European Peace Institute / News

The 2030 Agenda calls for inclusiveness, which can contribute to stability and peace as well as development in Lebanon. However, while Lebanon’s power-sharing model was instrumental in ending fifteen years of civil war, it is outdated as the country embarks on a process to achieve the 2030 Agenda and advance the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Although sectarianism is impeding political processes and development in Lebanon, the SDGs can provide an opportunity for the country to address some of the political model’s limitations. Based on two weeks of field research, this paper explores how Lebanon is confronting challenges related to the environment, education, economic growth, poverty, and gender, all while hosting more than a million Syrian refugees.

This paper is part of the International Peace Institute’s (IPI) SDGs4Peace project, which seeks to understand how the 2030 Agenda is being rooted at the national and local levels and to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The project focuses on five case studies: the Gambia, Greece, Guatemala, Lebanon, and Myanmar. Implementation of the 2030 Agenda provides each of these countries an opportunity not only to buttress existing aspirations but also to build new partnerships that transcend traditional approaches.

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On March 29th, IPI together with the Permanent Missions of Israel, Colombia, and the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations cohosted a policy forum on combating sexual harassment in the United Nations.

The global scourge of sexual harassment and assault has been increasingly recognized by the international community, particularly over the last several years. Government and civil society actors continue to grapple with how to prevent sexual harassment and assault, seek justice when these reach the threshold of criminal acts, and, most importantly, support the survivors. It has recently become clear that the United Nations shares this burden.

Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed his commitment to a zero tolerance policy and has acknowledged that there remain obstacles to implementing policies that combat sexual harassment at the UN. The complex situations in which UN staff work make a difficult issue even more challenging to address.

To shed light on the ongoing issue, Israel introduced resolution E/CN.6/2017/L.4, entitled Preventing and eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace, during the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2017. The document, which was adopted by consensus, was the first, and so far the only, UN resolution to address this topic.

Sexual harassment and sexual violence cannot go unchallenged. It is the responsibility of the United Nations and its member states, in consultation with and supported by civil society, to provide a serious and comprehensive response to this pressing issue.

This event served as a starting point for discussion amongst member states, UN staff and leadership, and civil society. It brought together different stakeholders in order to discuss the best way forward in combating sexual harassment, grounded by best practices and contributions from experts.

Opening Remarks:
H.E. Mr. Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations

Speakers:
Ms. Jan Beagle, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Management
H.E. Ms. Koki Grignon, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations
Ms. Orit Sulitzeanu, Executive Director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI)
Ms. Joanne Sandler, Senior Associate, Gender at Work

Moderator:
Jake Sherman, IPI Director of the Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations

On March 28th, IPI together with the Stanley Foundation cohosted a policy forum on “Sustaining Peace in Practice: Evidence, Measurement, and Indicators.”

The dual General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on sustaining peace (70/262 and 2282 respectively) define sustaining peace as a goal and a process to build a common vision of a society and a shared responsibility of governments and all stakeholders, with conflict prevention playing a central role. Although the concept is clearly defined in the resolutions, there are still some obscurities regarding how to measure and operationalize sustaining peace.

To fully realize the shift toward prevention for sustaining peace, it is important to understand its practical and local-level implications from the perspective of all actors, including UN missions and local peacebuilders. As such, there is a need to develop a set of indicators to guide us in recognizing and comprehending what sustaining peace looks like in practice. Such indicators could help the international community identify and analyze what is working to strengthen resilience in societies and provide the tools for understanding what is needed to sustain long-term peace in country-specific contexts.

This policy forum aimed to better understand what these indicators are and what elements truly contribute to long-term peace. Drawing on case studies, this event sought to identify practical examples of sustaining peace in the field. The case studies considered the practical elements of social and institutional structures, processes, and precursors that enable societies to develop in sustainably peaceful ways.

Opening Remarks:
Mamadou Tangara, Permanent Representative of the Gambia to the United Nations

Introductory Remarks:
Lesley Connolly, Senior Policy Analyst, International Peace Institute
Jennifer Smyser, Vice President and Director of Policy Programming Strategy, Stanley Foundation

Speakers:
Peter Coleman, Co-Director, Advanced Consortium for Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4), Earth Institute, Columbia University
Michelle Breslauer, Director of the America Program, Institute for Economics and Peace
Ismaila Ceesay, Professor of Political Science, University of the Gambia

Moderator:
Youssef Mahmoud, Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute

On March 28th, IPI hosted a conversation with H.E. Mr. Jüri Luik, Minister of Defense of Estonia, on cyber security and the current European security environment.

The security environment in Europe has been tarnished by efforts to undermine democracy and weaken trust in democratic institutions. From sophisticated social media campaigns and targeted information warfare to ostensible meddling in electoral processes, cyber security has become a major concern for governments around the world. More than ten years after the world’s first major, state-targeted cyber attack, Estonia has become a global heavyweight in cyber security.

H.E. Mr. Jüri Luik has served as the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Estonia since June 12, 2017. Minister Luik has played a significant role in Estonia’s foreign and security policy since the early 1990s. In 1992, he was elected to the Estonian Parliament and held numerous top-level cabinet positions for over a decade, notably as Minister of Defense (1993, 1999-2002) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1994-1995). Minister Luik has also had a long career in diplomatic service. He has served as the Ambassador to NATO (1996-1999), Ambassador to the United States (2003-2007), Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (2007-2012), and Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2015).

This event was moderated by Mr. Warren Hoge, Senior Adviser for External Relations, International Peace Institute.

On March 26th, IPI together with Inclusive Security and the Permanent Mission of Estonia to the United Nations, cohosted a policy forum on constitution making in the wake of conflict and unrest.

Even as fighting rages in Syria, constitution making has become part of the peace process. In Sri Lanka, constitutional reform could address a conflict’s root causes or deepen war’s old wounds.

Constitution making is a frequent feature of peace and transition processes: new research from Inclusive Security finds 75 countries undertook significant constitutional reform in the wake of conflict or unrest between 1990 and 2015. Yet the potential for constitution making to transform conflict depends, in part, on who gets to participate. Despite increasing emphasis on inclusive approaches, only one in five constitution drafters in these settings is a woman.

How does constitution making relate to peacebuilding? What are the challenges and opportunities for inclusive constitutional reform in practice? Where have women exerted influence on the process, and what impact did they have?

This event explored research and case studies on women’s roles in constitution making; personal experiences of facilitating participatory approaches in Tunisia and Nepal; and implications for peace and security in Syria, Sri Lanka, and beyond.

Welcoming Remarks:
H.E. Mr. Sven Jürgenson, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN

Speakers:
Ms. Mariam Jalabi, Founding Member, Syrian Women’s Political Movement; Representative, Syrian Opposition Coalition Office to the United Nations
Ms. Amira Yahyaoui, Founder, Al Bawsala
Mr. Rohan Edrisinha, Senior Political and Constitutional Advisor, UN Department of Political Affairs
Ms. Marie O’Reilly, Director of Research and Analysis, Inclusive Security

Moderator:
Dr. Sarah Taylor, Research Fellow, International Peace Institute

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Norway’s Foreign Minister, Ine Eriksen Søreide, was honored at an evening reception at IPI on March 14th during the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) gathering at the United Nations. Foreign Minister since October, 2017, Ms. Eriksen Søreide is the first woman to occupy the post, and in her remarks, she emphasized why she thinks that women’s participation in peace processes is so important.

“It is about building resilience, it is about making peace, and it is about making peace last,” she said. “Those three factors are very important, and for all of those to happen, women have to be part of this, fully integrated, from the beginning to the end.”

By way of example, she mentioned Norway’s involvement in the peace process in Colombia. “Norway is one of the guarantor countries,” she said, “and what we did was try to, from the beginning, integrate women into the whole process, and this guided our diplomatic efforts.

“I wanted to make a very particular point of this,” she said “because it’s easy to think that this is about women as victims, but it is not only about that, it is also about women as community leaders. Bear in mind that the peace process in Colombia was partly driven forward by women’s organizations and civil society organizations.”

Looking out at the large crowd that filled the room, she said she was pleased to find so many men there. “It is of vital importance that we engage men,” she said, “and I think it is even more important to engage young men, and the reason I am saying that is where we see across the world today that women’s rights are under immense pressure, is mostly in areas where young men are getting increasingly marginalized.”

She noted that while most people ascribed Norway’s wealth and economic growth to its oil, there was, in fact, a more compelling argument for this audience. “The most important thing is having women as part of the work force,” she said. “That accounts for a larger part of our GDP than oil does. So that is a bit of a lesson to everyone. To include women in the work force produces more economic growth, which leads to less marginalized groups in most regions and countries, and that is a win/win situation.”

Prior to her current job, she was the minister of defense, the third woman in a row to fill that post, and she recounted with some delight a happy consequence of that fact. “We’ve had female defense ministers – no female foreign minister until now – but so much so that young girls had a tendency to ask – and they’ve asked me several times– ‘Can a man be minister of defense in Norway?’”

On March 15, 2018, the Syrian armed conflict entered into its eighth year. Since 2011, attempts to facilitate a political solution to the Syrian conflict have either failed or stalled. Amidst this deadlock, one track that has not stalled is the civil society track. Against the odds, progress can be observed at this level as Syrian civil society has become better organized and more tightly interconnected, and as its voice in the process has grown stronger.

