CMC organised a topical seminar bringing together actors from civilian crisis management, civil society and peace mediation. The participants discussed how the local civil society organizations (CSOs) could be further empowered and how the crisis management and peace operations together with international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) could help in this. The keynote presenters Dr. Tetiana Kyselova from Swisspeace and Gretchen Baldwin from SIPRI, approached this thematic from the perspectives of community-level engagement through the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and enhancing local ownership in the specific case of Ukraine. Otto Kivinen from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a commentary after the keynotes.
No effectiveness without inclusion.
In broader terms, peace and security are currently being militarized. To counter this development, civil society can work as a counterforce, as it tends to advance normative priorities, such as gender mainstreaming, youth participation, protection of civilians and promotion of human rights. Engaging with civil society shifts the focus from intervening states to where it matters, that is local actors, their needs and solutions.
For successful and effective crisis management the inclusion of the local civil society is extremely important. Inclusion is needed for improved situational awareness, increasing stability and enhancing cooperation, but also mission and program planning should start with inclusion, making interventions more relevant, effective and conflict sensitive. Hiring local experts, also to provide training, brings institutional memory, deep contextual knowledge, and conflict management competencies to the mission.
What is needed?
Increasing inclusion requires humility from multilateral actors and challenges the view of host communities as mere recipients of services. Dr. Kyselova noted that we could learn from Ukraine, as without the strength of the Ukrainian civil society, the country could not have resisted the Russian aggression. Right after the aggression the international aid was rapid and flexible, not being caught in bureaucratic impediments. However, the positive trend has not remained, and currently unnecessary bureaucracy has slowed down project proposals for months. For example, the Ukrainian ecosystem of mediation associations and dialogue networks has the ability to deliver positive change, but it suffers from a lack of flexible funding, which mostly private philanthropies, or private actors, such as the CMI can provide.
Women, Peace and Security as a vehicle to support local CSOs
The Women, Peace and Security Agenda explicitly calls for the involvement of civil society in its implementation, providing a way to empower local CSOs. This can be done best by offering full political and financial support to local and international civil society organisations, including women’s groups and grassroots activists. International actors, such as the EU have acknowledged this, but they also struggle, making engagement often tokenistic and shallow. Gretchen Baldwin argued that that these challenges should be addressed with intermediary institutions within the civil society ecosystem, which can support and guide the multilateral actors in their actions.
In the case of the EU, it was reminded that CSDP missions have the potential to break the so called “peace bubbles” of the capitals and engage CSOs more broadly. The EU also benefits from having different instruments in its toolbox to further the CSO engagement in a variety of ways.
Panel discussion: Building peace – How can local and international actors work together today and tomorrow?
The second part of the seminar was a panel discussion. The panel consisted of Paula Pättikangas from Finnish Youth, Peace and Security Network, Rami Kolehmainen, a civilian crisis management expert, Dr. Elisa Tarnaala from CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation and Tanja Viikki from Felm. The panel was moderated by Satu Turpeinen from CMC Finland.
All you need is trust.
The panelists broadened the discussion by noting that the challenge to the old power set up, where the local populations have mostly been consulted, not included, is not new. However, the call for local ownership is finally producing some changes and critical self-reflection in the west. It is now widely accepted that change cannot be imported and that the local buy-in is crucial for success. Still, it needs to be remembered that there is no single local, and locals have the same ability to manipulate as the internationals. Therefore, it is pertinent to obtain mutual trust.
Who to listen to?
One also needs to make clear which actors have the mandate to represent which locals. This is extremely important both in mediation and in crisis management. The nature of crisis management, which often limits the international actors working only with recognized authorities, can unfortunately lead to ineffectiveness, as only some of the key actors are included. Therefore, the crisis management mandates should be developed towards broader inclusion of the CSOs.
The panelists also noted that even though stronger local civil society is needed, this does not mean that INGOs have become obsolete. They remain relevant in mentoring and connecting the local CSOs to broader global networks.
Young people as key actors
Youth, Peace and Security Agenda can work as one of the avenues between local and international actors, connecting local grassroots to regional and local networks. However, the current tensions in the world, the WPS backlash and the anti-gender movement jeopardize the progress of the YPS agenda. This highlights the importance of defending WPS and YPS as normative agendas that can empower globally.
Old ways of doing things are no longer fit for purpose in the current state of poly-crisis. Change is needed and the panelists found several examples of progress, such as the evolving guidelines and documents mandating inclusion. Often these guidelines are grounded in agendas such as WPS and YPS making them especially important.
Jyrki Ruohomäki, Head of Research, CMC Finland
