What Works in Preventive Diplomacy

This meeting note summarizes the discussion from a forum held at IPI on December 15, 2011, in collaboration with the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the SecDev Group, and the Social Science Research Council.

The meeting explored insights on conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy from research and from the field, and their implications for policy and practice.

To move the prevention agenda forward, the note makes a number of recommendations:

  • Acknowledge the changes in the landscapes of armed conflict and collective violence.
  • Address the root cause of conflict, but also recognize that the causes of peace may be different.
  • Recognize the critical opportunities for diplomacy and prevention in these environments, but also recognize the challenges for coordination.
  • Deepen the knowledge base on the micro-determinants of “success” in preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention.
  • Support multiple collaborative tracks of research on early diplomacy and conflict prevention.

Read more about the event >>