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Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development

7 May 2018 - 9 May 2018

SIPRI and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs host the 2018 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development with a focus on 'The Politics of Peace'. adelphi, SIPRI and the Planetary Security Initiative convene a side-event on 7 May in the format of a briefing on the Lake Chad Climate-Fragility Risk Assessment.

Targeted, inclusive and sustained conflict prevention can contribute to lasting peace by reducing the risk of violent conflict. In complex environments, international commitments like the Sustainable Development Goals and Women, Peace and Security Agenda can provide entry points for prevention by identifying common ground among diverse stakeholders.  In practice, though, political will is often lacking in the countries where prevention is most needed. In such cases, building unlikely or temporary coalitions may be necessary to keep the peace in the interim while more sustainable solutions are developed. Even when there is political will to prevent violence, individual actors can obstruct peacebuilding—either wilfully or through negligence—in pursuit of their own interests. Thus, sustaining peace is not just about good technical solutions, but it is also about getting the politics right. 

Peacebuilders must find paths to work through, with and, occasionally, around, obstructive actors and institutions. The relative flexibility of temporary coalitions and ‘groups of friends’ can lend momentum to peace negotiations and allow participants to build the trust necessary to address unresolved disputes down the road.  While ‘inclusive enough’ coalitions can generate the critical mass necessary to get peace started, they are not always durable. Such coalitions may need to be negotiated and adapted through instruments like sunrise and sunset clauses to enable today’s obstructionists to be brought into a future peace and avoid generating new grievances. Prevention, therefore, also requires careful planning, adaptation and farsighted diplomacy. 

Building on the upcoming High-Level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace and conclusions from the recent report ‘Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict’ (United Nations; World Bank: 2017), the 2018 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development will confront the politics of peace by assessing how different policies, processes and tools could be used to overcome political obstacles to build and sustain peace in complex environments.

The Forum is co-hosted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 

Information about how to register for the public portion of the Forum (7 May) is forthcoming and will be posted on this webpage.

 

Lake Chad Climate-Fragility Risk Assessment Briefing and Risk Profile Launch

The Planetary Security Initiative, SIPRI and adelphi have the pleasure to announce a side event during the 2018 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development, on the 7th of May 2018. Project manager - Janani Vivekananda, and lead researcher - Chitra Nagarajan will brief this select group on the findings of the assessment to date, and launch the Lake Chad Risk Profile. There will then be opening up to a discussion about next steps to implementing Action 4 of the Hague Declaration on Planetary Security: Supporting Joint Risk Assessment in Lake Chad. This side event will present up-to-date findings from the project, plus a briefing on a joint field mission and an outline of next steps for action on climate-fragility risks in Lake Chad.

Aims:
• Launch the Lake Chad Climate-Fragility Risk Profile
• Brief on findings from the UNDP-adelphi joint mission to the Lake Chad Region
• Update on progress and next steps for action on Action Area 4 of the Hague Declaration (Joint Risk Assessment in Lake Chad)
• Discussion