A virtual fundraising event this month across the US is aimed at supporting and connecting youth in conflict zones. Play for Peace has launched Level Up: Race for Humanity 2020, from September 1 to September 30, pivoting to meet COVID-19 restrictions.
“After a long summer of staying inside, join Play for Peace for this entirely virtual event that invites participants to get up off the couch to elevate their hearts, minds, and bodies with challenges, activities, and exercises created for individuals and groups of all ages, ending with the big race,” said Sarah Gough, Play for Peace Executive Director.
“Walk, bike, or roll your 2.2K to 20.2K journey, and embrace the new sense of peace within yourself, while inspiring your community and supporting peace around the world.”
Participants can sign up as an individual, create a team, or join an existing team on the Level Up page. Everyone who registers will receive a digital training toolkit, for home or outside, and can opt in to earn electronic badges. Participants of all ages can complete activities individually or with your classroom, friends, and family following physical distancing guidelines.
Chinese authorities have taken over the US consulate general in Chengdu, marking the diplomatic mission’s official closure and a new low point in ties between the world’s largest economies. At dawn on Monday, the American flag outside the consulate was lowered while police held back crowds that had gathered over the weekend to watch. At 10am, the mission was closed, according to China’s foreign ministry. Read the full story here. Photo: U.S. DoD
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Jordan and the West Bank earlier this month to reiterate Egypt’s rejection of the Israeli plan to annex parts of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank. Egypt believes that the chances of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians should be based on a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital… Read more here.
“The climate emergency is a danger to peace”, said Miroslav Jenča, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, as he called on peace and security actors to play their role and help speed up implementation of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change.
“The failure to consider the growing impacts of climate change will undermine our efforts at conflict prevention, peacemaking and sustaining peace, and risk trapping vulnerable countries in a vicious cycle of climate disaster and conflict”, he said.
Mr. Jenča briefed the Council at the start of an open video-teleconference debate on climate and security, one of the key themes of this month’s German presidency of the 15-member body.
Noting that the consequences of climate change vary from region to region, he said the fragile or conflict-affected situations around the world are more exposed to – and less able to cope with – the effects of a changing climate.
Peacekeeping link “It is no coincidence that seven of the 10 countries most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change, host a peacekeeping operation or special political mission”, he said.
Differences exists between regions, within regions and within communities, with climate-related security risks impacting women, men, girls and boys in different ways, he said.
In the Pacific, rising sea levels and extreme weather events pose a risk to social cohesion, he said.
In Central Asia, water stress and reduced access to natural resources can contribute to regional tensions.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, climate-driven population displacement could undermine regional stability. And in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, the effects of climate change are already deepening grievances and escalating the risk of conflict – providing fodder for extremist groups.
Outlining some actions that Member States can take together, he said that new technologies must be leveraged to strengthen the ability to turn long-term climate foresight, into actionable, near-term analysis.
Mr. Jenča also recommended stronger partnerships that would bring together the efforts already being made by the UN, Member States, regional organizations and others, to identify best practices, strengthen resilience and bolster regional cooperation.
Opinion: Christian Cito Cirhigiri is a peace journalist from the Democratic Republic of Congo and founder of Peacemaker 360 and Program Adviser at Conducive Space for Peace, an international non-profit organization based in Denmark, which supports collaborative partnerships to facilitate systemic transformation of the global peacebuilding system. He is currently a Ph.D. researcher at the Human Rights Center of the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University where he is researching community participation in security governance initiatives in North Kivu (Eastern Congo).
The global spread of COVID-19 has drastically disrupted our way of life. This impact is deeply felt in fragile contexts where a combination of prolonged armed conflicts, bad governance, and inadequate healthcare systems have predisposed nations for much more devastating effects of the pandemic. However, despite the precariousness in these contexts, local peacebuilders have stepped up to support the already over-strained healthcare providers and are redefining responsive new ways to do peacebuilding in their communities. In the margins of this year’s High Level Political Forum (HLPF) and in light of the ongoing global CPVID-19 crisis, on July 16 the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS) and Conducive Space for Peace (CSP) organized a virtual event with local peacebuilders to share findings and recommendations from two recently released reports on COVID-19 implications for peacebuilding.
Local peacebuilders who participated in the panel discussion included Comfort Attah of ASSHHF (Nigeria), Rashida Namulonda of the Sophia Muwanika Institute (Uganda), Fidele Djebba of Association Rayons Soleil (Cameroon), and Jimmy Shilue of Platform for Dialogue (Liberia).
Among the most important findings that these reports highlight, the following insights are particularly relevant for understanding the complex realities facing local peacebuilders in these difficult times. Both reports underscored a ‘secondary impact’ of COVID-19 to local peacebuilding—exacerbating underlying root causes of conflict, particularly inequality. Furthermore, with government responses not being adequately conflict sensitive, local peacebuilders reported significant increases in police violence and increasing instability and fragility. Peacebuilding organisations, even at the local level, also struggle to access the most vulnerable and affected groups. The digital divide is particularly felt in remote regions where digital access is highly limited. Panelists and recent findings of CSPPS and CSP reports also indicated spikes in gender-based violence, including domestic sexual violence, with women and youth particularly affected as the pandemic unfolds.
An important finding from CSP’s report on shifting funding modalities for local peacebuilding stresses that although small local peacebuilding organisations are at the frontline of peacebuilding—also during the COVID-19 crisis—they have been hardest hit financially by the crisis with four out of five peacebuilders experiencing a reduction in funding since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic putting the sustainability of their work at risk. Such reduction in funding and opportunities for resources for local peacebuilding has dire implications for the sustainability of their work. While COVID-19 presents important opportunities to evolve the field of peacebuilding and re-think the place of local agency and power, at least three recommendations are important to consider to sustain local peacebuilding during this time:
An integrated approach
First, to the fullest extent possible international support should hold at its core an integrated prevention approach understanding that the pandemic is not only a health emergency but a multi-dimensional crisis that poses challenges to peacebuilding.
Local solutions to local issues
Second, partnership between local and international actors should recognize the agency of local NGOs who are on the frontlines. Challenging and equalizing power hierarchies in partnership models between local and international actors is essential to sustaining local peacebuilding during and beyond the crisis.
Accessing funding quickly
Third, while NGOs play a critical role as interlocutors in securing funding and appropriate support for local peacebuilders, they must negotiate with bilateral donors and private foundations to promote and secure more easily accessible and flexible funding to local peacebuilders. International donors should also continue to advocate with national governments for the importance of local peacebuilders and also act on the power they have to ensure that intermediary organisations channel as much funding as possible to local organisations. As vaccine trials to COVID-19 are being tested in different countries, what is certain for the foreseeable future is that the pandemic will continue exerting insurmountable pressure to local peacebuilders to continue their work. Supporting them in this uncertain time is critical and more than anything, it is an act of solidarity with communities in fragile contexts that are carrying a double burden of this public health crisis. With everyday passing. local peacebuilding is weakened but this can change if local and international actors engage work together to sustain peace during and beyond the pandemic.
