The 2011 Annual Meeting of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform investigates the potential contributions of the peacebuilding community to the political transitions in Africa and the Middle East. With many of these transitions entering into a consolidation phase after periods of rapid change, the question of managing long-term transformation processes within states and societies is becoming ever more important. It is at this critical juncture where revolutions are translated into transformations that the peacebuilding community has an important – yet so far relatively neglected – contribution to make.
The Annual Meeting has the objective to better understand the tools and assistance required to accompany political transitions in Africa and the Middle East from a peacebuilding perspective. Overall, it focuses on the practical evidence of peacebuilding activities related to political transition processes to inform domestic and international efforts in this field.
Four specific themes will frame these deliberations: (1) State-society relations; (2) From political settlement to building peace; (3) Ensuring justice, reducing violence; and (4) International support for political transitions. While focusing mainly on North Africa, the Annual Meeting also explores lessons from the transitions in the rest of Africa, in the Middle East and beyond.
The Annual Meeting is one of the Platform’s main events and is conceived to contribute to the networking of peacebuilding resources across sectors and institutions. It brings together a variety of actors from its membership including representatives from civil society, government, international organizations, and academia.
