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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 11/03
From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict
Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester
May 2003
Executive Summary
While the promise of conflict prevention has risen to the fore of international policy agenda since the end of the 1990s, its practice and effectivenes remain elusive. Following in the footsteps of peacebuilding, conflict prevention is a loose conceptual framework for the increasingly broad range of actors engaged in conflict-affected zones. The concept of conflict prevention expands the scope of peacebuilding temporally and spatially, calling for the early prevention of violent conflict and the prevention of further outbreaks through "structural" as well as "operational" initiatives. It promises cross-cutting approaches to mitigate the sources of potential conflict rather than merely the symptoms at arguably a lesser cost and with great potential for lasting peace than other forms of intervention. The challenge, of course, is that violent conflict can be hard to predict, especially in the early phases when efforts to prevent its escalation might be most valuable. More, it is harder to prevent effectively, and further to demonstrate that preventive initiatives have been successful.
The purpose of this report is to take stock of the International Peace Academy's (IPA) research and policy development work on conflict prevention since 1999. This work has focused on strengthening evolving practices of conflict prevention in the UN system and beyond. The report seeks to identify achievements as well highlight some of the opportunities, and key challenges, that remain for the future.
