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Peacebuild is a network of Canadian organizations and individuals engaged in activities related to addressing the causes and consequences of violent conflict.
FEATURED MEMBERMCCer Receives Award
Elaine Bishop On May 6, Elaine Bishop of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), received the YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Community Volunteerism. The award was given in recognition of a lifetime dedicated to exploring the potential for peace in her community and the world. A commitment to peacebuilding was instilled early in life, says Bishop who is currently in an MCC Manitoba assignment as director of the North Point Douglas Women’s Centre in Winnipeg’s impoverished North End...more
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Latest News on Peacebuild Fora
New book
While the projects covered are diverse in nature, together they demonstrate the significant impact of peacebuilding work. Contributors created new institutions to prevent and manage conflicts at the local or national levels, helped restore relationships in conflict-affected communities, and empowered citizens to work for positive change in their societies across ethnic, religious, and political divides. It’s clear that there is no quick fix for violence but this volume will go a long way in providing inspiration and practical tools for policymakers, academics and practitioners who seek to make significant and valuable contributions towards achieving peace. click here for more information La justice transitionnelle Bien que la tragédie du génocide rwandais date de plus de 15 ans, la question de la justice transitionnelle est toujours d'actualité. Dans le cadre de son projet multimédia, Paix durable a récemment interviewé deux experts sur la question. Noël Twagiramungu, chercheur et ex-secrétaire général de la Ligue des droits humains des Grands Lacs et de la Ligue pour la promotion des droits humains au Rwanda (LIPRODHOR) dresse un portrait de la situation actuelle au Rwanda. Il discute des obstacles majeurs à la consolidation de la paix, du rôle de la société civile dans les efforts de stabilisation et de cohabitation et de la contribution du Canada aux efforts de la société civile rwandaise. Denis Tougas de l'Entraide missionnaire est coordonnateur de la table de concertation sur les Grands Lacs. Il aborde la question du rôle du gouvernement canadien et de la société civile canadienne dans les efforts de consolidation de la Paix au Rwanda. Il est également question du rôle du Canada par rapport à la justice internationale et domestique suite au génocide. Il fait le point par ailleurs sur l'impact du développement sur le processus de réconciliation en cours.
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Peacebuild Welcomes
Peacebuild held its Annual General Meeting on June 8th at the CANADEM Boardroom at 1 Nicholas in Ottawa. Network members and invited guests were informed of Peacebuild's programme results for 2008-2009, network activities under development and current finances and fundraising targets. Presentations were also made by Stephen Brown of the University of Ottawa on the changing development assistance architecture and by Nathan Funk of Conrad Grebel University College on peacebuilding in the Middle East. Network members also unanimously elected six new members to Peacebuild's Board of Directors to fill in vacancies left by outgoing officers. The six new members of the board, David Beer, Martin Fischer, Don Hubert, Nadja Pollaert, Gordon Scott and Tara Tavender will be joining the six existing Board members, Peggy Mason (Chair),Tiffany Kizito (Treasurer), Nathan Funk, Gregory Lawrie, Abdul Kader Baloch and Karen Hung, all of whom have indicated a willingness to continue their respective terms. A brief description of the six new members is offered below: David Beer is currently Director of Africa Programs with the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, and is responsible for the direction and management of security sector capacity building projects on the continent. Martin Fischer is a doctoral candidate at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. His doctoral dissertation investigates the UN Security Council’s decision-making process on the authorization of UN peace operations to use military force to protect civilians. Don Hubert is Associate Professor of International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Prior to 2007, he led policy development on Canada’s human security agenda at the Department of Foreign Affairs for nearly a decade including responsibility for small arms, natural resources linked to armed conflict, the “responsibility to protect,” and corporate social responsibility. Nadja Pollaert is currently the Executive Director of the International Bureau for Children's Rights. She has many years of experience promoting human rights with the Comité d’aide aux réfugiés in Montreal and with Amnistie Internationale. Gordon Scott has over 25 years of multi-sectoral technical cooperation and education, human resource development and training experience. He has worked as a management consultant and Project Director on programs and projects in Asia, Africa, Americas, Eastern Europe and northern Canada. Tara Tavender is the founding Executive Director of Save Darfur Canada (soon to be renamed the Sudan Peace Network), a national coalition leading public advocacy initiatives to influence and inform Canadian policy in Sudan. Along with Peacebuild, Save Darfur Canada is a member of the Steering Committee of the Sudan Inter-Agency Reference Group (SIARG) See photos of Peacebuild's Annual General Meeting
Conflict Trends Magazine
Peacebuild Launches Tired of constantly having to check multiple websites to get the latest peacebuilding news? Peacebuild.ca now offers one-stop access to the latest information in the field of peacebuilding. Using RSS technology, Peacebuild's Information Booth automatically updates content so you always get the latest in publications, peacebuilding news, jobs openings and training opportunities.
View the latest peacebuilding employment opportunities from CANADEM and ReliefWeb. Read the latest news from the AlertNet Newsdesk or learn about new publications from the Human Security Gateway, The International Crisis group, Foreign Policy and more. Via Peacebuild’s Information Booth you can also access the latest information and news from other Peacebuild members who have installed RSS technology on their website
 Peacebuild currently has four Working Groups and one Forum that bring together members interested in particular thematic areas of activity. The Sudan InterAgency Reference Group and the Afghanistan Reference Group are also key mechanisms for NGO-governmental interaction promoted by Peacebuild.
