Nadi, Fiji 18 July
 

Peacebuilders from governments, civil society, regional organizations and the UN, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentleman;

I am pleased to welcome you here today and to make a few remarks which I hope will help set the scene for a successful workshop. This workshop is the second regional CPAD workshop, the first one was held in May 2010. As many of you know, this workshop is part of a much broader initiative to strengthen peace and development in the Pacific – and my colleague Tracy Vienings will explain more about how CPAD works, what it has achieved and what it hopes to achieve over the next few years.
 

As all of you are very aware, some Pacific Islands Countries have experienced a variety of localized forms of violent conflict. The longest running and most violent was the civil war in Bougainville. But there has also been tribal conflict in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea; inter-communal violence in Solomon Islands; political instability in Fiji; and social unrest in Tonga and Vanuatu. While the ones mentioned dominate the news, it is in fact local level violent inter-group conflict and more general issues of criminality that are amongst the most pressing security concerns in the Pacific.

The damage and loss of lives during conflict seem small by global standards but have a serious impact on the stability and development of the countries and communities involved or affected. For example, in Bougainville it is estimated that 10% of the population were killed during the crisis and a further 60,000 people displaced. In Solomon Islands, the conflict resulted in over 300 people losing their lives and some 50,000 people displaced resulting from threats, abductions and destruction of property. Conflict has also resulted in contracted economic growth and severe reductions in human development indicators.

 

Let me now turn to some key connections and specific issues around conflict and peace building:

1. The connection between development and peace building:
Even though comprehensive conflict analysis processes undertaken in Fiji and the Solomon Islands have highlighted the nexus between governance, development, and sustainable peace, many of the initiatives in the region, both from governments and civil society organizations, continue to focus primarily on third-party mediation, forgiveness ceremonies, and psychological trauma-healing through reconciliation events and counseling. Development is perceived as separate from peace building, even though many of the underlying causes of potential violence and tensions lie in poor and/or unequal governance and development practices. There is also a lack of progress in moving from analysis to action; actors need to be supported in concrete steps of how to respond to the causes of conflict and build on the capacities for peace.

2. Disconnect between regional and national discourse on security:
Whilst regional cooperation needs of Pacific nations on ‘traditional’ security issues are well mapped, policy formulation, identifying public security priorities, and the development of institutional capacities to participate in effective governance frameworks, remain areas for further cooperation at regional and national levels. The significance of addressing security issues at the regional level also faces many challenges, and you will have the opportunity to discuss these during the week.

3. Gender inequality and distortions of tradition:
Distortions of tradition have impacted severely on the status of women in the Pacific. The unequal status and power relations of women’s condition is most graphically illustrated by extreme forms of gender based violence (GBV). Women are also inadequately represented in decision-making.

4. Governments across the region tend to have weak or fragile relationships with civil society:
This weak relationship between governments and civil society also makes managing conflicts in a non-violent manner more difficult; the detachment weakens society’s capacity to manage socio-economic changes without resorting to violence. We are not kidding ourselves that this workshop or the initiative to address the Capacities for Peace and Development in the Pacific will somehow resolve any or all of these challenges. This can only be achieved if governments, civil society and citizens of the Pacific Islands find lasting solutions for themselves to these problems. However, this project, which is a sub-project of the Centre’s Crisis Prevention and Recovery programme, aims to make a contribution by bringing together the different actors to share experiences, discuss the difficult issues and begin to strengthen leadership and capacities for peace in the Pacific.

The CPAD project aims to build a cadre of Peacebuilders in the Pacific – representing governments, CROP agencies and Civil Society Organizations – to work together on regional and national Peacebuilding interventions. The main goal of the project is to build a community of peace practitioners in the Pacific to share resources, materials, approaches and tap into the expertise that lies within people working on these issues on a daily basis in the region. It’s a structured space (both virtual and face to- face) to reflect and learn from one another on an ongoing basis. It’s a space to collect stories, manuals, curricula and case studies and make them available to whoever needs them. The project will fund small peace activities in order to put theory into practice.

You are here over the next week to work out how the “community” should function; explore key concepts in conflict and peace analysis, how to design strategic and programming responses to build better peace (what’s working, what isn’t); as well as determine which policy issues you feel are critical to take up in the Pacific region.

This is about you! This is about you all working together to prevent conflict in the region and build peace. I will now let you start working together to address that most challenging task.