| For more information, see the tweets about the event and have a look at our related submissions on civil-military-policy collaboration grouped under #civmilpol. |
On July 8 2015, the Platform hosted an informal follow-up discussion to the February 24th event ‘Towards a Comprehensive Approach: Civil Society and Security Sector Perspectives on Dutch Missions’, convened by GPPAC and Cordaid. A small group drawn from the participants of the latter event met to share reflections on the February event, to provide updates on related activities and to discuss possible ways forward. Updates discussed included the Common Effort, Leidraad geïntegreerde benadering and Understand to Prevent.
Key points that came out of the discussion reflected the need to focus more on conflict prevention, and on early warning systems along with an emphasis on strengthening skills and training. Cross-training with different stakeholders (CSOs both in the Netherlands and in countries of intervention, Military, Police, MFA, MoD, NATO etc.) was seen as crucial to build mutual understanding, trust and collaboration capalities, and this wide range of actors should be systematically involved in such trainings. It is important to have a common understanding of roles, cultures and background in a given context and we need to explore practical and concrete ways to do so in an inclusive manner. One interesting suggestion was to build on a ‘coalition of the willing’ to form the basis of a joint training/skills platform. These ideas are to be further developed with input from a broader group.
The meeting report of the February event as well as a short summary of the July meeting will be sent to all participants of the February 24th event and any other party interested, along with a list of activities where input will be sought to gauge the willingness to commit to concrete activities. If you are interested in receiving more information, please contact c.divin@gppac.net
