Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, to address UK launch of Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security, 12.30 Thursday 26 March 2009, Terrace Pavilion, House of Commons, Westminster.

Westminster, London – On Thursday 26 March, The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, will speak at the UK launch of the EastWest Institute’s Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security. The Parliamentarians Network will call on the G-20 to mobilize their full resources to prevent violent conflicts, not just react to them once they erupt.

 

To contribute to sustainable economic recovery and a genuinely new era of international economic partnership, the members of the Parliamentarians Network will issue a declaration at the network’s UK launch to urge G-20 member states to properly resource conflict prevention efforts, to increase transparency in the use of these resources, and to help facilitate coordinated international responses to potential conflicts.

 

Stop Violent Conflict and Save £ Billions. Conflict Prevention and Human Security offers a powerful alternative and effective economic solution to the current global crisis where £ trillions are wasted on continuing unrest and war. Conflict Prevention and Human Security can help put the global economy back on track for sustainable growth and can be successfully achieved in countries where violent conflict is going on or is in danger of starting up. The negative impact of violent conflict on the global economy can no longer be underestimated or ignored.

• For every $1 spent on non-violent conflict prevention globally, the world still spends some $2,000 on weapons. In these global economically challenging times, nations should concentrate more resources on preventing and ending wars using cheaper and more effective techniques of negotiated settlement, peacebuilding, and peacekeeping.
  
  
• Since the 1990s, more wars have ended by negotiated settlement (42) than by military victory (23). This trend accelerated in the new millennium: between 2000 and 2005, 17 conflicts ended in negotiated settlements; just 4 ended in military victory.
  
  
• But 50% of such agreements break down into further conflict because of the scarcity of funding and resources for effective local peacebuilding and peacekeeping.

Parliamentarians from some 30 different countries around the globe are members of the Parliamentarians Network, and the European Parliament and its President; Hans-Gert Pöttering lent their full support to the official launch of the Parliamentarians Network at its inaugural meeting in Brussels on October 8, 2008.

The Parliamentarians Network was called for by a group of high-level former parliamentarians including Martti Ahtisaari (Nobel Peace Laureate 2008), Kim Campbell, and Gareth Evans and formally conceived in the Declaration “Making Conflict Prevention Real” issued by the EastWest Institute’s International Task Force on Preventive Diplomacy in December 2007. The Declaration called for the establishment of a Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security as a key advisory and advocacy mechanism to raise attention to key policy issues pertaining to stability and peace.

The Parliamentarians Network is an international, non-partisan initiative that brings together parliamentarians from across the globe to direct political will and resources to prevent conflicts before they begin. www.parliamentariansforconflictprevention.net

The UK launch of the network will be hosted by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues.