The War Prevention Initiative Team enjoyed participating in the 2018 Global PDX Conference. At a gathering, aimed at exploring the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, War Prevention Initiative Executive Director Patrick Hiller gave the opening keynote speech entitled: The humanitarian-development-peace nexus: multidimensional responses to multidimensional problems.
Recognizing the many positive opportunities, Hiller suggested that business as usual was not an option and that if we concentrate on helping and forget to criticize the root causes, we are to a certain degree legitimizing those.
A poster emphasizing peace systems analysis rather than Pollyannish Peace was presented at the evening reception.
The following is a summary of the keynote speech:
Humanitarian crises, development concerns and violent conflicts take place in an interlinked, multidimensional context. Sustained and coordinated collaboration instead of siloed approaches between workers in these three areas can transform destructive contexts to constructive ones and advance the 2030 UN Sustainable Development agenda. This talk will cover four interconnected topics as they pertain to the humanitarian, development, and peace Nexus – the painful analysis we need, the tools we have, the bold conviction of the value of our work, and the core principles that should inform our work.
First, the war and peace analysis will be broadened by highlighting structural inequalities as major drivers of war. For anyone involved in the business of building peace, this is the important and sometimes painful analysis of what is wrong. Second, the often under-utilized tools in the field of peace and conflict research will be (re)introduced to the many beneficiaries. Peace research insights as well as systematic conflict analysis are prerequisites for constructive pathways forward. Third, military interventions for the sake of peace and security are critically examined. Practitioners need to be unambiguous about their conviction that their approaches are always superior to any form of military “solution” to a crisis. Forth, the concept of ‘peace-scapes’ is offered as a non-hierarchical recommendation of core principles for meaningful action in the humanitarian, development, and peace Nexus.