This issue brief looks at progress on this track through the Civil Society Support Room (CSSR), a novel approach to including civil society in a peace process that could become a model for other processes to follow. The paper outlines three of the CSSR’s central functions, three key contributions it can make to the peace process, and the three main challenges encountered. It also proposes three measures for the CSSR moving forward:

• For both the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Syria (OSE-S) and CSSR participants to engage in an open discussion about the scope of the latter’s role in the process;
• For the OSE-S to continue its efforts to reach out to and engage with civil society actors located in hard-to-reach areas inside Syria and in refugee camps in the region; and
• For the OSE-S to continue to engage with civil society actors not only during intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, but also between rounds of talks and in the region.

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Global indices are a way to assess and compare national progress on key issues by distilling an array of complex information into a single number and ranking. Until recently, there was no index that explicitly brought together the three dimensions of women’s inclusion, access to justice, and security.

To fill that void, a new women, peace, and security index has been created by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS). On March 15th, IPI, GIWPS, and the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations held a panel discussion on the subject.

“This index is actually the first one to be built on the principles of the SDGs. It encourages a holistic approach to rights, development, and security,” said the introductory speaker, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide. “In my opinion, conflict prevention must be a key part of the strategy that we undertake for development and for the SDGs. And this index gives us a potential platform to integrate it into action.”

“For too long,” she said, “security and gender experts on both sides have been doing a lot of good work. And they have been working in parallel but not necessarily engaging with each other. So there is a real need to break down the silos. And I think all the good work that has been done in the respective silos now needs to be introduced to each other for the first time. By putting this index together with data from other indices, we are gaining a more complete picture than we’ve had so far.”

Jeni Klugman, Managing Director of GIWPS, introduced the jointly developed index and explained the benefits of this new form of measurement. She noted that other indices had major gaps in their focus on traditional development, and that they lacked key explanatory factors.

“For example, we look to see whether girls are attending school,” she said. “But surely that’s incomplete if the girls are not safe in their homes or if they’re not safe in their communities on the way to school. Likewise, if we look at traditional measures of security and peace, the aspects of discrimination and systematic exclusion are almost invariably excluded.”

Within the index’s three dimensions of inclusion, justice, and security, inclusion is measured by women’s achievements in education employment, and parliamentary representation, as well as access to cellphones and financial services. Justice is captured in both formal and informal aspects through indicators that measure the extent of discrimination in the legal system, alongside any bias in favor of sons and exposure to discriminatory norms. Finally, security is measured at three levels–family, community, and society.

The combination of these dimensions is unique, Dr. Klugman said, “In that sense, I think it is truly a major innovation.” The index is also the first measure to take advantage of the new emerging consensus associated with the sustainable development agenda, she said. She relayed the hope that the index would be used as “an opening to have deeper conversations.”

In their findings, one measure that emerged among the statistics of all 153 countries ranked was that while organized violence at the societal level is important, of greater relevance for many women around the world is “security at the community, as well as at the family level,” she said. “I think you’d all know that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence experienced by women globally but with significant variation across countries.”

Despite the fact that intimate partner violence is significant globally, measuring its variation across countries is “notoriously difficult,” said Papa Seck, Chief Statistician of UN Women. Lack of resources and weak institutions, including national statistical systems, are some of the challenges of assembling reliable data, he noted.

Furthermore, he said, “All of the markers of data availability are worse in conflict and post-conflict situations,” and data collection and security are closely related, as “data collection requires security: the security of those who are collecting the data on the ground.”

On the importance of funding, Mr. Seck added, “For UN women in particular, it is a hot button issue. This index, I think, is really critical for us on how we make the case.” He also noted that in many cases statisticians are not trained in gender-specific approaches, and that gender experts are not often trained in statistics. This creates a gap in much needed data and analysis.

Lina Abou Habib, Executive Director of the Women’s Learning Partnership, whose group specializes in global south countries in or exiting from conflict, stressed the difficulties of gathering data in such places. Ms. Habib explained that data collection on women’s rights issues is not often given priority or resources, which, in addition to security as a prerequisite for data collection, continues to be a significant challenge. The answer to this problem, she said, requires “a framework where data collection is allowed.”

She spoke to the specific example of one unnamed country in which it is illegal to collect data. “It’s illegal to do any form of research, it’s illegal to go to the field and ask people questions,” she said. Ms. Abou Habib posited a solution to improve the scope of data collection, which she called making data collection a practice–“to make data collection empowering for women, to make it as part of a workshop, as part of a conversation with the community. I think advocacy is the most important thing in terms of the purpose of the data.”

Ms. Habib then described two levels of this data’s significance. First, the data can “hold governments accountable, and I’m not just saying it as a slogan. It means that women have to know about it.” The second level, she said, is using advocacy to build “a momentum, which I see it’s really possible from the relationship we have with the women with whom we work.” In terms of data collection, she emphasized the priority of frequency and accountability.

