Dear Friend,

News from the Initiative for Peacebuilding

The past year and a half, since The University of Melbourne established the Initiative for Peacebuilding, has been coloured by the enthusiasm of all of you as supporters and friends. Thank you for recognising and encouraging the need for research, engagement and education towards ways to address the conflicts and inequities that we are grappling with. Many people who have attended consultations, listened to addresses, read an article, or simply heard of the Initiative have asked to be kept in touch. As we develop and deepen our activities, it is time that we reported on progress and updated on upcoming activities.

Has there ever been a time when it was clearer how vitally important better investment in conflict prevention and peacebuilding are? The lack of change to the violent military rule post-coup in Myanmar, increasing tensions between Australia and China in the Pacific, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine show the profound importance of making sustained diplomatic dialogue and greater support to peacemaking processes central in any conflict. In this context, the goals of the Initiative for Peacebuilding include strengthening the number and quality of professional peacebuilders across a range of government and non-government sectors, deepening contextually grounded scholarly research on complex conflicts, and supporting the evolution of policy and practice about which peacebuilding mechanisms work most effectively.

The team have been working hard to raise the importance of government and other support to peacebuilding. There was a senate inquiry last year into whether there are sufficient sources of funding available for research on foreign affairs: we made a strong submission, appeared before the committee, and the resultant report concluded that government should increase funding to foreign policy research including peacebuilding. We are extremely appreciative of the generous individuals who have contributed financially to the Initiative, and continue to work toward long-term financial avenues. For example, a generous individual gift has enabled the establishment of a new PhD scholarship: this has been awarded, with a brilliant student from Myanmar beginning her research on Myanmar's Rakhine Province.

We invite you to read on about our forthcoming activities, including some exciting events, and some achievements of the past year. We look forward to updating you on a quarterly basis from now on.

— John Langmore, Tania Miletic, and Nathan Bond

Join Our Conversation Series

We launched a Peacebuilding Perspectives Conversation Series in 2021 to hold spaces for deeper listening to Australian-based peacebuilders and discussion of important dimensions of their peacebuilding work. In 2022 these conversations continue with a fascinating range of peacebuilders connected to the Initiative for Peacebuilding. Upcoming events include:

• Solomon Islands: violence, protests, and peace, with Anouk Ride, Monday 16 May 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• Football’s contribution to social cohesion in Myanmar, with Tun-Aung Shwe, Monday 20 June 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• Nagaland’s long conflict, with Dolly Kikon, Monday 22 August 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• Turkey’s democracy and/in crisis, with Ibrahim Genc, Monday 26 September 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• Afghanistan reimagined, with Mujib Abid, Monday 17 October 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm
• Peace-Meal: food, peace, and conflict, with Tania Miletic, Monday 14 November 2022 1:00pm - 2:00pm

Previous conversations with Helen Bishop included:

• Valuing the long history of conflict resolution in First Nations communities: Epistemologies, systems, practices and ceremonies
• The problem with ‘justice’ and current approaches: Police, courts, prisons, and cycles of structural violence
• The future of peacebuilding in Australia: Peacebuilding with restorative justice that heals people, family, communities, and relationships

Research

Some recent updates on the Initiative's research include the following:

• Tania successfully tendered for and completed three external consultancies evaluating peacebuilding programs in Southeast Asia.
• Progress has been made on developing programs on research and policy development for conflict prevention and peacebuilding, and advancing Indo-Pacific peacebuilding practice innovations.
• Preparation of a major project on lessons from peacebuilding in Asia and the Pacific, and how to develop Australian peacebuilding capacity, policy and support.

Some other projects in our pipeline, all conducted with our Research Affiliates and partners, address:

• Pacific protests and riots
• Reimagining peacebuilding in Afghanistan
• Nuclear disarmament in the Indo-Pacific
• First Nations peacebuilding in Australia
• Mediation in China

Engagement

Engagement remains a priority of the Initiative, with some highlights including the following:

• Roundtables hosted by the Initiative have been a strong expression of our engagement strategy. The roundtables provide conducive spaces for key stakeholders from the Australian government and non-government sector to be given grounded conflict analysis and careful facilitation to support open and constructive dialogue on key issues. An example recording is our ASEAN event.
• The Initiative - in collaboration with key partners - convened a diverse set of scholars, practitioners, civil society and government actors to discuss the potential for Environmental Peacebuilding for the Asia-Pacific region. The outputs of the conference are available on our website.

Among a range of public engagement activities, some recent media publications have included the following:

• Making Common Cause, Pursuit, Erika Feller and John Langmore
• Stepping Carefully Amid Conflict in the Pacific, Pursuit, Anouk Ride and Tania Miletic
• Tensions are high between China and Australia over Solomon Islands, but it’s in everyone’s interests to simmer down, The Guardian, Tania Miletic and Anouk Ride
• AUKUS an unwelcome guest at the table of nuclear disarmament, Pearls and Irritations, Sanjay Barbora
• Several recent articles by Derek McDougall as detailed on our website

Staffing

We are thrilled that our request to the Hon Helen Clark to be Patron of the Initiative for Peacebuilding is in the process of being formally confirmed.

We invite you to familiarise yourself with the diverse and rich range of Research Affiliates who are developing research collaborations with the Initiative. We also welcome the deep experience and contributions of our first Practitioner Affiliate, and are grateful for the professional support of our volunteers and students.

The Initiative continues to benefit from the contributions of Tania Miletic (Assistant Director), John Langmore (Chair of the Board), and Nathan Bond (Program Manager).

Supporting the Initiative

We welcome new subscribers to this newsletter, and friends who wish to forward the newsletter to those who may be interested. We are extremely appreciative of the financial support received by the Initiative to date. If you are interested in making a gift, we now have a webpage to facilitate this: