have to go abroad,” says Mabey.

At the conference, Robert Manchin, Chairman of Gallup Europe, will unveil Gallup’s latest poll on how Europeans view global security issues. Some highlights: only about a third of Europeans (35%) are convinced that the security of the West is enhanced by being engaged in Afghanistan; 13% of respondents mentioned Russia as a possible threat to Europe, as opposed to 25% who named China.

The conference will also explore how a strengthened trans-Atlantic partnership can be used to stabilize at-risk countries.

Addressing the world’s shifting power balance, one panel will discuss how the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – can and should play a new role in international conflict prevention. Among other questions, participants will consider whether the UN Security Council should be reformed.

Speaking of Brazil, Major General Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz declares, “It is not one more country fighting for a chair around the table, but a country to bring new experiences, new examples, new options and a new way to discuss solutions and resolve conflicts.”

On December 7, the conference will address more specialized topics. In the one day-long event, EWI and the Parliamentarians Network for Conference Prevention will convene a conference on the role of woman politicians in Afghanistan, assembling newly elected women MPs to discuss work in light of the reconciliation with Taliban.  Sherry Rehman, a former Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting who is leading a a controversial effort to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy lawl, will attend.

The EastWest Institute will bring together leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the EU, and the U.S. on February 17, 2010 to determine new strategies to ensure security in Afghanistan and its region. This consultation, part of the seventh annual Worldwide Security Conference, is the third in a series of consultations EWI has convened since February 2009 on alternative futures for the stability of Afghanistan and Southwest Asia.

The consultation is an invitation-only event for high-level participants. If you would like to participate, please contact us for more information.

The Central American and Caribbean Regional Preparatory Meeting is part of a process that ensures regional priorities are integrated into the action program of an EWI-led global conference on preventive action envisaged for late 2010. EWI, in partnership with the UNDP, will bring together the defense, development, and diplomacy communities, along with parliamentarians and civil society from the Central American and Caribbean Region, to find concrete recommendations that strengthen the role of regional organizations for preventive action.

EWI Associate Matthew King led two working groups at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s first annual Forum on Early Warning in Conflict Prevention. The forum was convened as a response to the failure to prevent violence between two member states, Georgia and Russia, in 2008. King’s groups discussed the role parliamentarians can play in preventive action, concluding that PACE should establish a practical mechanism to bring together all involved in different forms of early warning.

On Thursday, 9 July 2009, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiatives hosted representatives from African embassies, the European Commission, the United Nations Development Program and civil society at EWI’s Brussels Center for a seminar on conflict and security in Africa. The event, held at EWI’s Brussels Center, was the first step in a process  feeding into regional dialogues across the four continents, to identify key spaces for preventive action. Participants discussed:

• The main challenges to peace and security in the region;
• Existing frameworks and initiatives to address those challenges, including lessons learned and success stories; and
• Opportunities for more effective preventive action.