Tackling hunger through a peacebuilding approach: Interpeace partners with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

As recent news from Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and other contexts has shown, eradicating hunger remains a preeminent challenge of our time – one to which the mandate of the Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture - FAO is dedicated. It is also illustrative that the majority of severe hunger crises occur in situations affected by violent conflict. It is now widely recognized that none of the Sustainable Development Goals, including the eradication of hunger, can be achieved without finding better ways to address and prevent violent conflict through joint efforts of national stakeholders and the international community.

In addition, the Sustaining Peace Agenda and the increasing volume of international assistance delivered in conflict or fragile settings has prompted humanitarian and development actors to pay greater attention to the effects of conflict on their work and the effects of their work on conflict.

In this vein, FAO has been developing a corporate framework outlining and defining how it intends to contribute to sustaining peace through its interventions. FAO has established a body of work and tools over the years for addressing conflicts related to their immediate areas of engagement, including natural resource management, land tenure and forestry, amongst others. It is now seeking to take these efforts and practices a step further by more systematically incorporating conflict analyses and conflict-sensitive approaches in its work.

FAO has sought the expertise of Interpeace, made available through the International Peacebuilding Advisory Team (IPAT), to help operationalise FAO’s corporate framework. The two organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding to this end in September of last year. Together FAO and IPAT will now develop and test tools tailored to and rooted in FAO’s work that will enable more systematic and robust conflict-sensitive programming – while ensuring they are practical and can become embedded across the Organization.

With this collaboration, IPAT pursues the second part of Interpeace’s mandate, assisting the international community, and in particular the United Nations, in playing a more effective role in supporting peacebuilding efforts around the world. The partnership with FAO is also a testament to our understanding that peacebuilding is not only a set of dedicated efforts pursued by specialized organizations like Interpeace, but an approach to different kinds of international assistance, which can help make such assistance more effective in conflict-affected and fragile contexts.

FAO’s work touches on many aspects that are either impacted by or impact conflict. FAO’s effort to render its programming more conflict-sensitive has the potential to reinforce its core goal of eradicating hunger, while also making a significant contribution to fostering peace.

We are delighted to be supporting FAO in its endeavour of assuming a leading role in strengthening conflict sensitivity in this sector.

Engaging people in peacebuilding and statebuilding - Why and how?

Interpeace’s International Peacebuilding Advisory Team (IPAT) will host a one-day training and learning event on citizen engagement in peacebuilding on 26 November. The event will be an opportunity to learn about practical ways to operationalize important aspects of Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promoting Just, Peaceful and Inclusive Societies.

The mechanisms for citizen participation in established democracies do not always exist – or are not as robust – in countries attempting to emerge from conflict. State institutions are often significantly weakened and lacking in the public’s trust, while society itself may have a yet-to-be developed sense of “citizenship”.

In such contexts efforts to create meaningful public participation can have multiple benefits. They can:

Yet the prevailing practices are not necessarily conducive to enabling greater public participation and citizen engagement. Mediation efforts tend to concentrate on the powerful elite players while other international actors work with national civil society groups that are not necessarily representative of the wider population.

From more than 20 years of experience in peacebuilding, we know that peace cannot be imported from the outside and that it must be built from within a society. This is why Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that the work is locally driven. Interpeace believes that every society has what it needs to build peace. Our role is to support societies to harness their strengths. Together with local partners, we jointly develop peacebuilding programmes. We help to establish inclusive processes of change that connect local communities, civil society, government and the international community through our approche Track 6.

The course

This one day training course draws on Interpeace’s experience with inclusive peacebuilding but will also create space for participants to share their experiences and engage in peer learning.

Throughout the day we will make use of inputs, group work, case examples and video clips that illustrate public participation on issues that matter, in various peacebuilding and statebuilding contexts.

Key questions that we will explore during the day will be:

Event details

When and Where:  Thursday 26 November at the Interpeace Office, Maison de la Paix, Geneva.
Sessions will run from 9.30-12.45 and 14.00-17.45.

Main course facilitator: Koenraad Van Brabant, Senior Peacebuilding Adviser
Main working language: English

Cost: CHF 85 per person, for the one-day training. This includes the course fee and coffee and tea but snacks or lunch are not provided. Though there is time out over lunch, this is a full day event and participants are expected to be present during both morning and afternoon sessions.

Applications to: ipat@interpeace.org with mention ‘citizen engagement course’.  Acceptance to the course is on a first come, first served basis – acceptance is confirmed by payment in advance of the course fee to Interpeace

IBAN CH88 0027 9279 2135 5200 G;
SWIFT UBSWCHZH80A

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