News > ...

Annual Conference 2017: Elephants in the Room

05.02.2018

On 7 September 2017 the Knowledge Platform hosted its Annual Conference at De Rode Olifant in The Hague.

We titled our Annual Conference 'Achieving Security and Justice for All: Elephants in the Room'. In our field, we’ve seen that there are obstacles that come up time and again, preventing real progress on the issues that lie at the heart of our work. This year’s Annual Conference explicitly focused on the contentious things we usually ignore when working on peace, security & rule of law. By bringing these topics to light, we hoped to generate constructive dialogue on how to overcome these barriers and build connections to achieve that goal.

The Conference hosted 20 workshops and presentations throughout the day by Ted Talkers, activists, governmental policy makers, UN, EU and AU experts, NGOs, academics, artists, agitators and authors who interrogated current policies and programs in the security and rule of law field. We hosted a mix of debates, workshops and research presentations, with one series of events dedicated to innovation and another to creativity in improving and spreading knowledge in our field of work. Together, and with your input, we hope they will provide a rich body of evidence and ideas to help improve the breadth, depth and quality of the knowledge in our field. 

Have a look through the Digital Magazine that summarizes the outcomes of the day here.

The program for the day can be found here. The day's schedule for workshops, lectures and discussions can be found here.

Speakers

The Annual Conference brought together speakers from a broad range of backgrounds to engage with the important themes of the day. Here's a few of their names:

  • Henrik Urdal, PRIO
  • Tilman Bruck, ISDC
  • Staffan I. Lindberg, VDEM
  • Faeeza Vaid, Muslim Women's Network UK
  • Jennifer Salahub, IDRC
  • Patrick Alley, Global Witness
  • Shilo Shiv Suleman, The Fearless Collective
  • Fidelma Donlon, Kosovo Specialist Chambers
  • Amiera Sawas, SIPRI
  • Catherine Marchi-Uhel, IIIM
  • Paul Refsdal, Refsdal Media

Any many more.

Themes

We separated the days workshops and presentations into 6 rooms, each with a different theme. 

  • Elephants
  • Creativity
  • Innovation
  • Community
  • Plenary
  • New Research

To read more about the sessions, speakers and see some photos from the day, read through the Digital Magazine below.

Visit URL