Environmental Peacebuilding and Low Political Legitimacy: Challenges for Implementation (A Path to The Hague Event)

Oct 5, 2023 | CGIAR Focus Climate Security and CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience
online

Join us in this Path to the Hague webinar focusing on the challenges of implementing environmental peacebuilding in contexts marked by low political legitimacy. That is, in contexts where political elites are perceived as actively constraining the political agency of local constituents by either undermining or sabotaging peacebuilding processes; controlling institutions for land- and resource- management for their own benefit; and/or acting as gatekeepers of development efforts.

As an introduction, we will present the results from a recent participatory assessment of climate- related security risks conducted in conflict-prone Muslim Mindanao, the Philippines, in which political legitimacy was evidenced as a factor of significant influence over local-level adaptive and peacebuilding capacities. Practical experiences for Environmental Peacebuilding implemented by local non-governmental organisations in Mindanao will be presented as well.

EPB assumes that increasing public service provision through state actors will strengthen legitimacy, but this has not always been the case. Furthermore, little attention has been put on how to manage barriers to building peace and adaptive capacities in contexts where local political elites actively undermine efforts for service provision or rural development. A facilitated session will ask participants´ to discuss, from a theoretical and practical perspective, the challenges of implementing environmental peacebuilding in settings of low political legitimacy.

This event is moderated by research and practitioner organisations within and outside Mindanao, including CGIAR Climate Security Focus, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), and Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits (Ecoweb). The research was conducted under the CGIAR initiative on Climate Resilience.

Facilitators

• Leonardo Medina Santa Cruz – doctoral researcher on environmental peacebuilding at ZALF and research advisor to CGIAR Climate Security Focus
• Adam Savelli – climate security specialist at CGIAR Climate Security Focus
• Mark Anthony Torres – professor of peace and conflict studies at the Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao, MSU-IIT
• Carino V. Antequisa – Project Development Advisor at Ecoweb (tbc)

Date: 05 October, 2023

Time: 8:30-10:00 ET

Location: Online

Register for the event here