Sierra Leone: UN, partners voice 'utmost concern' at electoral violence Scoop: Sierra Leone: UN & Partners Voice Utmost Concern

Some worrying news from Sierra Leone:

'The United Nations and its international partners have voiced renewed concern at widely reported cases of intimidation and violence ahead of elections in Sierra Leone next month, calling on all concerned to avoid incitement and provocation in the small West African country that is still recovering from a disastrous decade-long civil war.

"The UN and international community remain fully committed to supporting credible, fair and violence-free elections," the partners said in a weekend statement, which welcomed positive steps by the Government, including a successful voter registration exercise and preparations for polling, counting, tallying and the announcement of results.

"However, since the official start of campaigning, cases of intimidation and violence have been widely reported. We view this development with utmost concern. It constitutes a threat to the democratic process. It also goes against the interests of the people of Sierra Leone, who want peaceful, free and credible elections," they added.

The statement called upon leaders of all political parties to promote a peaceful campaign and prevent provocative conduct on the part of their supporters as the country prepares to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections on 11 August, the second since emerging from the civil war in 2002.'

Launch of the ICT for peace foundation, Geneva

We are happy to see the following announcement:

'The ICT4Peace Foundation announced the launch of ICT4Peace: An International Process for Crisis Management today.

ICT4Peace aims to enhance the performance of the international community in crisis management through the application of information Communications Technology (ICT) - technologies that can facilitate effective and sustained communication between peoples, communities and stakeholders involved in crisis management, humanitarian aid and peacebuilding. Crisis management is defined, for the purposes of this process, as civilian and/or military intervention in a crisis that may be a violent or non-violent with the intention of preventing a further escalation of the crisis and facilitating its resolution. This definition covers peace mediation, peace-keeping and peace-building activities of the international community. In bridging the fragmentation between various organisations and activities during different crisis phases, ICT4Peace aims to facilitate a holistic, cohesive and collaborative mechanisms directly in line with Paragraph 36 of the WSIS Tunis Commitment.'

A comprehensive concept note on the project can be found here. They also have their own blog.

The New Security Beat: PODCAST - Trade, Aid and Security

The New Security Beat has an interesting podcast on Trade, Aid and Security: An agenda for peace and development. From their post:



'Current approaches to trade and aid often fail to stem poverty, promote stability, or prevent conflict in the developing world. According to Trade, Aid and Security: An agenda for peace and development, existing policies are poorly designed and benefit rich countries, denying developing nations access to vital financial markets. Lifting people out of poverty requires a secure environment and effective trade and aid policies can promote the preconditions for peace and stability. Oli Brown, Project Manager and Policy Researcher at the International Institute for Sustainable Development and one of the editors of Trade, Aid and Security, discusses current development strategies and the conditions for wider political and economic stability.'

Nepal Food shortages, security threaten a fragile peace

AlertNet published a short article looking at the threat to the fragile peace in Nepal, following a decade-long Maoist rebellion. With elections schedule for November:

'... violence continues, especially in the south, and security remains a problem throughout the country with police demoralized, the U.N. envoy in Nepal, Ian Martin, told a news conference after briefing the U.N. Security Council.

Two U.N. food agencies also warned on Thursday that natural disasters in 2006 and 2007 had severely hurt crop production in Nepal, leaving 42 of the country's 75 districts facing food shortages.

"This is particularly troubling during this highly sensitive post-conflict period," Richard Ragan, World Food Program (WFP) representative in Nepal, said in a statement.
A U.N. report said the postponement of elections initially planned to take place by mid-June had tested the unity of Nepal's eight political parties and "failure to ensure a credible election within a realistic and well-planned period could have a much more serious impact."

Presenting the report to the Security Council, Martin said he emphasized "the very considerable challenges that still remain," especially in terms of security.'

Jobs- Programme Management Advisor (Peacebuilding and Recovery)

UNDP is recruiting for a Programme Management Advisor (Peacebuilding and Recovery) based in Kathmandu.

'Under the overall supervision of the UN Resident Coordinator/UNDP RR and the direct supervision of the Deputy Resident Representative (Programme), the Senior Programme Manager (SPM) will head the Peacebuilding and Recovery Unit within the Programme Division and lead the development and implementation of UNDP’s post-conflict recovery strategy in Nepal. S/he will act as an advisor to Senior Management on all peacebuilding and recovery aspects of the UNDP Country Office (CO) Programme. The SPM will work in close collaboration with other UN Agencies, United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), Bureau for Crisis Prevention & Recovery (BCPR)/UNDP HQ staff and Government officials, technical advisors and experts, multi-lateral and bi-lateral donors and civil society to successfully implement the peacebuilding and recovery components of the UNDP programme.'

Sierra Leone: UN Fund Approves Projects to Assist Peacebuilding Efforts (Page 1 of 1)

Short piece on the PBC having approved funding for four new projects in Sierra Leone:

'The United Nations fund set up to help address the immediate needs of countries emerging from conflict today approved four new projects to support the ongoing electoral process and improve the judiciary, water, sanitation and health facilities in Sierra Leone.

"The approval of these projects is timely and demand-driven," Christian Holger Strohmann, Spokesperson for the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL), said following the action taken today by the UN Peacebuilding Fund's Steering Committee for Sierra Leone.'

The article also puts a figure of $16 million USD as the total financing allocated to seven Sierra Leone-based projects of the PBC.

Job- Senior Programme Officer: African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme- ACCORD

The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) is recruiting for the position of Senior Programme Officer: African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme. The following is from their website:

'The African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme seeks to enhance coherence across the peace, security, humanitarian, development and human rights dimensions of African peacebuilding operations. The purpose of the Programme is to improve the planning and coordination dimension of African peacebuilding operations. The Programme will work towards this overall objective through four output areas: (a) Training personnel responsible for planning and coordination and establishing a database of those trained; (b) Refining the training material already developed in the field and developing new training material; (c) Undertaking applied research that can inform policy development and training; and (d) Facilitating policy development aimed at assisting the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), Regional Mechanisms, Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and African Member States to develop and adopt policies and operating procedures that will facilitate the system-wide coordination of peacebuilding operations.

Key Responsibilities:
- Day-to-day implementation of the African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme;
- Planning and conducting activities and training interventions;
- Liaison with donors, training partners and UN and AU Mission personnel;
- Research, analysis and writing;
-Preparing budgets and assuming responsibility for financial management of the Programme;
- Report-writing;
- Representing the Programme at regional and international conferences and meetings;
- Assisting with the strategic planning of the Programme and preparing annual proposals;
- Travel within and beyond the continent to implement the Programme.'