In conclusion, IPI Research Fellow and moderator Sarah Taylor, said, “There’s a reason that data collection is political, and it’s because properly collected data has the power to expose rights violations, to point to changes that need to be made. And so I think that really speaks to the power of the project, particularly in the women, peace, and security agenda.”

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Development programs tend to include women affected by conflict and violence as passive beneficiaries, rather than as active agents in strengthening gender equality, peacebuilding, and sustainable development. And where development partners do support women’s agency in strengthening recovery and reconciliation in rural areas, they often fail to link these activities to wider processes of women’s mobilization, peacebuilding, and statebuilding.

Confronting that reality requires looking at women as “actors rather than only as passive victims,” said Ursula Keller, chair of the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). It requires focusing “very strongly on women’s participation, but really meaningful participation: not just counting women but making women count,” she said.

Ms. Keller was speaking to a March 14th policy forum at IPI on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, cosponsored by IPI, GENDERNET, and the Governments of Sweden and Switzerland.

In introductory remarks, Deqa Yasin Hagi Yusuf, Somalia’s Minister of Gender and Human Rights Development, said that during the recent conflict in her country “women provided the backbone of our economy” and that now that the conflict is largely over, “gender equality is a central objective for sustaining peace and development in our current national development plan.” Among the “significant strides” she reported were that women occupy 24% of the seats in the two houses of Parliament, an inclusive human rights commission has been formed with four women among the nine commissioners, and the country’s first legislation on sexual offenses has been developed under the leadership of her ministry.

Ms. Keller reported the findings of a new OECD policy report into how donors can provide these gender equality projects with support that is both qualitatively and quantitatively better. Gender roles and inequality can often be a driver in conflict, she said, naming societal expectations of masculinity as a cause for violence. Programming that considers gender-sensitive pathways can best tackle fragility as “conflict and fragility places enormous burdens on women’s rights,” she said. She also noted that “women’s active participation in peacebuilding and statebuilding can actually contribute to peace and resilience.”

Barbro Svedberg, Policy Specialist for Women, Peace, and Security at the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) said that women, peace, and security resolutions had been paramount to a collective understanding of “women as drivers of positive peace,” and had had an enormous impact on Swedish “feminist” foreign policy over the last year.

Sida considers the interlinkage of gender equality, conflict sensitivity, and human rights, as “key elements in all of our programming,” said Ms. Svedberg, adding that “gender equality, for Sida, is a prerequisite for peace.” Describing Sida’s two new strategies, she said “The first, gender equality, should inform the other, [peacebuilding and statebuilding].”

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, International Coordinator of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, reiterated the significance of this interlinkage, highlighting that “gender inequality, conflict, and fragility are all parts of the same equation. Each one cannot be isolated from the other two.” She also acknowledged that “gender inequality is one of the drivers of conflict.”

Considering conflict and fragility as functions of gender inequality rather than inequality as a consequence of conflict, Ms. Cabrera-Balleza urged institutional supporters to offer sustainable and not project-based donations. “Sustainable peace is not a project,” she said, “it is a way of life and it should be part of our global culture.”

Sarah Douglas, Deputy Chief of Peace and Security of UN Women, said that the women’s empowerment aspect of the Sustainable Development Goals creates an effective framework that shifts thinking from technical to political approaches and “challenges us…to use political analysis when we’re thinking about development and peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict.”

Ms. Douglas conceded that UN analysis of conflict usually focused more on women’s oppression than their “capacities for peace,” and argued, “that’s what a gender perspective can also bring.”

Because deliberation at United Nations headquarters can reflect a strikingly different vision of conflict than the reality on the ground, she emphasized the need that conversation at headquarters reflect the lived experience of “women on the ground in a much more authentic way.”

Referring to the importance of “breaking down silos” and adopting a more holistic approach to policy making, Ms. Douglas concluded that policy must consider, “Who are the women’s organizations at the grassroots level who are actually holding the fabric of society together and how can they be mobilized, supported, encouraged, have doors open to them to really be able to expand their work and ensure sustainability?”

IPI Research Fellow Sarah Taylor was the moderator.

On Wednesday, March 7th, IPI is hosting the latest event in its series featuring United Nations Humanitarian Coordinators and other senior humanitarian leaders from the field. This discussion with Najat Rochdi, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Central African Republic (CAR), and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR (MINUSCA), will focus primarily on the humanitarian situation in CAR today.

Remarks will begin at 8:30am EST*

Intensified violence in the last several months has worsened the already drastic humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic. Plagued by ongoing clashes between armed groups, the country also faces regular attacks against hospitals and civilians, including targeted attacks against aid workers. Half of the country’s population are in need of aid, almost 700,000 people are internally displaced, and over 500,000 have fled to neighboring countries.

This event aims to raise awareness of the multiple obstacles and challenges faced by the UN and other humanitarian actors on the ground in accessing vulnerable populations and delivering lifesaving assistance, as well as of ongoing UN plans to address the humanitarian crisis.

