“Shaping the Future of Peace Training in Europe and Beyond”

Between the 1st and 4th of October, GPPAC had an exciting week in Vienna, bringing members of our global network to share their expertise on peace training. The first two days, our participants participated at the "Shaping the Future of Peace Training in Europe and Beyond" conference. This was hosted by Peacetraining.eu with a  number of partners, including GPPAC. The conference had the objective of bringing together experts on peace training globally, to share their best practices and challenges facing this issue. GPPAC was instrumental in giving this conference an international outlook, bringing speakers from Georgia, Palestine, Zimbabwe, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, and the USA to share their insights on this issue.

We hosted a workshop following the topic "Who is at the table? A human security-centered approach to training" which highlighted the importance of multi-stakeholders processes in training and peacebuilding programming. With cases such as ECLF's engagement with local peace committees in the Bidi region of Zimbabwe, the audience was able to understand the importance of bringing a  number of actors in the process of training for peace. Later on the same day, we had speakers at the plenary session on "How training and Capacity building can better support developing effective capabilities for Peacebuilding and Prevention" highlighting the dream of a world where violence is not considered the way to approach conflict.

The second day of the conference saw our participation in the "Ensuring Inclusion in Training: Gender, Identity and National Ownership" with our members' experience in the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan.