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	UN chief outlines measures to strengthen peacebuilding efforts by United Nations news   13 October 2010   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today outlined measures to strengthen the United Nations role in helping countries emerging from conflict to maintain peace and entrench stability, stressing the need for rapid deployment of trained staff, predictable financing, partnerships and ensuring the participation of women.   “Building peace may sound straightforward, but we know from painful experience that it is not. Success requires patient, long-term commitments and the involvement of a wide range of actors, working together,” said Mr. Ban, updating the Security Council on UN efforts to support post-conflict peacebuilding.   “We are making progress – in Burundi, Haiti, Nepal, Sierra Leone and elsewhere. But let us remember that for people who have suffered through conflict, progress can’t come fast enough. The ultimate test is how well we deliver on the ground – how well we give people signs of hope beyond mere words and promises,” he said.   Echoing his message in his latest report on peacebuilding in the wake of conflict, the Secretary-General spoke of the need provide UN staff deployed in crisis situations with the proper training to enable them to perform the full range of their responsibilities.   He said a review of international civilian capacities currently under way is anchored in the need to ensure that international assistance in the aftermath of conflict is driven by national needs and priorities, to make better use of the capacities of women and for faster and flexible response.   On predictable financing, the Secretary-General noted that in fragile transition situations, the Peacebuilding Fund, set up in 2006, can quickly finance early action, which can, in turn, prompt other sources to provide longer-term funding.   It has streamlined its procedures, enabling it to respond more swiftly to urgent needs and encouraged Member States to contribute to its replenishment, he added.   “But the Fund is only one among many. Many other efforts are under way aimed at making all peacebuilding financing more flexible and tolerant of risk,” Mr. Ban said, urging Member States to support these alternatives.   He emphasized the importance of greater cooperation and joint approaches within the UN, noting that efforts are under way to strengthen cooperation and develop closer institutional links with the World Bank.   Mr. Ban also underlined the key role played by the partnership between the Council and the Peacebuilding Commission, created in 2006 to prevent post-conflict countries from relapsing back into bloodshed, and today it was the focus of a session by the body   “Closer collaboration can help the Council to support peacebuilding more effectively from the very start,” including by enabling peacekeeping operations to have an impact as “early peacebuilders,” and ensuring that integrated peacebuilding offices institutionalize these early achievements.   Women, he stressed, should form the core of peacebuilding.   “While their voices are critical for ensuring that the foundations of peace are just and equitable, women are still not systematically included at all stages of the peace process,” the Secretary-General said.   “Conflicts leave states severely weakened and social structures decimated,” he added. “In such situations, women are vital to ensuring that the basic survival needs of families and communities are met.”   Mr. Ban said that he has stipulated that all peacebuilding funds managed by the UN will allocate 15 per cent of their resources to fund projects addressing women’s needs, advancing gender equality or empowering women.   In his latest report on women participation in peacebuilding, the Secretary-General says that a decade after the adoption of landmark resolution 1325 calling for equal participation by women in post-conflict peacebuilding, much remains to be done to ensure they can play their part in shoring up peace.   “Now is the time for systematic, focused and sustained action, backed by resources and commitments on the part of all stakeholders – national and international, public and private, women and men,” he writes, laying out a seven-point action plan aimed at changing practices among all actors and improving outcomes on the ground.   The plan includes ensuring that women are fully engaged in all peace talks and post-conflict planning, including donor conferences, and requires that adequate financing is provided to address women’s specific needs and advance gender equality.   It also underlines the need for women to participate fully in post-conflict governance as elected representatives or decision makers, including through temporary special measures such as quotas.   At the end of today’s Council meeting, the body reiterated the importance of national ownership of peacebuilding efforts and priorities.   In a presidential statement, the Council emphasized the need for swift action in areas including “reform of the security sector, restoration of the rule of law, respect for human rights, ending impunity, combating illicit arms trade, drug trafficking, and transnational organized crime, voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons, supporting peace processes, provision of basic services, restoration of core government functions, management of natural resources, tackling youth unemployment, and revitalization of the economy.”
