1 00:00:00,030 --> 00:00:06,540 And I'm very conscious being back in Oxford that 30 years ago, exactly 30 years ago, I finished the thesis here, 2 00:00:06,540 --> 00:00:15,480 writing about how people in the Soviet Union had fought in the Second World War and adapted to civilian life after the war. 3 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:25,050 The process of demobilisation and I had the very good fortune immediately as I finished that thesis to stumble into a job at international 4 00:00:25,050 --> 00:00:33,240 labs and to set up a programme for what we then called conflict resolution in the former Soviet Union and particularly in the caucuses, 5 00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:36,960 just as the war in Abkhazia was breaking out. 6 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:42,810 And that's actually a context that's, I suppose dominated my life since. 7 00:00:42,810 --> 00:00:48,000 And sort of looking back at that time, a couple of us were just reflecting that lunch that in a way, 8 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:55,050 the 90s were a bit of a boom period for conflict resolution, peacebuilding and the 20s. 9 00:00:55,050 --> 00:00:58,440 A current decade feels a bit like a doom period, 10 00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:07,740 with the sort of unholy trinity of covered conflicts and climate change dominating, dominating our thinking. 11 00:01:07,740 --> 00:01:18,960 And so what I'm going to reflect on a little bit in my presentation is less of the wonderfully eloquent reflections that we had this morning, 12 00:01:18,960 --> 00:01:25,070 but perhaps a slightly more prosaic perspective of. 13 00:01:25,070 --> 00:01:32,360 What does it mean to be involved in running a peace building organisation? And so in a way, I stand here is what I see as a peace building bureaucrat. 14 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:35,720 Sadly, I'm less doing the hands on work these days, 15 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:44,150 but hopefully doing a reasonably good job to facilitate that fantastic team of 80 colleagues who are out there doing the peace, 16 00:01:44,150 --> 00:01:51,140 building work and engaging with communities and contexts and complexity in in those endeavours and working 17 00:01:51,140 --> 00:02:02,000 with any given time 60 to 80 partner organisations living the conflicts that they're trying to transform. 18 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:11,930 And I'm extraordinarily conscious that the work that we do and when I think about trying to answer this question, 19 00:02:11,930 --> 00:02:19,140 who builds peace, that the people who build peace and the people who. 20 00:02:19,140 --> 00:02:26,220 I think of people who are doing on one level, ordinary and on another level extraordinary work on a daily basis. 21 00:02:26,220 --> 00:02:33,270 And tragically, who too often give their lives for this very dear friend of mine. 22 00:02:33,270 --> 00:02:39,600 Just dropped dead last November. Younger than me, 52, that he had worked himself to an early grave. 23 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:45,570 Others, and we will know them have have been killed in the pursuit of trying to build peace. 24 00:02:45,570 --> 00:02:55,590 And I think, you know, we need to reflect that is a high stakes endeavour to try and build peace not just in political or legal terms, 25 00:02:55,590 --> 00:03:03,930 but in terms of life and death. And I'm more conscious than ever that this is a work of many hands. 26 00:03:03,930 --> 00:03:08,460 Building peace is not something that you do alone. And there are many angles to it. 27 00:03:08,460 --> 00:03:15,120 So I speak from a perspective of conciliation, resources, peacebuilding, mediation support, NGO. 28 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:19,120 But I am very conscious that we do this in what I mean. 29 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:21,750 John Paul this morning use the term ecosystem, 30 00:03:21,750 --> 00:03:31,080 and I was thinking of using it in terms of the ecosystem in which we operate alongside intergovernmental organisations, multilateral organisations, 31 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:37,020 government states, non-state armed groups and civil society, 32 00:03:37,020 --> 00:03:48,630 and its manifold existence and the sorts of organisations to movement activists and to bureaucrats who pursue this effort. 33 00:03:48,630 --> 00:03:58,410 And I think of the words of my friend and colleague Andy Karl, who founded Conciliation Resources twenty eight years ago, 34 00:03:58,410 --> 00:04:04,980 and Andy had a mantra that the people most affected and often most insightful about what it needs, 35 00:04:04,980 --> 00:04:11,100 what needs to be done to address conflict are often the least well resourced to do so. 36 00:04:11,100 --> 00:04:18,320 And in some ways, that's how Andy came up with what many people consider the strange and conciliation resources. 37 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:28,400 And I think this idea of how do you provide resources to the people who are most exposed, most vulnerable, but also most invested in change? 38 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:36,740 How do you provide them resources to enable them to do this in a in a sustained way? 39 00:04:36,740 --> 00:04:42,530 In recent years, quite rightly, the discourse around local peacebuilding has become very powerful. 40 00:04:42,530 --> 00:04:48,650 And it's a very dynamic one and I think critical to our understanding of what it is we're all involved in. 41 00:04:48,650 --> 00:04:53,750 But I also think it's really important that we don't make a fetish of the notion of the vocal. 42 00:04:53,750 --> 00:05:00,140 On the one hand, I find it some times can be terribly patronising to talk of local peace builders. 43 00:05:00,140 --> 00:05:07,490 And then these internationals who come in on one level, we're all local and we should be very wary of that dichotomy. 44 00:05:07,490 --> 00:05:11,330 But I also think that it touches on. 45 00:05:11,330 --> 00:05:20,570 I mean, it touches on what John Paul spoke about when he spoke about the dichotomy between inside a partial mediators and outside neutral actors. 46 00:05:20,570 --> 00:05:32,570 I hope we've learnt that the outside a multi partial actor is not neutral about the violations and the abuses and the butchery that they witness. 47 00:05:32,570 --> 00:05:42,530 But if you choose to be a peace builder, if you choose to support processes of mediation, you do sometimes have to step back and not take sides. 48 00:05:42,530 --> 00:05:49,250 And that can be painful, can be uncomfortable, but you need to think about what's your role, what's your contribution? 49 00:05:49,250 --> 00:05:52,940 But I just want to think about the term local on another level. 50 00:05:52,940 --> 00:05:59,920 The societies that become immersed in conflict do so for a myriad of different reasons. 51 00:05:59,920 --> 00:06:06,910 Geopolitics has been mentioned, and I think that's a powerful driver, and it's one that is on some levels inescapable. 52 00:06:06,910 --> 00:06:16,520 I was in an event last weekend with someone who used the time, the geopolitical squeeze, and I think it's a very powerful one. 53 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:25,050 But at the same time, those people who are striving for change within conflict ridden societies. 54 00:06:25,050 --> 00:06:28,950 They are often asking for they need external support. 55 00:06:28,950 --> 00:06:37,680 Societies get enmeshed in conflict because unfortunately of the dysfunctions that people within struggled to resolve than their own. 56 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:48,630 So the question is how do you bring support from outside in a respectful, meaningful way that sustains effective peacebuilding? 57 00:06:48,630 --> 00:06:52,860 And one of the things that we think about very deeply in our organisation is 58 00:06:52,860 --> 00:06:59,920 the question of what is meaningful and effective in the peacebuilding sphere. 59 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:04,810 And in some ways, I think that relationship between the people whose conflict is we're trying to 60 00:07:04,810 --> 00:07:08,200 transform that conflict and the people from outside how they work together, 61 00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:13,460 that relationship is part of the alchemy of what it is to build peace. 62 00:07:13,460 --> 00:07:20,000 So when I asked myself who builds peace, I think of the multiple partnerships that we're involved in. 63 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:26,690 And a few years ago, we did some research to try and unpack what our understanding of partnership and peacebuilding is. 64 00:07:26,690 --> 00:07:33,920 There's been a lot of work on partnership in multiple spheres, and we want to think, what does it mean for us as a peace building organisation? 65 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:40,550 And we came up with four findings that I think were very important for our sense of who we are as an organisation. 66 00:07:40,550 --> 00:07:47,070 So I want to share those with you and then talk a little bit about some of the specific contributions that can be made. 67 00:07:47,070 --> 00:07:51,060 One is what we call an accompaniment approach. 68 00:07:51,060 --> 00:07:55,320 And we think this is particularly suited to what we recognise as being long term 69 00:07:55,320 --> 00:08:00,900 and adaptive peacebuilding around the genuine commitment to working with people, 70 00:08:00,900 --> 00:08:08,940 but to co-creating what it is you do in the strategies that are designed and developed and really genuinely thinking about what does 71 00:08:08,940 --> 00:08:18,180 it mean to provide the space that gets beyond outputs and deliverables that all too often get talked about to focus on the change? 72 00:08:18,180 --> 00:08:27,570 Secondly, I think there's a question around the diverse set of relationships with different organisations have different mandates and profiles, 73 00:08:27,570 --> 00:08:29,970 and that can be a real strength in peacebuilding. 74 00:08:29,970 --> 00:08:38,550 When you have partners who amplify each other's strengths and when you have a genuine consideration for what complementarity means, 75 00:08:38,550 --> 00:08:45,540 sadly we're conscious that there's a balance between remote partnering and being present. 76 00:08:45,540 --> 00:08:51,510 We don't have offices in all the context where we work. We do in some and we always have to think, why are we there? 77 00:08:51,510 --> 00:08:54,990 What we seeking to achieve in being there? 78 00:08:54,990 --> 00:09:01,140 And how do we navigate the politics which is essential for the people within their own societies building peace? 79 00:09:01,140 --> 00:09:05,190 But it's also essential for you as an outsider coming in. 80 00:09:05,190 --> 00:09:08,460 You bring reputational challenges for your partners. 81 00:09:08,460 --> 00:09:15,630 You bring questions around the privileged access that you, as an outsider, as an international often have. 82 00:09:15,630 --> 00:09:20,340 And how does that jeopardise what people within their own societies do? 83 00:09:20,340 --> 00:09:28,600 And how do you use that privilege access? In the interests of people within society, not within your own interests. 84 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:38,320 And that takes a lot of choreography and intent to ensure that unheard voices and marginalised voices get given due recognition. 85 00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:50,840 And then fourthly, I think there's an issue. Around balance in the contractual aspects of partnership and aspiration and activism for change. 86 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:56,200 On one level, as an outside organisation often has the funds channelled through you. 87 00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:58,760 There's a question of. 88 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:08,100 Being able to act as a buffer to insulate people within conflict regions from some of the complex and competing demands imposed by donors. 89 00:10:08,100 --> 00:10:11,430 But you have to balance that with making sure that it's not your agenda, 90 00:10:11,430 --> 00:10:19,450 you're working to that you're really listening to the agendas of the people who are seeking change in their own society. 91 00:10:19,450 --> 00:10:25,060 And then I think this question of how you navigate the overly prescriptive approaches of donors, 92 00:10:25,060 --> 00:10:33,100 be it in the increasingly arduous compliance and regulatory domain that we constantly have to struggle with. 93 00:10:33,100 --> 00:10:44,830 Be it the results based monitoring and evaluation that is so often out of tune with the non-linear nature of conflict in volatile contexts. 94 00:10:44,830 --> 00:10:53,410 These are things that become a joint struggle. But the truth is, often times as an organisation based in London or wherever it might be, 95 00:10:53,410 --> 00:10:59,080 you're dealing with this constantly, whereas if you're working with a community group. 96 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:07,080 In. Northern Central African Republic. It's a discourse that they have no experience of. 97 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:12,960 And so you can become the translator of how to deal with these sorts of issues. 98 00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:19,470 But we I mean, and hopefully we use this role to also try and influence the donors to think about 99 00:11:19,470 --> 00:11:24,960 how they use their resources and how they use that influence to bring about change, 100 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:29,890 to try and change some of these often absurd approaches. 101 00:11:29,890 --> 00:11:37,290 Can't say we've been hugely successful today, but that's another story. So what is an NGO like? 102 00:11:37,290 --> 00:11:43,230 Ours brings to the process of peace when we work with colleagues in conflict contexts. 103 00:11:43,230 --> 00:11:48,090 Of course, it will vary from organisation to organisation, and it will vary from context to context. 104 00:11:48,090 --> 00:11:53,700 But I want to just think of for that. I hope we try and do well. 105 00:11:53,700 --> 00:11:59,460 One is bringing comparative experience. We work in some 20 contexts. 