News and Insight

Conciliation Resources' trustee, Avila Kilmurray, attended Colombia's official reconciliation ceremony this month, where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) handed over some of their last weapons, signifying an end to over 50 years of armed conflict.

This week saw the launch of a new council of indigenous women in Colombia, which will work towards ensuring the voices of their respective communities are heard as the country moves towards peace.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Initiatives for Change retreat on Land, Lives and Peace in Caux, Switzerland. A seemingly unlikely choice for me, but since I was involved in the Aceh peace process, the nexus between land and conflict was something of interest to me. Side by side with botanists, scientists and UN bureaucrats in the grand halls of Caux Peace Palace, I gave my perspective on the role of international peace mediation and the linkages with land degradation. My key point was this: mediation is about making the “pie” (the contentious issue) bigger, and land restoration – enhancing the usability of degraded land – is pretty much the same practice. Bringing degradation issues into peace negotiation would therefore be good news, increasing the potential for peacemaking.

When I recently interviewed several experts on stabilisation approaches for a research project mediatEUr was requested to carry out for the EEAS, one definition of the term stuck with me for a very long time:

A team of four filmmakers from both sides of the LoC in Kashmir have produced a new film to raise awareness of the importance of working across the divide to improve disaster management.

Community leaders from across central and north Bougainville have spent much of the past month developing their peacebuilding skills, with training from the Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation (NCFR), supported by Conciliation Resources.

After 25 years of civil war in Afghanistan, today progress towards a peace process is increasingly seen as central to securing a just and stable future. But to date, there has been little analysis of what a process might actually look like.