ITP Alumni Meeting on Strengthening Inclusion and Sustaining Peace in South and South East Asia, Colombo, 5-7 February, 2020

The third International Training (ITP) alumni meeting has been successfully completed in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The meeting was jointly organised with the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala. It brought together 28 alumni from the Department’s Advanced International Programme on Conflict Resolution (PACS), the Top Level Seminar on Peace and Security (TOPS) and the International Training on Dialogue and Mediation (ITDM). The alumni had attended trainings during the years 1989-2019 and came from India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste. The Department was represented by Helena Grusell, Angela Muvumba Sellström and Peter Wallensteen.

The theme of the meeting was “Strengthening Inclusion and Sustaining Peace in South and South East Asia”. Insights from research such as challenges to peacebuilding in Sri Lanka, gender, climate and protection of civilians, and conflict trends and new developments in peacebuilding as well as insights to sustaining inclusive peace and strengthening inclusive peacebuilding through policy and dialogue were topics covered during the three days. Moreover, the meeting was a platform to exchange experiences, and learn about knowledge gained from having attended the trainings at DPCR. There were fruitful discussions on ways forward to develop, strengthening and sustaining the DPCR ITP Alumni Network to include as many as possible of the Departments 800 former participants of ITP’s between the years 1988-2019.