Speaker:
Ms. Najat Rochdi, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Central African Republic, and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the MINUSCA.

Moderator:
Ambassador John Hirsch, Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute

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On February 27th, IPI together with the Permanent Missions of Australia and Peru to the United Nations cohosted a policy forum event to discuss the recommendations of the Secretary-General’s Report on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace, and how it will further the implementation of the resolutions.

On April 27, 2016, the United Nations membership adopted by consensus the most comprehensive and far-reaching peacebuilding resolutions in the Organization’s history, introducing the concept of sustaining peace (A/RES/70/262 and S/RES/2282). The resolutions were Member States’ response to the Report of the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE) on the review of the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture entitled “The Challenge of Sustaining Peace,” released on June 29, 2015 as the first stage of a comprehensive review of the UN’s peacebuilding efforts.

Led by former Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, the AGE Report underscored the global peace and security challenges faced, and the sustainability of UN peacebuilding efforts to date. The report and the resolutions urged the international community to fundamentally shift how the UN works to support Member States in sustaining peace. Pursuant to paragraph 30 of the resolutions, the Secretary-General is mandated to report on the implementation of the resolutions. This report will be released on February 23, 2018, 60 days prior to a High-Level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace, convened by the President of the General Assembly on April 24-25, 2018.

The concept of sustaining peace calls for better linkages among the UN’s three foundational pillars of peace and security, development, and human rights, in addition to humanitarian action. It replaces what until now has been a sequential approach to conflict that often resulted in silos and fragmented responses and calls for better linkages and sharing of instruments across the system. It is intended to be holistic and inclusive, with a focus on the prevention of the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict in all societies and at all stages of conflict.

Welcoming Remarks:
H. E. Mr. Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velásquez, Permanent Representative of Peru to the United Nations

Speakers:
Mr. Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office
Mr. Miroslav Jenca, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations Department of Political Affairs
Ms. Katy Thompson, Team Leader – Conflict Prevention, Governance and Peacebuilding, Bureau for Programme and Policy Support, United Nations Development Programme
H. E. Ms. Gillian Bird, Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations

Comments:
H.E. Mr. Masud Bin Momen, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations

Moderator:
Dr. Youssef Mahmoud, Senior Adviser, International Peace Institute

Related materials:
“Sustaining Peace in Practice: Building on What Works” (International Peace Institute, 2018)

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Addressing a Distinguished Author Series audience at IPI on February 26th, writer William Drozdiak listed three key elements of postwar governance that had brought peace and prosperity to Europe—a continent, he noted, once better known for producing world wars. The three were a common currency, the free passage across national borders of goods and people, and an embrace of democracy.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “these three projects have recently all gone off the rails, and Europe is now as fragmented as ever.”

In the analysis of Mr. Drozdiak, author of Fractured Continent: Europe’s Crises and the Fate of the West, the financial crisis of 2008 undermined the effectiveness of having one currency for countries with unequal economies, the abrupt arrival in Europe of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Middle East wars strained the notion of relaxing borders and diversifying populations, and disillusioned European voters are now empowering illiberal parties and political leaders who are turning their backs on democracy.

“Identity politics are an important factor with people saying, ‘I lost a sense of my own country,’” he said. “Whether it is for economic reasons or because there are too many refugees or Catalonian separatism, there is a powerful backlash against globalization, producing a ‘lost generation’ of people who cannot get steady work, cannot start families and can end up living with their parents even after they are 40 years old.”

And compounding the problem, he said, is a dangerous lapse in the transatlantic alliance due to President Trump’s policy decision to treat Europeans “not as strategic allies but as commercial enemies.” As a result, he said, there is a growing tendency among European politicians to reduce their dependence on the United States.

On the Continent itself, there is disunion caused by countries like Hungary and Poland that have severely curbed press freedom and compromised the political independence of their judiciaries as well as declaring their hostility, sometimes on racial and religious grounds, to immigration. Mr. Drozdiak cited a study that showed that Germany alone will need 400,000 immigrants a year for the next 25 years to account for demographic shrinking and maintain an adequate workforce. “So using these racist arguments is going to come back to hurt Europe economically,” he said.

With Britain scheduled to depart the European Union officially in 2019, Poland will soon become the fifth largest economy in Europe, but there is rising irritation with the country, which receives 5 billion euros a month from the EU and yet is resisting refugee quotas and failing to protect basic freedoms enshrined in the EU. There are suggestions in Brussels that the EU should take action against its recalcitrant members like Poland and Hungary. One proposal Mr. Drozdiak cited would take away their voting rights and another would divert funds from their national budgets to countries that agree to accept their allotted number of refugees.

On the positive side, Mr. Drozdiak noted that European economies are all growing again and that the new President of France, Emmanuel Macron, was emerging as a forceful leader at home and influential supporter of the EU, whose traditional champion, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been embattled by criticism over her having allowed more than a million Syrian refugees to settle in Germany in 2015.

This reappearance of French-German joint leadership, the original partnership behind the creation of the EU, is particularly welcome to EU supporters at a time when leaders like Ms. Merkel have declared that Europeans can no longer look to the United States for their security and must increasingly manage their own destiny.

“I came away from two years of reporting this book seeing that people have a profound desire to be governed by their own communities—and not by Brussels there or by Washington here,” he said.

Asked to speculate on Europe’s future, Mr. Drozdiak said, “The most optimistic view I have is to see European institutions deepen the most important and fundamental elements such as the customs union and trade, and forego, at least for the time being, some of the more grandiose ideas like a common European foreign policy or a common European army and get back to focusing on what is most important for their citizens.”

IPI Senior Adviser for External Relations Warren Hoge moderated the discussion.

Prevention is generally viewed as a crisis management tool to address the destructive dynamics of conflict. The sustaining peace agenda challenges this traditional understanding of preventive action by shifting the starting point of analysis to what is still working in society—the positive aspects of resilience—and building on these.

The goal of this volume is to build a shared understanding of what sustaining peace and prevention look like in practice at the national and international levels. Many of its chapters were previously published as issue briefs that fed into a series of monthly, high-level conversations convened at IPI in 2016 and 2017.

The volume is divided into four parts. The first part explores the concept of sustaining peace and what it means in practice. The second applies sustaining peace to five areas: the Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality, entrepreneurship, human rights, local governance, and preventing violent extremism. The third part looks at sustaining peace and the United Nations, specifically UN peace operations and regional political offices. The final part looks at a specific country—the Gambia—through the lens of sustaining peace.

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Addressing concern that current drug policy can have a negative effect on communities and run counter to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), IPI and the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum held a policy forum on February 22nd on how drug policy can be better aligned with the SDGs so as to enhance both.

Setting the tone of the discussion, David Bewley-Taylor, Personal Chair, Political and Cultural Studies of Swansea University, said, “Effective drug policy and sustainable development are both international priorities that should work in tandem.”

Dr. Bewley-Taylor was speaking as one of the authors of a report being launched at the forum that argues that we need to change the ways in which we measure the success of drug policy to accurately account for its impact on society as a whole. “If current drug policies are found to exacerbate gender inequality or hinder peace, they need to be re-examined,” he said.

Current metrics used to evaluate drug policy are largely “process-oriented,” he said, measuring intermediary values rather than outcomes, which poses a challenge in explaining causation.

As drug metrics are already extremely nuanced, reforming them will be a challenge, albeit a necessary one, he conceded. The current system “largely fails” to capture data on broader harms, he said. To gain a more comprehensive overview of the impact of drug policy, the framework’s “complexity needs to be acknowledged and embraced.”

He proposed a tagline, which echoes that of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations Statistical Commission. Instead of “better data, better lives,” Dr. Bewley-Taylor suggested, “We need to extend that to ‘better and different data, better lives.’”

Co-author Natasha Horsfield, Policy and Advocacy Officer, Health Poverty Action, further argued the need for a new framework to measure the impact of drug policy on the success of SDGs. “The SDG framework offers an example and an opportunity in this regard,” she said.

This framework, comprehensive in its provision of 244 indicators and over 169 targets, “can serve as a starting point for adapting and developing similarly ambitious drug metrics,” said Ms. Horsfield. She explained that it could provide more accurate data on the impacts of drug policy on individual communities and could be used to tailor indicators to measure data at a national level.

Addressing the concern that drug policy has not been developed in concert with the SDGs, Sabrina Stein, Program Manager of the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum and co-author of the report, echoed Ms. Horsfield. “It’s evident that drug policy cannot be designed in a vacuum,” she said.

Ms. Stein described six concrete recommendations from the paper that would enable this mutual consideration. First, she noted that it would be imperative to develop a framework for policy coherence; next, to create an external advisory committee. Then, to enhance drug policy metrics, the report makes the recommendation to add SDG indicators related to drug policy and to put in place mechanisms to gather data on the effects of drug policies. Finally, the report urges policymakers to use the SDG indicators as a model for improving drug policy indicators, and prioritize outcome-oriented methods.

On the international context of the report and the efficacy of its recommendations, Chris Murgatroyd, Policy Advisor, Governance & Peacebuilding Cluster, Bureau for Policy & Programme Support, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said that the report has been a welcome contribution to dialogue on sustainable development. “UNDP, you won’t be surprised to hear, has been very pleased to be part of discussions already in this space,” he said.

Summarizing the discussion, Adam Lupel, IPI Vice President, who moderated the talk, said, “If drug policy and the 2030 agenda are not aligned, the SDGs are really at risk of not being achieved.”

