Peace and Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Meeting the evolving peace requirements of postconflict societies

 

Challenges associated with peacebuilding in conflict-affected states and societies are rarely straightforward. Beyond dramatically reducing violence and preventing a rekindling/relapse of violent conflict, peacebuilding efforts seek to help societies and governments in post-conflict countries reset their internal relations on a peaceful path toward a more sustainable peace. The indirect, long-term effects of war generally compound difficulties in peacebuilding processes. These long-term effects of violent conflict relate to political, economic, and social aspects: lasting impressions of human rights abuses committed during wars continue to shape the relations among members of post-conflict societies for decades to come (Bar-Tal, 2007). Both socio-economic and political impacts challenge the stability and development of conflict-affected states for many years (Gates et al., 2012). The risks to public health are especially profound and disproportionately affect the civilian population (Ghobarah et al., 2003). Lack of sanitation and inadequate access to potable water are examples of major sources of such harms and risks (Gleick, 1993). These environmental infrastructures are frequent casualties of contemporary violence (Sowers et al., 2017; Weinthal & Sowers, 2019). Environmental and climate change expose both post-war populations and peace operations to further risks, thus exacerbating the impacts of conflict even after active combat has long since concluded (Barnett & Adger, 2007; Eklöw & Krampe, 2019). This project theorizes explanations for how environmental cooperation may facilitate processes of sustaining positive peace, providing examples to illustrate these mechanisms. The objective is to highlight that a peacebuilding approach that is relevant to the anthropocene needs to incorporate long-term ecological considerations. The project seeks to update existing peacebuilding frameworks, to meet the evolving peace requirements of post-conflict societies while at the same time tempering the human impact on the planet’s ecosystem.

 

Medium-term (until March 2022)

• Research article: Simangan and Krampe “Peace and Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Implications for PostConflict Peacebuilding”
• Research article: Krampe, Simangan, Hegazi, Sharifi “A transdisciplinary analytical framework of environmental peacebuilding”
• Policy stakeholder presentation at Japanese MFA and Swedish MFA
• Policy stakeholder presentation at UN Climate Security Mechanism, New York
• Policy stakeholder presentation at Informal Expert Group of Security Council Members on Climate Security, New York
• Policy stakeholder presentation at Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development 2022

1. Krampe, Florian, Farah Hegazi, and Stacy D. VanDeveer. 2021. Sustaining peace through better resource governance: Three potential mechanisms for environmental peacebuilding. World Development 144, 105508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105508
2. Krampe, Florian. 2021: Ownership and inequalities: exploring UNEP’s Environmental Cooperation for Peacebuilding Program. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00926-x
3. Krampe, Florian. 2021. Why United Nations peace operations cannot ignore climate change. SIPRI Commentary, February 22.
4. Hegazi, Farah, Florian Krampe, Elizabeth Smith. 2021. Climate-related Security Risks and Peacebuilding in Mali. SIPRI Policy Paper 60, April.