Southern Solutions for Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace

 

Objectives and Thematic Focus

There has been an expansion in the use of South-South cooperation beyond the realm of technical and economic activity to other forms of partnerships at the nexus of peace and development. These include partnerships in humanitarian, migration, peacebuilding, and mediation efforts, as well as conflict resolution and prevention.

The General Assembly and Security Council resolutions no longer define peacebuilding just as a ‘post’ conflict exercise but a robust continuing process, fully linked to conflict prevention, risk assessment, state-building, social cohesion and sustainable development. South-South cooperation, with its emphasis on national ownership and demand-driven transfer of knowledge and experience, has proven to be a suitable modality for promoting peacebuilding and the broader agenda of conflict prevention and preventing violent extremism.

The increased recognition of, and demand for, the value-added contribution of South-South cooperation to support peacebuilding efforts of the UN system requires a more systematic focus on building partnerships in this area and developing innovative approaches such as formulating a South-South Cooperation Framework for Peacebuilding, and piloting more effective capacity development projects through South-South cooperation modalities.

The Solution Forum will be organized to discuss the role of Southern actors in the nexus between sustainable development and sustaining peace, and will address important topics such as framework, funding, programme, knowledge and advocacy for South-South cooperation. This is a follow-up to a Peacebuilding Solution Forum held last year in Dubai.

The Solution Forum aims to bring high-level officials, leading researchers, and peace and development practitioners from around the global South to discuss how South-South cooperation approaches can be enhanced and promoted among peacebuilding activists of the global South focusing on funding, good practices, knowledge sharing and advocacy.

  • Funding: exploring funding mechanism which could be available for peacebuilding practitioners
  • Good practices: showcasing existing good practices of South-South and triangular cooperation in the area of peacebuilding and sharing their lessons learned and the recommendation for the High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40 Conference)
  • Knowledge sharing: introducing publication or documents on peacebuilding promoting South-South and triangular cooperation
  • Advocacy: highlighting a few advocacy events/conferences on peacebuilding in South-South and triangular cooperation

The panel discussion will be exchanging various points of view from national governments (both pivotal and beneficial countries), intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies.

 

Concrete Outcomes

  • Elements of a South-South cooperation peacebuilding framework, providing guidelines for future South-South cooperation activities in this area, will be introduced.
  • South-South innovative funding mechanism on peacebuilding activities will be explored.
  • Replicable South-South cooperation peacebuilding practices will be showcased.
  • As a knowledge product, joint publication of UNOSSC and g7+ on fragile-to-fragile cooperation will be launched.
  • Effective peacebuilding in South-South cooperation advocacy examples will be introduced.

 

Speakers

Master of Ceremonies:

  • Mehdi Mirafzal, Senior Adviser, United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC)

Keynote speakers:

  • E. Mr. Basat Öztürk, Ambassador, Deputy Undersecretary for National Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turkey
  • Helder da Costa, General Secretary, g7+ Secretariat
  • Jorge Chediek, Envoy of the Secretary-General on South-South Cooperation and Director, UNOSSC

Panel Discussion Moderator:

  • Ms. Xiaojun Grace Wang, Deputy Director for Programme and Operations, UNOSSC

Panellists:

  • Habib Ur Rehman Mayar, Deputy General Secretary, g7+ Secretariat
  • Iwan Nur Hidayat, Deputy Director of South-South Cooperation and International Non-Government Organizations, Directorate of Socio-Cultural and International Organization of Developing Countries, Directorate General of Multilateral Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indonesia
  • Kota Katsumata, Representative, Turkey Office, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
  • D Anita Mathur, Secretary, Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Division for Palestinian Rights, Department of Political Affairs, United Nations
  • Peter van Sluijs, Coordinator Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS) and Senior Strategist at Cordaid in The Hague

Lead Discussants

  • Maslah Abdullahi Wehlie, Director of Arab and Islamic Development Cooperation, Somalia
  • Pau Blanquer, Programme Specialist, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP

 

 

Focal Point Contact Details

Overall Coordinator: Mehdi Mirafzal, Senior Advisor, UNOSSC

Communications Focal Points: Mehdi Mirafzal, Senior Advisor, UNOSSC; Yoko Shimura, Programme Analyst, UNOSSC

Email: mehdi.mirafzal@undp.org; yoko.shimura@undp.org

Phone: +1 212 906-5325; +1 212 906-3642