This event will take place at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. 

The 2018 Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP) Conference will be held from 16-19 July at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. This year, the theme of the conference is “National, Regional, and Global Infrastructures for Peace in Africa.” Participants in the conference will comprise mostly heads of organizations and senior officials from the SVNP, along with external stakeholders and practitioners from Africa and beyond. The conference will include both private and public sessions on topics related to the overall theme. Panel discussions will explore the nature, scale, and scope of the infrastructures in place for peacebuilding at the national, regional, and global levels; evaluate the extent to which they are functioning; and, provide best practices and ways forward for building off of or reforming current infrastructures.

In “Natural Resource Management and Peacebuilding in Africa,” we will discuss the issue of the management of natural resources as a key component of peacebuilding efforts and locate the importance of natural resources within the larger peacebuilding architectures. Discussants from Africa and international partners will address the manner and extent to which natural resources intersect with peace in Africa; assess how well peacebuilding architectures have been successful in integrating natural resource management provisions; and, highlight elements of natural resource management that contribute to peacebuilding. It will seek to explore issues of natural resource management beyond the traditional focus of the extractives industry to look at evolving issues such as land, water, and climate change. The event will also seek to provide recommendations for integrating natural resource management into peacebuilding efforts at all levels.

The Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP) is a continent-wide network of African policy and research organizations that works with the Africa Program to bring African analyses and perspectives to key issues in U.S.-Africa relations. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York since 2011, the project provides avenues for African researchers to engage with, inform, and exchange perspectives with U.S. and international policymakers in order to develop the most appropriate, cohesive, and inclusive policy frameworks for the issues of peacebuilding and state-building in Africa.