Parliamentarians Network Activities in 2010: challenges and opportunities

Founded in October 2008, the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security has managed to expand its membership and geographical scope tremendously over less than two years.  It now enjoys membership of more than 130 parliamentarians from more than 47 countries around the world. The Network’s activities have reached from Malaysia to  Central America, and from Europe to Australia making it a truly global endeavor. Importantly the Network has succeeded in building political support for its work, which is reflected in the grant from the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (amongst others. With their support we can plan for an even more influential future in the year ahead.

In this report we would like to highlight some of our achievements over the last 6 months and outline the roadmap for our future actions.

One of the best endeavors that the PN embarked upon this year was to organize regular coverage of the Network’s actions and share that widely amongst the members and with relevant stakeholders. In April 2010 the Network launched a monthly newsletter designed to keep our members abreast of important developments in members parliaments on conflict prevention, as well as to provide members the opportunity to share their insight and experience on key issues. Since April the Newsletter has seen contributions from a wide array of subject all of which need urgent attention and political action - elections in Sudan, protection of women rights in Afghanistan, controversy over the Nile Basin Initiative, the deteriorating situation with North Korea are just a handful of themes raised.  It is worth pointing out that all the articles, commentary and input is provided by you, the members and support of the network who are working at the coal-face on many of these issues. Thank you to each of you who took the time to contribute so far. We will make every effort in the coming months to continue developing the Newsletter into an ever more effective information sharing and communications tool amongst the members and with key actors around the world. 

One of the strongest examples of the Network’s mobilization capacity and political influence is the recent Open Letter to the participants of the Kabul conference on July 20th encouraging them to improve women’s participation in political life in Afghanistan. The letter is the initiative of the Network’s Working Group on Women, Peace and Security that is chaired by Janelle Saffin MP (Australia) with leading female politicians and civil society leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as other countries around the world as its members, The Letter was disseminated widely just ahead of the Conference and received a flurry of feedback from our Network members, other MPs, civil society and media from around the world.  Representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, of the Netherlands-Afghanistan Business Council, , just to name a few, have personally expressed their strong support for this initiative and set about distributing the Open Letter further among their contacts. The Working Group on Women, Peace and Security is now preparing an International Conference on Strengthening the Role of Women MPs in the Stabilizing and Transforming Afghanistan which is to be held in Brussels in December 2010 and is to be organized by the EastWest Institute. The Conference will convene female parliamentarians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the wider Muslim world as well as Network’s members to help raise attention and determine new breakthrough measure on how to give women MP their full role in the stabilization and transformation of Afghanistan.

The Parliamentarians Network launched its Working Group on Euro-Atlantic security, chaired by Angelika Beer, to help secure the inclusion of preventive diplomacy mechanisms in the European security reform process that are underway including NATO’s New Security Strategy and President Medvedev’s proposals for a new security treaty. Discussions on both sides of Atlantic as to what the future of European security will be given the number of frozen conflicts and renewed tension in this region (namely, the conflict around South Ossetia and the lingering energy tensions between Russia, Ukraine and the EU) prompt parliamentarians to discuss ways out.  The Working Group will convene a high level meeting in Moscow in October 2010  to help define new proposal to influence the reform agenda to include preventive diplomacy as a key policy priority of all states.

The “Conflict Prevention in Europe Initiative” was launched at the beginning of 2010 to ensure that national assemblies in Europe as well as the European Parliament are committed to conflict prevention activities above and beyond development cooperation.  The pledge of the head of the newly-created European External Action Service, HR Baroness Catherine Ashton to mainstream conflict prevention in the EEAS served as the key focal point for our advocacy efforts. to ensure this pledge would be realized.  In May 2010 the Network sent an advocacy letter to the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the 27 EU member countries and relevant MEPs to encourage the inclusion of a conflict prevention structure within the EEAS. Following the heated debates over the future of the EEAS the PN in cooperation with the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) has organized a high level panel discussion in the European Parliament. The session was attended by more than 120 members of the European Parliament, as well as representatives of the EU member states and leading civil society organizations. The meeting helped coordinate the actions of MEPs and civil society and connect those actions to official process.

Member initiatives are an important aspect of the work the Parliamentarians Network Secretariat. A recent proposal from MP Herman De Croo, Belgian Minister of State to the Secretariat to survey European national parliaments on their formal and informal conflict prevnetion work is a good example. The results of the survey will be shared widely amongst members and others and serve as an important information source on what is being done and what else can be done by national parliaments to advance the conflict prevention agenda. Increasingly the PN has raised attention with key actors and governments in conflict prevention in different regions. It has shown its ability to mobilize its members around concrete issues and as a result, has received a growing number of requests to become engaged in concrete activities from such organizations as the Arab Water Council, the World Bank, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Each has expressed their strong support for the Network’s initiatives and suggested ways for future cooperation. The Network is also cooperating more and more with other civil society organizations and parliamentary bodies because it’s absolutely necessary to team up in order to double the impact. To this end, the Network joined Amnesty International, Darfur Consortium and Human Rights Watch in the Sudan 365 project in April this year, when the Network members signed a letter calling for Sudanese parties to prevent violence during elections and uphold fair and free voting and is working with PARLECEN in Central America to help define a conflict prevention program for parliamentarians in that region. 

Overall, the first 6 months of 2010 have been marked by hard work and a notable degree of political attention. With launching of new initiatives, working groups and a growing membership, I, as a Chair of the Network, now face an array of challenges as to how to coordinate all our activities and reach out to all members on an even more regular basis. In the coming months I hope to be able to come to your parliaments to brief you in person on all of our work, and engage you in a two-way dialogue on how to advance our shared commitment to conflict prevention and human security.  Needless to say, this quickly burgeoning network gives us a precious opportunity to leverage our collective capacity and influence to really make a difference. I thank you all for your time and commitment to conflict prevention issues and to the Parliamentarians Network. 
With respect and admiration for your commitment to conflict prevention,

Angelika Beer,
Chair of the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security.