From 19-21 June, 2024, the Third International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding was held in The Hague, convening leading practitioners, academics, and thought leaders in the field of environmental peacebuilding.
Experts of the Water, Peace & Security (WPS) Partnership were active in various sessions to discuss issues such as harnessing water as a tool for peace, and the power of data, for instance through the use of the WPS Global Early Warning tool, illustrated by case studies from Mali, Kenya, and Iraq. The WPS Global Early Warning Tool predicts water-induced conflict up to 12 months in advance.
On behalf of WPS, HCSS Data Scientist Maarten Vonk gave a presentation on “Causal Modeling of Climate-Related Conflicts”, during the breakout session “Harnessing the Power of Data, Machine Learning, and Advanced Statistics for Proactive Environmental Conflict Prevention”.
Organized by the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (EnPax) and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at Leiden University, the three-day conference was packed with high-level plenary sessions, breakout sessions and keynote speeches.
The conference featured 5 themes key to environmental peacebuilding, as well as a 6th open theme:
- Climate Change
- Water
- Peace, Justice, and Accountability
- Natural Resources and Conservation
- Data and Digital Technologies
- Open: Abstracts on other topics at the intersection of environment, conflict, and peace
Though trainings and dialogue, WPS raises awareness about the mutual benefits of cooperation when water is scarce. WPS analyses the root causes of water-related conflicts, leading to strategies to address these causes. For example, in Iraq, WPS programmes have resulted in the adoption of conflict-sensitivity in Integrated Water Resource Management policies. And in Kenya and Ethiopia, cross-border cooperation has arisen thanks to agreements between stakeholders on both sides of the border.
By understanding and addressing the drivers of climate-related conflict, we can turn cycles of violence into cycles of cooperation for peace.
Experts
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