Disarming Domestic Violence
Advocacy Project Peace Fellow Elizabeth Mandelman Advocacy Project Peace Fellow Elizabeth Mandelman, based at Project Ploughshares in Waterloo, Ontario, is working in conjunction with Peacebuild this summer on the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign. The Advocacy Project (AP), an NGO based in Washington, DC, sends students around the world to work on social justice issues. This summer, Elizabeth is one of ten Peace Fellows working with AP, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and an IANSA partner organization on the issue of gun control and domestic violence in an effort to illustrate the correlation between the two. Through telling the story of individuals and organizations both involved in advocating against and directly affected by gun violence in the home, Elizabeth hopes to draw attention to Canada’s current Firearms Act, illustrating its importance and effectiveness. To learn more about Elizabeth’s work and the Advocacy Project, visit http://advocacynet.org/page/elizabeth. For information on the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign, contact her at emandelman@ploughshares.ca or 519.888.6541x707. For more information about the SAWG and its activities, please contact Maribel Gonzales at: mgonzales@ploughshares.ca
Preparing for the Largest Women’s Conference
The GPWG has been a longtime participant in the planning of Women's Worlds 2011 and will see a strong representation of gender and peacebuilding issues within the programme. This event will provide a unique opportunity for researchers, policy-makers and activists working on gender and peacebuilding to connect across institutional, geographical and political divides. New Intern at Peacebuild We would like to welcome Elodie Ngingo to the Peacebuild team. Elodie will be working with Peacebuild full time this summer. Elodie comes to Peacebuild with experience as a researcher and youth organizer and will be working on projects related to youth involvement in peacebuilding. Welcome Elodie! Special thanks to the Maytree Foundation for providing support for the fellowship. For more information about the GPWG and its activities, please contact Kate McInturff at:gender@peacebuild.ca
Security Council to Hold Debate
No formal outcome in the sense of a resolution or presidential statement is expected. It seems likely that the debate and conclusions drawn from it will feed into a second public meeting of the Council on peacekeeping, expected in August, following the UK-France peacekeeping review initiated in January. There is a possibility of a presidential statement in August during the UK presidency. Read the update Report on Peacekeeping: Relationship with TCCs/PCCs by Security Council Report For more information about the POWG and its activities, please contact Clare Morris at: powg@peacebuild.ca
Peacebuild Meets Peacebuild’s Deputy Director, Joanne Lebert, travelled to Haiti for the Conflict Prevention Working Group on June 14-26 to meet with a range of Haitian NGOs and networks, Canadian NGOs with a field presence in the country, MINUSTAH, OAS and UNDP representatives. The aim was to get a clearer understanding of how violence reduction was approached at the national level (advocacy, awareness raising etc) and locally (youth activities, social work, conflict sensitive consultative processes etc.). The mission was also designed to explore to what extent there was interest in and a perceived need for a network on violence reduction. The insights gleaned will be written up in a report, which will be widely circulated. For more information about the CPWG and its activities or about the Afghanistan Reference Group, please contact Silke Reichrath at: prevention@peacebuild.ca
Latest Meeting Features Panel Discussions The Forum for Children and Armed Conflict held its most recent meeting on June 2nd, 2009, in Toronto at the UNICEF office. The meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Gerard Mc Hugh, President of Conflict Dynamics International, on the recently released report "Strengthening Protection of Children Through Accountability". The meeting was followed by two panel discussions on the situation of children affected by armed conflict in the Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Colombia. Discussions touched upon the gendered dynamics of conflict as experienced by girls, as well as the impact of these conflicts on displacement and violence against children. The Best Interests of the Child: Meaning and Application in Canada The notion of the Best Interests of the Child is a central tenet of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. What does it mean? How does it apply in Canada? This report addresses how this principle has been used, misused, and underutilized in ways that deeply affect children. Report recommendations include a call for the adoption of a rights-based approach for the application of the Best Interests of the Child in a wide variety of areas and contexts. The report is now available in English and in French on the website of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, at www.rightsofchildren.ca.
For more information about the Forum and its activities, please contact Guillaume Landry at: g.landry@ibcr.org or Natalie Doyle at n.doyle@ibcr.org |
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Even though international peacebuilding has rapidly expanded in the last two decades to respond to more multi-faceted and complex conflicts, the field has lagged behind in documenting the impact and success of projects. To help address this gap, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, one of the leading networks in the field, has brought together 13 stories of innovative peacebuilding practices from around the world in Building Peace.
The Canadian campaign, co-coordinated by Peacebuild, Project Ploughshares, and the Centre for Education & Research on Violence Against Women and Children, was launched at the three-day Canadian Conference on the Prevention of Domestic Homicides in London, Ontario. There, Peacebuild’s Small Arms Working Group Coordinator Maribel Gonzales presented on the correlation between small arms, gun control, and domestic violence. During launch week, the campaign also joined with Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis for a public screening of the Canadian documentary Devil’s Bargain: A Journey into the Small Arms Trade. Other organizations that have already endorsed the campaign include the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights, and the Guelph & Wellington Women in Crisis. For more information or to join the campaign, which runs until July 2010, please contact Advocacy Project Peace Fellow Elizabeth Mandelman at 
The Council is expected to hold a public debate on UN peacekeeping today. Turkey, as the Council’s president in June, wants to focus the debate on the Council’s relationship with troop contributing countries (TCCs), police contributing countries (PCCs) and major financial contributors. The debate is expected to feature up to twenty TCCs/PCCs including the ten largest troop contributors as well as major financial contributors. The Council will also be briefed by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy and Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Field Support Susana Malcorra who will no doubt provide background to the Council on the Secretariat’s recently completed “New Horizons” review of peacekeeping. 
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