Celebrating a decade of peacebuilding

Conciliation Resources celebrated its 10-year anniversary with an evening event entitled Peacebuilding works: a British foreign policy priority on 2 November 2006.

Co-hosted by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the event brought together more than 100 peace practitioners, policymakers, diplomats, politicians, academics and the media. Our guest speakers were:

• Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State, FCO
• Andy Carl, Executive Director, Conciliation Resources
• Jana Javakhishvili, Co-chair, Foundation for the Development of Human Resources, Georgia
• Ed Garcia, Senior Conflict Adviser, International Alert

We used this opportunity to highlight three recommendations from a decade of our work:

• the UK must do more to support policies of inclusion and engagement in peacebuilding processes, even when this involves dealing with non-state actors such as armed groups
• greater professional and political support is needed for parties involved in peace processes
• higher priority should be given to enabling civil society groups to play creative roles in peace processes

Read the speeches given by Dr Kim Howells and Andy Carl.