Developing transboundary cooperation to consolidate peace

The European Commission’s peace consolidation project brought together ten organisations with expertise in mediation and conflict studies. The purpose was to develop specific recommendations on peacebuilding and establish a network that can advise the EU on these issues. adelphi focused on regional environmental cross-border cooperation for peacebuilding, based on field study research in the South Caucasus, the African Great Lakes region and Middle East. Dialogues with local partners and close cooperation with the Commission made it possible to identify key factors of conflict and cooperation, and therefore propose concrete recommendations to the EU.

During the second phase of the project, adelphi reviewed the case studies’ findings using the example of cross-border relations between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. adelphi then developed and tested an instrument to screen environmental conflicts, especially pertaining to water. A pilot training for the application of this instrument with development cooperation practitioners is planned for late 2010.

Apart from the synthesis report, adelphi published four other reports in the framework of IfP (see publications or www.initiativeforpeacebu…).