Re-Inventing Regional Cooperation? Insights from South Caucasus
'Regional cooperation’ is a buzzword often heard in the context of the South Caucasus conflicts. Such endeavours are said to have the potential to lessen existing tensions, yet establishing functional regional cooperation formats has proven extremely difficult due to the challenging political situation. Recent research by the Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP) on the South Caucasus now suggest that a pragmatic, technical approach to cooperation, including building up the necessary human and technical infrastructure, may be instrumental to initiating cooperation.
On March 6, 2009, Adelphi Research, as member of the IfP, and in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, organized a workshop in Tbilisi to take stock of past experiences in the light of current political developments. The aim of the workshop was to highlight existing and potential threats for regional cooperation in the area of environment, economy and natural resource management in the South Caucasus context.
Participants from regional civil society and academic institutes, as well as from donor organizations, stressed that external actors can play an important role in providing and widely distributing objective and impartial information. At the same time, it is crucial that these external actors act as partners, take a long-term approach and become more ambitious in their activities. Therefore, initiating and facilitating dialogues between stakeholders with similar interests and priorities is necessary. Representatives of various constituencies, such as the business community and green organizations, should be involved to successfully combine economic priorities and environmental needs.
The workshop concluded that activities should ultimately aim at changing attitudes, bringing about a spirit of cooperation instead of confrontation. Agents of change, such as youth groups, will be instrumental in achieving this. (Anja Wittich and Achim Maas)
For further information on IfP and the work in the South Caucasus, please visit www.initiativeforpeacebuilding.eu
On March 6, 2009, Adelphi Research, as member of the IfP, and in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, organized a workshop in Tbilisi to take stock of past experiences in the light of current political developments. The aim of the workshop was to highlight existing and potential threats for regional cooperation in the area of environment, economy and natural resource management in the South Caucasus context.
Participants from regional civil society and academic institutes, as well as from donor organizations, stressed that external actors can play an important role in providing and widely distributing objective and impartial information. At the same time, it is crucial that these external actors act as partners, take a long-term approach and become more ambitious in their activities. Therefore, initiating and facilitating dialogues between stakeholders with similar interests and priorities is necessary. Representatives of various constituencies, such as the business community and green organizations, should be involved to successfully combine economic priorities and environmental needs.
The workshop concluded that activities should ultimately aim at changing attitudes, bringing about a spirit of cooperation instead of confrontation. Agents of change, such as youth groups, will be instrumental in achieving this. (Anja Wittich and Achim Maas)
For further information on IfP and the work in the South Caucasus, please visit www.initiativeforpeacebuilding.eu
Published in:ECC-Newsletter, April 2009