11.00–12.00 CEST Africa and Europe together: Towards an effective operational partnership for sustainable peace and development
Cairo International Centre for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding
| Join this panel to explore challenges and opportunities for strengthening operational partnerships between African and European actors beyond the Africa-EU partnership in a new normal. Examining the potential role of European actors in supporting and advancing African initiatives such as the AfCFTA, the AU STG Roadmap, and the AUCPCRD; drawing upon lessons learned and drafting possible ways forward. This session aims to produce actionable recommendations on advancing operational partnerships between African and European actors, with a view on strengthening African ownership across the peace continuum. | Online session |
12.30-13.45 CEST Shifting the peace paradigm: Power and responsibility in peace processes
Principles for Peace
| The age of comprehensive peace agreements is over, yet the approach and design of peace processes continue to be linear and dominated by political processes. The inadequacy of narrowly formulated peace agreements is compounded by the extremely non-inclusive nature of most mediation processes. From Afghanistan, the Central African Republic and eastern Yemen to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia, peace agreements prove incapable of reducing violence or creating more stable political orders. This session will highlight some of the unintended consequences and traps of the current emphasis on political processes to solve conflict. The dialogue will focus on emerging ideas and practical solutions to build more multidimensional, inclusive and long-term approaches to peace processes. | Online session |
12.30-13.45 CEST How effective is the current peacebuilding financing architecture at building peace? Reflections from local to global peace actors
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation & Life & Peace Institute
| A conversational roundtable between local peacebuilders, international non-governmental organisations, small grants providers, bilateral and multilateral donors exploring the connections between particular donor financing models and peacebuilding outcomes. It will ask where current practices could be improved, and will begin to consider the sort of financing that constitutes effective and equitable donorship. | Online session |
12.30-13.45 CEST Security sector reform in ‘hot conflict’: What works, what not?
Just Future Consortium
| It is often said that security sector reform during ‘hot conflict’ is unfeasible. Yet there are increasing efforts to address security sector governance while conflict is ongoing. This session will look at what works and what doesn’t work—and may even have adverse implications—on the basis of experiences and findings from different regions and actors. It aims to stimulate cross-regional and cross-organizational learning. | Online session |
14.00-15.15 CEST Locally rooted, regionally connected: Building partnerships between civil society and regional organizations to accelerate the Women, Peace and Security Agenda
In partnership with the International Civil Society Action Network
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Women peacebuilders around the world are still excluded from peace processes that affect them. This session will explore the crucial role of regional actors in implementing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It will pay particular attention to enabling and widening the scope for engagement with civil society and women peacebuilders within and across regions. Moderator: Robert Egnell, Vice-Chancellor, Swedish Defence University Speakers: Helga Maria Schmid, Secretary General, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, United Nations Siga Fatima Jagne, Commissioner for Social Affairs and Gender, ECOWAS Sanam Anderlini, Founder and CEO, International Civil Society Action Network Rudina Çollaku, Founder and Executive Director of Woman Center for Development and Culture, Albania |
Live streamed session |
15.30-16.45 CEST Peacebuilding financing: Doing more, doing better
In partnership with Center on International Cooperation NYU
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While there is a strong case for peacebuilding and prevention, there is sometimes a mismatch between rhetoric and reality. Escalating demands for increased humanitarian crisis response threaten to crowd out strategic, long-term support to actors, institutions and sectors critical for sustainable peace. Pressure is mounting against official development assistance in several countries. Climate change impacts are likely to shape future conflict trajectories, suggesting a continued need to invest in peacebuilding for the future. This panel identifies gaps in peacebuilding financing, focusing on the chronically underfunded actors, institutions and sectors that are key to peace and prevention. The panel explores ways to close these gaps through dedicated/targeted peacebuilding financing and more systematic mainstreaming of peacebuilding into development and humanitarian efforts. The latter highlights the key role of multilateral institutions, and the need for multilateral governance to increase concertation and coordination. Moderator: Sarah Cliffe (MOD), Director of NYU's Center on International Cooperation Speakers: Per Olsson Fridh, Minister for International Development Cooperation, Sweden Ahmed Issa Awad, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Somalia Mohamed Edrees, Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations, Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission Obaida Eldandarawy, Deputy Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations Niels Annen, Minister of State, Federal Foreign Office, Germany Elissa Golberg, Assistant Deputy Minister for Strategic Policy, Global Affairs Canada |
Live streamed session |
14.00-15.00 CEST Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and risks for development
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
| This session will explore some of the ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) could support or undermine human and economic development. It is aimed at development practitioners, diplomats and members of civil society who may not be experts in AI but wish to gain a more concrete and nuanced understanding of AI and the risks and opportunities it may harbour. | Online session |
14.00-15.15 CEST Unlocking potential in youth-led peacebuilding: Towards real partnership and sustainable resourcing
Search for Common Ground, UN Alliance of Civilizations, UNOY Peacebuilders
| This session will open a frank discussion about the gaps and challenges of current funding models which prevent real partnership between donors and young peacebuilders. It will be an opportunity for international peacebuilding donors, young peacebuilders and others interested in effective, inclusive funding models to troubleshoot these challenges together and explore novel funding solutions, with the aim of moving towards a new, shared consensus on what high quality funding for youth-led peacebuilding should look like. | Online session |
14.00-15.15 CEST Preventing violent extremism: New entry points for collective action
European Union Institute for Security Studies & Finnish Institute of International Affairs
| This roundtable of experts examines new approaches and tools that can prevent violent extremism as it continues to spread beyond traditional hotspots. The session will discuss new drivers of vulnerability and violent extremism and examine how violent extremist groups’ strategies are adapting. It will draw on lessons learned across regions and sectors, and discusses how to foster targeted collective action amid new challenges. | Online session |
15.30-16.30 CEST Towards effective country partnerships in fragile states – What have we learned?
