International Leaders Call on G-20 to Intensify Efforts to Prevent Conflicts

The EastWest Institute’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention issued a declaration on March 26 calling on G-20 members to intensify efforts to proactively work to prevent conflicts before they start. The declaration urged the G-20 to properly resource conflict prevention efforts, to increase transparency in the use of these resources, and to help facilitate coordinated international responses to potential conflicts.

Simon Hughes, member of the UK Parliament (Liberal Democrats) and Shadow Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, unveiled the declaration at the UK launch of the Parliamentarians Network. Members of the network stressed the moral and economic necessity for conflict prevention, voicing “concern about the negative effects of violent conflict on human and socio-economic development.”

John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, supported the call to the G-20, saying, “we spend far too little on conflict prevention, resorting to peacekeeping when the genie is already out of the bottle. As a result, there is a tragic loss of life and human misery.”

EWI Co-Chairman Francis Finlay read a statement of support from UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who was unable to attend the event. Miliband endorsed the work of the Parliamentarians Network, writing, “Conflict prevention and resolution are at the heart of the [UK] Government’s approach to foreign policy ... It is right that your work to raise awareness and to promote diplomatic initiatives on conflict issues should contribute to this agenda.”

Along with the plea to recognize the human and financial costs of violent conflict, the declaration called on G-20 governments to strengthen institutional structures. Specifically, the declaration urges the G-20 to:

• Provide adequate resources for conflict prevention efforts;
• Support the UN Secretary-General’s 2006 call to fund an equivalent of 2 per cent of the UN’s annual peacekeeping budget to the UN’s conflict prevention activities;
• Disclose their investments in conflict prevention, facilitating more efficient use of resources; and
• Endorse a global summit on conflict and security to integrate new preventive approaches into security and development policy.

The Executive Council and the Secretariat of the Parliamentarians Network are now working to secure an endorsement for the declaration in the final communiqué of the G-20 London Summit. Network members have also agreed to leverage the declaration in other high-profile spaces such as the UN General Assembly, G-8 meetings, and EU Summits.

In addition to the call to the G-20, the Parliamentarians Network agreed to focus on Ukraine as a potential nexus of regional stability, and on the issue of water security as a means to increase international cooperation. As a first step to better international coordination on water, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiatives is launching a policy dialogue series called Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of Southwest Asia: Improving Regional Cooperation on Water, which will engage many members of the Parliamentarians Network.

125 parliamentarians, government officials, and civil society representatives attended the launch event, as well as senior officials from G20 States including Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The launch event was hosted by UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues.