From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment

Abstract

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) conducts field-based environmental assessments and strengthens national environmental management capacity in countries affected by conflicts and disasters. Using state-of-the-art science and technology, UNEP deploys teams of environmental experts to assess environmental damage and determine risks for human health, livelihoods and security. Since 1999, UNEP has operated in more than twenty-five countries and published eighteen environmental assessment reports. Based on this expertise, UNEP is providing technical assistance to the UN Peacebuilding Commission in assessing the role of natural resources and the environment in conflict and peacebuilding. The main objective of this cooperation is to prevent natural resources and environmental stress from undermining the peacebuilding process while at the same time using environment as a platform for dialogue, cooperation and confidence-building. To broaden UNEP's expertise and analytical capacity, an Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding was established in February 2008. Coordinated by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) the advisory group provides independent expertise, develops tools and policy inputs, and identifies best practices in using natural resources and the environment in ways that contribute to peacebuilding. The group is composed of senior experts from academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and think tanks that have demonstrated leadership in environment and conflict issues (see annex 5). This report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP on the environmental dimensions of disasters and conflicts, aims to summarize the latest knowledge and field experience on the linkages between environment, conflict and peacebuilding, and to demonstrate the need for those linkages to be addressed in a more coherent and systematic way by the UN, Member States and other stakeholders. As such, it is linked to a wider cooperation on conflict and natural resource management started between the European Commission and the United Nations system in 2008, which has resulted in a new project funded by the European Commission under the Instrument for Stability on " Strengthening Capacities for Consensual and Sustainable Management of Land and Natural Resources. " The research and consolidation of information herein will feed into the development of upcoming guidance notes, training modules, policy papers and other outputs under this EC-UN project. Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB). It was open for peer review to all UN agencies, programmes and funds working on conflict and peacebuilding, as well as to the Member States and observers of the Peacebuilding Commission. It was also released as a consultation draft …