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Yesterday (Wednesday), following seven months of hard work, South
East of England MEP, Nirj Deva hosted a conference on Conflict
Prevention and Conflict Resolution in Developing Countries at the
heart of the European Parliament in Brussels.
Attending the conference were representatives of the European
Commission, international trade bodies, charities and Members of the
European Parliament from a variety of different political
backgrounds.
The following conclusions were made by the speakers:
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Dan Silvey, Senior Policy Officer at the UK-based
development NGO Christian Aid, called for an overall EU
framework and more coherent approach with regard to
humanitarian aid and development policy in order to achieve
faster and more efficient reactions to crises around the world
in the future.
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Dr Christopher Daase, Head of the Department of Conflict
Studies at the Brussels School for International Studies,
elaborated on the very controversial topic of "Humanitarian
Intervention", i.e. the use of military force in external
crisis areas without the agreement/consent of the country in
question. Dr Daase, tackled four key questions:
1. Who has the authority to act (the UN, individual
states etc?)
2. Why should humanitarian intervention take place?
3. When should humanitarian intervention take place?
4. How should this action be carried out?
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Miss Lindsay Alexander EU Policy Officer at the UK-based
conflict transformation NGO International Alert,
identified two areas in particular where the EU could do
better with regard to conflict prevention: a) integrating its
crisis management measures better with its conflict prevention
policy, and b) tackle the root causes of conflict, in
particular poverty, earlier and more efficiently.
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Catriona Gourlay, Executive Director of ISIS Europe, a
Brussels-based think tank working on the analysis of
international defence and security issues, raised the point
that the EU should not only look at military measures when
talking about conflict resolution and crisis management, but
rather strengthen its civilian crisis management capacities
and develop an efficient civilian mission-planning capacity.
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Laura Davis, Deputy Director of the European Centre for
Common Ground, a Brussels-based NGO working across the
world on conflict prevention and conflict resolution measures
called for the creation of a European Peacebuilding Agency,
whose mission would be to organise the recruitment of and
training for civilian personnel going into crisis areas.
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Javier Niño Perez of the European Commission's Conflict
Prevention Unit, and Eleanor O'Gorman of UNDP Brussels,
both called for a better co-operation between the European
Union and the United Nations in the field of conflict
prevention, conflict resolution and crisis management.
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 Following
the conference, Deva, who has served as the Conservative Spokesman
for International Development and Co-operation since his election to
the Parliament in 1999 said:
”I am thrilled to have been able to bring together so many different
voluntary organizations, academics and charities to discuss the best
way forward for EU policy towards conflict resolution and
prevention, for the first time ever.
”It is particularly encouraging to see members of all political
parties – left and right – uniting behind the efforts of the British
Conservative delegation to find solutions to problems of key
international significance”
Notes:
The titles of the presentations made by the speakers at the
conference were as follows:
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The link between the crisis of government and conflicts (Dan
Silvey, Christian Aid)
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The legitimacy of humanitarian intervention (Dr Christopher
Daase, Head of the Department of
Conflict Studies, Brussels School for International Studies)
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The EU’s commitment to conflict prevention and how it could do
better (Miss Lindsay Alexander,
International Alert/Saferworld)
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The EU's instruments for crisis management/short term tools to
de-escalate conflict (Catriona Gourlay, ISIS Europe)
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The development of EU civilian capabilities - Proposal for a
European Peace Building Agency (Laura
Davis, European Centre for Common Ground)
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Commission's response to the above presentations (Javier Niño
Pérez, European Commission)
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Conflict prevention in the context of EU-UN relations (Eleanor
O'Gorman, UNDP)
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