International action to prevent violent conflict

If action to prevent or reduce violent conflict and insecurity is to be effective, it requires the participation of a wide range of actors including communities, governments and international agencies. So an important part of Saferworld’s approach is to focus on improving the conflict prevention policies and practices of key international institutions.

Our work on global approaches to conflict prevention involves different strands:

UK

EU

UN

We aim to put people at the heart of conflict prevention and security-building. Our experience has shown that efforts to address violent conflict must be informed by – and responsive to – the priorities of the communities they affect.

By using the lessons we learn from our community based and national level programmes, we develop proposals to influence major international actors so that their policies and actions support conflict prevention, security and justice sector development and tackle the proliferation of arms.

We work across a number of international institutions. For example at the UN, we are currently working to bring about a successful conclusion to current discussions on the international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT); at the EU we are encouraging EU security and justice programmes to respond to the needs and views of local communities; whilst in the UK we are working with the government on their commitments to addressing violence against women through improving security and justice services.

Increasingly, we also monitor institutions’ implementation of their policies and hold them to account for their practice. We are currently developing a Conflict Prevention Performance Index, designed to examine states’ performance in meeting their commitments on conflict prevention, identify good practice and indicate where future action should be prioritised.

At the global level, our successes have included contributing to the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, the inclusion of peace and security commitments in international agreements such as the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, and helping to influence the UK government to treat security and justice as basic services within its development programmes.