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development & United States Institute of Peace
| Partnerships between external actors and national governments in fragile contexts are instrumental to sustaining peace. This session will reflect on recent experiences of compact-style partnerships for peace and development—with specific reference to examples such as Somalia and Haiti. It will acknowledge and highlight the ambition of the United States Government and others to further explore the practical application of the concept. Main takeaways from this session will be lessons learned from implementing such partnerships and the next steps for how the US and its partners can make compact-style partnerships a reality. | Online session |
15.30-16.45 CEST Technology in peace processes: Participation, inclusion and engagement?
SaferGlobe
| Can technology be used in peace process to increase participation, engagement and inclusion? That’s one of the questions being asked in this session which explores a potential inclusion tool and shares experiences from Lebanon and the Yemeni diaspora. | Online session |
15.30-17.30 CEST Building the international law of peace negotiation
Institute for Integrated Transitions
| The Peace Treaty Initiative aims to develop new international law to incentivise and support peace negotiations. Join experts, academics, practitioners and policymakers for an interactive workshop to learn first-hand about the origins and concepts underlying the initiative, and to review and comment on the indicative text of the proposed treaty. | Online session |
17.00-18.15 CEST Confronting identity-based mass violence: Bridging expertise on urban violence and atrocity prevention
Impact:Peace & Stanley Center for Peace and Security
| In 2020, the Stanley Center and Impact:Peace released a report examining identity based mass violence (IBMV) through case studies of nine cities from around the world. These case studies, selected from locations that have experienced high levels of either acute or structural/chronic violence, identified qualitative factors that appear to reinforce a tendency towards IBMV. While the work suggests concrete preventive measures that could be taken, the divide between communities of practice focused on preventing atrocities and reducing urban violence makes applying these measures more difficult. This session will bring in key questions from the study, and interrogate how to advance collaboration in such a way that reduces violence in the near term, while also preventing acute, rapid escalations of atrocity level violence. | Online session |
17.00-18.15 CEST Peacebuilding in Liberia in the age of compound risk
Embassy of Sweden in Monrovia
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Liberia remains challenged in terms of fragility through the legacy of its civil conflicts 1989-1996 and 1999-2003. UNMIL supported the transition from conflict to civilian administration through 2003-2018, at its peak about 15000 persons were deployed to Liberia. The country remains one of the ten poorest in the world. However in terms of natural resources the country has great potential if it can manage to overcome its developmental challenges, including addressing fundamental issues like education, health country, agriculture, infrastructure and the lingering uneasy on unresolved conflicts of land and other resources which provide the fertile ground for the violence. The Weah-administration seeks to achieve macroeconomic stability, but with considerable challenges in socio-economic terms, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. SGBV remains rampant and grew worse during the lock-down periods during 2020. Almost all issues relating to gender equality remain outstanding, despite important commitments by the Weah-administration. There are obvious compound risks emanating from economic, social, governance, environmental and health challenges. Are there lessons learnt, both from the choice of course of action of the UNMIL presence, and more recent challenges through the COVID-pandemic, to take from the Liberian experience? Speakers Mats Utas, Professor, Department of Culture Anthropology, Uppsala University Anna Karin Eneström, Ambassador, Sweden's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Samuel D Tweah, Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Government of Liberia Yvette Chesson-Wure, Counsellor, Angie Brooks International Centre, Liberia Stephen Rodrigues, UNDP Resident Representative, Liberia |
Online session |
17.00-18.15 CEST Investing in peace, investing in trust: Funding women-led peacebuilding organizations
International Civil Society Action Network
| In this session we will present the findings of a multi-year effort to assess the gaps and constraints that prevent funds from reaching local women-led organizations and review concrete and practical recommendations to overcome these challenges. We will also share our first-hand experiences and lessons learned of establishing the Innovative Peace Fund (IPF) and financing local organizations in fragile and conflict contexts. The session will actively engage participants to integrate their feedback on these findings as well as their experiences in this area. Using ICAN’s Operational Guidance to Improve Grantmaking to Women’s Peacebuilding Organizations and other similar published findings around funding local peacebuilding organizations, this event will promote a coordinated approach among local and international actors to dismantle these obstacles and promote equitable and sustainable funding. | Online session |
17.00-18.15 CEST Sustaining peace and human rights: Making it work at the country level
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Interpeace & Quaker United Nations Office
| This roundtable will identify concrete examples of human rights mechanisms and processes that support peacebuilding efforts at country level. It will put a spotlight on the United Nations Secretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights, which was initiated just as the world was overwhelmed with the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular it will look at progress made in its implementation, notably in its contribution to sustaining peace. Moving from reflection to interactive exchange the discussion will explore relationships with local actors, as well as the roles and responsibilities of UN Resident Coordinators in implementing the Call to Action at the country level. This session will highlight challenges they face and opportunities for joined-up action to sustain peace, especially in the context of the global pandemic where mitigation efforts have been used to restrain and restrict free speech, freedom of assembly, access to information and other human rights. | Online session |