Current drug policy too often has a negative impact on communities and runs counter to efforts to ameliorate poverty through sustainable development. However, this is often not captured by the metrics used to measure the impact of drug policy. One way to improve these metrics is to align them with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This would not only help overcome many of the limitations of drug policies resulting from suboptimal metrics but also make sure these policies enhance, rather than hinder, efforts to achieve the SDGs.

This report analyzes how more precise, more complete, and better conceived metrics can help us to understand the impact of drug policy on sustainable development and the prospects of achieving the SDGs. The report is the result of over a year of work by the International Expert Group on Drug Policy Metrics, convened by the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum and the International Peace Institute. This group puts forward the following recommendations for the UN, member states, and the drug policy community:

• Develop a framework for policy coherence between drug policy and sustainable development.
• Create an external advisory committee bringing together experts on drug policy and sustainable development.
• Add SDG indicators related to drug policy.
• Put in place mechanisms to gather data on the effects of drug policies.
• Use the SDG indicators as a model for improving drug policy indicators.
• Prioritize outcome – rather than process-oriented metrics.

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In the lead up to this year’s Our Ocean Conference, hosted by Indonesia, the International Peace Institute, One Earth Future (OEF), and the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the UN co-organized a policy workshop on February 21, 2018, examining the nexus between the crosscutting issue of maritime security and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 14 and 16.

The following are the key takeaways from this event:

1. Efforts to tackle maritime issues need a holistic vision and a whole-of-society approach. Governments and relevant stakeholders, including regional organizations, would benefit from taking a more inclusive approach and engaging with local communities for a bottom-up solution. There is a need for structural integration to connect security and development actors.
2. Maritime security has multiple, diverse components, including food and economic security. As a result, governments’ efforts to build security in their maritime spaces will benefit from a holistic approach that considers sustainability. Demonstrating the linkages between stability and sustainable development, with accompanying cost-benefit analyses, could incentivize states to invest in maritime security and develop their blue economy to improve their food supply and economic well-being. There is a need to enhance capacities of developing countries, including small island developing states, to address maritime security and boost economic development through international cooperation.
3. Increasing public awareness about challenges to maritime security is key to tackling these issues. A global marketing campaign, in partnership with the private sector, to reveal the impact of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing on issues such as labor abuses, conservation, sex trafficking, and climate change could be one such approach. To maximize visibility, this campaign can involve celebrities and educational institutions and highlight member-state “champions” on the issue.
4. Improving maritime security and governance requires measuring progress and tracking commitments. This provides an opportunity for cross-sectoral collaboration among different government entities, civil society organizations, the UN, and other international organizations to coordinate their activities in a comprehensive manner while providing a feedback loop for collecting reliable and comprehensive data. It also provides a channel for sharing information and best practices on maritime governance. OEF’s Stable Seas Maritime Security Index is an example of such an effort to measure and map a range of threats in different areas.
5. In order to bridge the silos between efforts on maritime security and sustainable development that can bolster food and economic security, stakeholders should capitalize on upcoming opportunities such as the 2018 Our Ocean Conference in Indonesia. Another avenue for enhanced momentum is the 2019 UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which will focus, inter alia, on SDG 16. Bringing the issue of maritime instability into policy discussions at UN headquarters from the perspective of sustainable development can encourage buy-in from member states.

(This text is excerpted from the meeting brief, which you can read in full here).

On February 15th, IPI hosted a discussion featuring Ambassador Md. Shahidul Haque, Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh.

In partnership with local and international development agencies, H.E. Mr. Md. Shahidul Haque has been leading the work of the Government of Bangladesh to address the needs of recent refugees from Myanmar and facilitate their safe, dignified, and voluntary return.

Ambassador Haque has been serving as Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh since January 2013. Prior to assuming this post, he occupied several senior positions at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). From 2010 to 2012, he served as Director of IOM, dealing with its external and donor relations and international migration policy. He also served as Regional Representative for the Middle East from 2007 to 2009 and as Regional Representative for South Asia from 2001 to 2006. Prior to working at IOM, Ambassador Haque worked in the Bangladeshi Missions in London, Bangkok, and Geneva. He also served as director in various wings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, including as Director of the Foreign Secretary’s Office from 1996 to 1998.

The event was moderated by Dr. Adam Lupel, Vice President of IPI.

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Marking 17 years since Bahrain’s creation of the National Action Charter (NAC), IPI MENA and the Bahrain Parliament held a joint conference on Feburary 8, 2018 entitled, “Future Prospects, Sustainable Development and Peace.” The conference comprised of three panels that delved into political, religious, and economic aspects of sustainable development and democracy.

