Declaration to the G20, London Summit April 2, 2009
We, the members of the international Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention,
Noting that the global economic and financial crisis is already resulting in social unrest and rising instability in many countries around the world;
Expressing concern about the negative effects of violent conflict on human and socio-economic development;
Recognizing that preventing conflicts from turning violent is vital to implementing the Millennium Declaration and to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and bearing in mind that conflict prevention is cost prevention;
Conveying the deep concerns of our domestic and international constituencies about the huge discrepancy in spending between actions that improve peoples’ lives and reduce the threat of violent conflict as compared to the international community’s military spending;
Call on the members of the G20 to:
- Recognize that preventing violent conflict saves lives and saves money.
- Properly resource conflict prevention efforts and to strengthen national and international institutional structures for conflict prevention and conflict resolution.
- Take the leading role in supporting the UN Secretary-General’s 2006 call for funding equivalent of 2 percent of the annual UN peacekeeping budget allocation to be directed to the UN’s conflict prevention activities.
- Regularly publish the amount of money they allocate to conflict prevention and facilitate better coordination of resources between international community efforts, including civil society, to prevent violent conflict.
- Endorse a ‘Global Summit on Conflict and Security’ bringing together the traditional security establishment and relevant civil society, including parliamentarians, business and media representatives from North and South in order to spur new thinking on integrating preventive diplomatic approaches into security and development policy.