106 00:11:59,460 --> 00:12:06,210 We also produce a journal called Code On. 107 00:12:06,210 --> 00:12:14,880 Practise good, good. Different on practise, the practise of building peace and what is effective, what is less effective. 108 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:23,610 So we bring a lot of comparative experience to the table. And I was reminded in one of the breaks this morning talking with John all the that 109 00:12:23,610 --> 00:12:30,480 when John was speaker of the Assembly in Northern Ireland in the early 2000s. 110 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:41,370 We brought several groups of Georgian and Abkhaz civic and political actors to Belfast to try and give them a different perspective on security, 111 00:12:41,370 --> 00:12:46,740 economic, cultural, political issues as they impacted on their contacts. 112 00:12:46,740 --> 00:12:54,360 And John shared his vision of how you move from violence to politics as a means to address conflict. 113 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:58,830 And that was a very powerful notion for Georgian and up close colleagues. 114 00:12:58,830 --> 00:13:04,680 And so being able to bring that comparative perspective and one has to be careful with study visits 115 00:13:04,680 --> 00:13:08,310 because they've become a bit of a go to tool over the years and they can be a waste of money. 116 00:13:08,310 --> 00:13:17,180 Sometimes you've really got to think about them in a in a thoughtful, planned way to make them useful. 117 00:13:17,180 --> 00:13:22,460 But I also think that the comparative experience you can bring, for instance, what we're doing. 118 00:13:22,460 --> 00:13:27,740 Tanya mentioned what we're doing in the Somali regional state of Ethiopia, where we've been involved for more than a decade, 119 00:13:27,740 --> 00:13:34,100 and it's actually one of the situations where we had the good fortune to help the signing of a peace agreement. 120 00:13:34,100 --> 00:13:37,400 And that doesn't happen very often, I have to say. 121 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:47,930 But we're now working with colleagues there on efforts to look at how survivors, how victims can influence the process of transitional justice. 122 00:13:47,930 --> 00:13:53,210 And we brought them brought those colleagues into contact with people doing this in a variety of 123 00:13:53,210 --> 00:13:58,920 different places so they can see what's useful for them and what lessons they might want to learn. 124 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:07,890 A second row after the comparative experience is, I think as an outsider, you can play a really important role in supporting to bridge divides. 125 00:14:07,890 --> 00:14:15,300 This can be very hard for insiders to do alone. Sometimes a structure of a conflict just makes it impossible. 126 00:14:15,300 --> 00:14:22,650 Now I think of work that I've been intimately involved in in the Georgian conflict where you couldn't just walk across the divide, 127 00:14:22,650 --> 00:14:26,820 you did need some kind of external facilitation to bring people together. 128 00:14:26,820 --> 00:14:34,440 Likewise, in Kashmir. So in both those contexts, we've been involved in long standing dialogue initiatives across the conflict divide, 129 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:36,630 but actually initiatives of multiple levels, 130 00:14:36,630 --> 00:14:43,110 bringing people together in political dialogue, bringing people together and educational initiatives in Kashmir. 131 00:14:43,110 --> 00:14:50,140 Facilitating a long standing. But currently blocked process of a joint chamber of Commerce and industry. 132 00:14:50,140 --> 00:14:58,290 The only cross line of Control body that has existed in Kashmir and this has been us, 133 00:14:58,290 --> 00:15:04,050 is outsiders being able to play that facilitative role to bring people together? 134 00:15:04,050 --> 00:15:08,040 I think of Connexions within societies that are fragmented, 135 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:14,820 so I've got colleagues in the Central African Republic at the moment working on what we call a decentralised dialogue, 136 00:15:14,820 --> 00:15:21,480 recognising the dilemmas that was spoken of earlier of the the the centre and the peripheries of states. 137 00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:31,540 And how do you bridge those divides? And we find that our partners in the Central African Republic need external support to facilitate that alone. 138 00:15:31,540 --> 00:15:35,010 They've not been able to raise the resources or the access to make it happen. 139 00:15:35,010 --> 00:15:39,220 So through partnership, we brought it to a new level. 140 00:15:39,220 --> 00:15:46,920 Thirdly, I think about the the way we can provide challenge in spaces where people can think differently. 141 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:55,850 And I think that. One of the elements of that is how do you make the process of change less exclusive? 142 00:15:55,850 --> 00:15:59,810 How do you bring different voices in that might not have that opportunity? 143 00:15:59,810 --> 00:16:05,120 And again, I work with the owner left in August, and I think it's been quite instructive for us on that. 144 00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:09,680 And then the fourth area where I think we bring a lot and it's been spoken about earlier 145 00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:14,720 today is this question of access to resources and the nature of financing peacebuilding, 146 00:16:14,720 --> 00:16:23,810 which in so many ways is demanding and inadequate. And there are challenges around financial cycles that John Paul spoke about 10 year funding. 147 00:16:23,810 --> 00:16:27,620 Well, those of you who are involved in peacebuilding know that's the holy grail. 148 00:16:27,620 --> 00:16:35,210 And you know what we do and I think of our experience of working in a George Knapp has context for 30 years. 149 00:16:35,210 --> 00:16:45,620 Well, 25 years at S.R. beforehand, and we have to piece together a mosaic of funding and you're constantly trying to bridge gaps and keep the 150 00:16:45,620 --> 00:16:51,890 resources going so you don't lose momentum in the initiatives and that you don't project ties what you're doing, 151 00:16:51,890 --> 00:16:58,060 that you are thinking strategically, whether the funding environment makes that really hard. 152 00:16:58,060 --> 00:17:06,470 And we have to constantly ask ourselves, are we diverting resources from people in the context who are trying to bring about change? 153 00:17:06,470 --> 00:17:10,970 Or are we adding value? So what makes this work happen? 154 00:17:10,970 --> 00:17:20,060 What's the glue? We've had a lot about relationships today, and quite rightly, John Paul spoke about curiosity, humility and patience. 155 00:17:20,060 --> 00:17:25,340 I'd add to that durability, empathy and generosity. 156 00:17:25,340 --> 00:17:33,080 I think the commitment to being there through fallow times is critical to building the credibility to be able to play a role. 157 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:37,910 I think questions of coordination and complementarity are essential. 158 00:17:37,910 --> 00:17:41,390 Undoubtedly, NGOs trade on one another's toes. 159 00:17:41,390 --> 00:17:49,070 But I think where I where we stand today compared to when I got involved 30 years ago, let alone 10 years ago, 160 00:17:49,070 --> 00:17:57,650 the collaboration and the coordination between multiple organisations has moved on enormously, and I think there's a lot further to go. 161 00:17:57,650 --> 00:18:04,360 But I'm heartened by the way I see people working together. 162 00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:13,430 Tanya spoke about successes and failures and and clearly, we don't always achieve what we're striving for. 163 00:18:13,430 --> 00:18:20,060 But we do know that commitment to stay engaged in processes is imperative. 164 00:18:20,060 --> 00:18:28,220 And to do this, we need to navigate the politics. And as Andrew rightly emphasised, peacebuilding is fundamentally political. 165 00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:36,020 Too many donors talk about people to people engagement as if you can detach it from the politics of a situation. 166 00:18:36,020 --> 00:18:44,960 And David Bloomfield, speaking about reconciliation in a publication of ours a few years ago, said that people think reconciliation is soft. 167 00:18:44,960 --> 00:18:48,860 And I apply that to people, to people diplomacy. They think it's soft, it's easy. 168 00:18:48,860 --> 00:18:55,770 You can bring that into a process that's protracted and intractable. Our job is to find traction. 169 00:18:55,770 --> 00:19:02,820 And reconciliation and people to people engagement is not soft, it's the hardest thing imaginable. 170 00:19:02,820 --> 00:19:09,000 And in a world where we see governments throwing money at the militarised solutions of conflicts, 171 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:17,360 we need to find a way back to those soft issues that are actually the essence of what peacebuilding is. 172 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:24,440 And so the final comment I'd make is that in running a peace building organisation. 173 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:34,430 And and being run by my colleagues much of the time, I think the critical dimension we have to hold onto is thinking about what our values are, 174 00:19:34,430 --> 00:19:42,830 what we stand for and to ensure that we don't allow the transactional nature of relationships 175 00:19:42,830 --> 00:19:49,010 to surpass the transformative aspirations that we have in being involved in peacebuilding. 176 00:19:49,010 --> 00:19:52,516 Thank you.