Opening the conference, H.E. Ahmed Bin Ibrahim Al Mulla, Bahrain’s Parliament Speaker, recalled the contribution of the NAC in restoring constitutional institutions, including the return of the parliamentarian activity. The Speaker said the current reform strategies are irreversible, and that Bahrain aims to join the global process towards progress, development, and peace.

Speaking on behalf of IPI President Terje Rød-Larsen, Nejib Friji, Director of IPI MENA, stressed the importance of this joint initiative in taking the first steps towards developing a collaborative framework on the road to advancing sustainable development and peace.

Mr. Friji commended the frameworks constructed by Bahrain’s constitutional monarchy in enabling the Kingdom to thrive in a number of fields that are crucial to and interconnected with sustainable development.

Recognizing Bahrain’s efforts to support gender equity and women empowerment as part of these developments, Mr. Friji stated that “women constitute half of Bahraini society, and the government has recognized their crucial and integral roles in the sustainable development of the Kingdom.” In particular, he noted the advancement and empowerment of women in the different domains, politically, economically and socially, “through the enactment of laws and legislations to integrate women in the development process of the Kingdom.”

Emphasizing the tolerance and cooperation valued in the Kingdom, Mr. Friji also commended their practical application in ways “that have allowed the IPI to host interreligious dialogues with representatives of the many religions that coexist peacefully, and that have maintained strong relations with the Kingdom.”

Mr. Friji stated that these developments have “enabled the Kingdom to maintain strong ties with the United Nations in observing their democratic policies in efforts to safeguard the diversity and unity of the Bahraini society.”

Concluding his remarks, the IPI MENA Director noted that, although several challenges remain on the road ahead, IPI will continue to assist, based on the values of the UN Charter, in the quest for peace, development, and security.

“This is only the first step,” Mr. Friji stated, “in the joint Bahrain Parliament and IPI partnership that will feature research, convening, ‘think tanking’ towards ‘do-tanking,’ and other activities.”

The conference was attended by Speakers of the Council of Representatives from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as senior government officials, diplomats, regional and international organizations, academics, journalists, and media representatives.

While the importance of good governance to sustaining peace is widely recognized, the focus tends to be on national governance. This overlooks the crucial role of local governance actors, particularly when the central government is fragmented or lacks broad legitimacy. These actors include not only formal institutions like municipal governments but also a mix of other actors that could range from traditional chieftaincies to community-based organizations to religious institutions.

This issue brief explores how good local governance can contribute to sustaining peace in three ways: (1) by delivering services and promoting sustainable development more effectively and efficiently; (2) by giving people voice in a representatives and inclusive way; and (3) by nurturing political will to resolve conflict and sustain peace. It also highlights how local governance actors can undermine peace if they do not fulfill these functions effectively.

This issue brief is part of the International Peace Institute’s (IPI) attempt to reframe prevention for the purpose of sustaining peace through a series of conversations. Other conversations have focused on how to approach the UN’s regional political offices, peace operations, the SDG on gender equality, entrepreneurship, and human rights from the perspective of sustaining peace, as well as on what sustaining peace means in practice.

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The International Peace Institute, Middle East & North Africa (IPI-MENA) hosted a preliminary meeting of experts set to join in finding solutions to structural challenges regarding pensions and savings on both the regional and global levels.

During the meeting, held February 1, 2018 at the IPI-MENA office in Manama, experts in pensions, finance and investment from the public and private sectors emphasized the link between savings and pensions, and the importance of both in sustaining social peace worldwide.Existing pension funds suffer from an inability to meet the needs of the burgeoning number of retirees, necessitating pivotal action to promote responsible wealth management.

Ebrahim K. Ebrahim, Pension Expert, noted that any initiative in this direction must include financial literacy education for the public and take a comprehensive approach, promoting a combination of governmental, private sector and individual efforts.

Nejib Friji, Director of IPI-MENA, reiterated that strong pension schemes are instrumental to sustaining peace and stability, and that decisive action now will reassure ageing regional and global retiree populations of a sustainable future.

Mr. Friji warned that 85% of the world’s salaried populations do not have a source of post-retirement income, which exacerbates inter-generational strains over limited public resources, thereby jeopardizing long-term social peace.

Other attendees of the meeting included Fareed El Naggar, Professor and Consultant, Management House for Training and Consultancy; Nehal Al Najjar, Associate Professor, Royal University of Women; Ali Al Marshid, Head of Fixed Income, SICO; Khurram Mirza, Head of Asset Allocation, OSOOL; Jameel Abdulnabi, Senior Manager of Financial Accounting and Vice Chairman of the Employee Savings Scheme, BAPCO and Ruan Rensburg, CEO – Bahrain and the Middle East, LUX Actuaries.

Bahrain’s status as a regional financial hub makes it a logical base from which to promote a savings and pension initiative. IPI-MENA is dedicated to working closely with future partners across the region and globe to advocate for a more robust savings, wealth management and pension culture, Mr. Friji said.