	Parents Unite Across Violent Borders by Mel Frykberg Inter Press Service   With the Middle East peace talks at a standstill, a group of activists is taking matters into its own hands. The Parents’ Circle Families Forum, a group comprising Palestinians and Israelis who have lost family members in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aims to build a bridge between the two fractured communities.   "Waiting for our respective leaderships to forge peace will take too long," Israeli board director and forum member Rami Elchanan told IPS. "It is through the common people that we can consider a different tomorrow.   "We want to prevent further bereavement, in the absence of peace, to influence the public and the policy makers – to prefer the way of peace to the way of war, as well as educate for peace and reconciliation. We also want to promote the cessation of acts of hostility and the achievement of a political agreement and prevent the usage of bereavement as a means of expanding enmity between our peoples," said Elchanan.   Every week members of the Parents’ Circle Families Forum give talks at schools, universities, hotels and other venues to Israelis, Palestinians and foreigners. The group also holds summer camps, offers youth leadershp seminars and its public and media activities consist of TV and radio programmes and documentaries.   The organisation comprises 13 Palestinian and Israeli staff who work from two offices, one located in Tel Aviv and the Palestinian office located in Aram, north of Jerusalem. The staff are backed by a large body of trained and experienced volunteers from bereaved families while an international network of organisations offer support.   The group has also given talks overseas in conflict zones including Spain’s Basqe region and in Northern Ireland. Wilhem Verwoerd, the grandson of former South African premier and chief apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd, and now a resident of Northern Ireland, expressed his admiration for the group following their visit there.   Aziz Sara, a Palestinian member from Jerusalem, lost his older brother Tayseer following a brutal interrogation by Israeli security forces 15 years ago.   "I became extremely bitter and angry. Even at ten I understood that his death was not natural, and someone was responsible. I grew up with anger burning in my heart. I wanted justice. I wanted revenge," recalls Sara. But over the years and through his involvement with the circle Sara.   "I feel obligated to use my pain to spread peace, rather than using it to fuel a hatred that would have eventually consumed me. I believe we are all obligated to do our best to create peace, and not wait until it hits home," explains Sara.   A member of the Forum, U.S. national Moira Julani, 43-year-old mother of three daughters, is also working through her grief, "Some days I feel angry and think of revenge, but most days I think about the situation rationally and want to educate people about the situation on the ground in occupied Palestine. I don’t want others to endure what I am going through, whatever their religion or nationality," Julani tells IPS.   "We are not discussing who is to blame, who started the conflict or who suffered the most," Julani added. "We are acknowledging the other side as equal human beings who suffer as much as we do."   Elhanan, 61, has three sons. Thirteen years ago, he suffered every parent’s worst nightmare: the death of a child. Smadar, a bright, vivacious girl and Elhanah’s only daughter, was just 14.   "I was driving to the Tel Aviv airport when I got a distraught call from my wife in Jerusalem saying there had been a Palestinian suicide bombing and that our daughter Smadar had been seen in the vicinity," he recalled.   "The next frantic hours were spent contacting police stations and hospitals, desperately trying to find out if our daughter had been admitted. Eventually, we had to go and identify her corpse. "The day Smadar died, a big part of me died too," he said.   Five Israelis, including Smadar, were killed and hundreds injured when three young Palestinians from the West Bank blew themselves up in a pedestrian mall in September 1997. Smadar and several friends had been on their way to purchase schoolbooks.   Moira Julani lost the love of her life to violence stemming from the ongoing conflict. But her loss occurred on the other side of the border.   Several months ago, Julani’s Palestinian husband Ziad was shot at close range by an Israeli policeman.   "It was a beautiful day and Ziad told me to get the girls ready so that when he returned we could take a family outing to the Dead Sea. He was on his way to Friday Muslim prayers," Julani told IPS.   As Ziad drove through East Jerusalem, he was caught in the crossfire of stone throwing and shooting between Palestinian youngsters and Israeli soldiers. Ziad swerved slightly to avoid the stones, and accidentally brushed against one of the Israeli border policemen. The police opened fire. Ziad died afterwards in the hospital. "My husband wasn’t politically active at all," Julani told IPS Visit the related web page
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