Events

Conflict and Fragility

'Identifying and Unpacking our Assumptions'
Europe/Amsterdam 03 2014 15:00
Bron: IOB evaluation Dutch foreign policy in Fragile States
Inleiding

Join the online debate on Foreign Engagement in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts: 'Identifying and Unpacking our Assumptions' at www.kpsrl.org

The Clingendael Conflict Research Unit jointly with the Hague Institute for Global Justice runs the secretariat of the The Knowledge Platform on Security & Rule of Law.

Evaluation Dutch Foreign Policy 2005 - 2011

The Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law has taken the recent evaluation of the Dutch Foreign Policy in Fragile States 2005 - 2011 as an opportunity to launch an international, online debate on Foreign Engagement in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts. With blog posts from Erik Solheim, chairperson of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, Marc Caron, Senior Advisor SSR of DCAF-ISSAT, Jakkie Cilliers, Executive Director of The Institute for Security Studies, and others.

We cordially invite national and international experts, practitioners and policy makers in the field of security and rule of law to critically engage in the online debate on Foreign Engagement in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts.

The following key questions were identified for the online debate:

  • What are considered the leading theories of state formation and state failure? Are these applicable to fragile contexts?
  • How do our understandings of "stability" compare across different professional fields? Do we all envision the same end goal? with contributions from Erwin van Veen, senior research fellow at the Clingendael Conflict Research Unit and Timo Peeters.
  • How do we recognize "agents of change"? By what criteria do we select our local partners, or perceive their legitimacy? with a contribution from Rosan Smits, senior research fellow at the Clingendael Conflict Research Unit
  • What do our theories of state formation tell us about how we sequence interventions? Does form follow function?  with a contribution from Erwin van Veen

Your participation and the eventual outcomes of the online debate will contribute to 'identifying and unpacking the assumptions on which our actions and policies are based' and will feed back into our endeavor to exploring the possible consequences of the recent evaluation of the Dutch Foreign Policy in Fragile States.

A second step will then be to re-check those assumptions against realities and contexts in which we work. During the Annual Conference of the Knowledge Platform on 27 February 2014, we provide a space for constructive exchange among different communities of practice and policy, both international and Dutch experts in order to implement these steps and to identify the annual thematic focus of the Knowledge Platform for 2014.