ACCORD’s Peacebuilding Unit recently attended the 2013 Annual Conference for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, titled ‘Innovation in Peacebuilding; breaking down silos and engaging civil society.’ As the institutional home for leading peacebuilding institutions and professionals around the world, the Alliance for Peacebuilding’s Annual Conference provided space for highly innovative creativity and collaboration with regards to concepts, strategies and programs informing local initiatives for peace.
This year, the conference featured a Keynote Address by Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. Day 1 focused on the current national and international political environment, and examined the context for peacebuilding in the next four years. Day 2 explored innovations in peacebuilding, and provided examples of working across silos to achieve more stable and durable peace. Day 3 focused on innovation from the perspectives of the theories of change, social healing and specific conflict contexts.
The Alliance for Peacebuilding Conference allowed ACCORD to participate in collaborative action, build on understanding of peacebuilding policies and programs, and work towards the ever increasing effectiveness of the Peacebuilding Unit through the development of networks and engagements geared towards innovative peacebuilding perspectives, best practices and lessons learned. This engagement forms part of the Peacebuilding Unit’s objective to continually work towards the enhancement of organisational capacities geared towards the possibilities for establishing sustainable peace. This engagement also provided the opportunity for ACCORD and the Peacebuilding Unit to share their perspectives and lessons learned from substantial work in the peacebuilding field within Africa.
The Peacebuilding Unit looks forward to increasing possibilities for collaborative action and to integrating these lessons learned into its practice of working towards sustainable and thus, locally owned peace within the diverse African continent.
