Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Connect the Dots for Conflict Prevention: UN Secretary General on Instability

November 17, 2021
Conflict prevention

With the rising tensions in Belarus, Uganda and other regions like Afghanistan, there has been a mass movement of thoughts and action towards conflict prevention. This morning, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, addressed the Security Council’s open debate with a very clear mandate – we need to connect the dots in order to do away with the unstable environment that has been created the world over. When he talked about connecting the dots for conflict prevention, he spoke about combatting a range of issues like poverty and climate change to see how all these issues add to the larger problem in various parts of the world.

Rising conflict across the world has called for conflict prevention policies that would an end to the unrest and help in building civil and social structures again. Yet, this cannot come with mere doing away of the conflict and pushing back the forces working in favour of the conflict. For relevant conflict prevention, one would have to appropriate resources and arm the development of these areas substantially so that they are not prone to falling into conflict ridden hands time and again. Inclusion is a very big word here – whether we are talking about poverty or climate change or any of the range of issues that have to do with sustainable development.

The occasion of the debate was to discuss preventive diplomacy for maintaining international peace. The Secretary General accordingly spoke about the more pressing issues that were leaving these conflict ridden regions in a state of flux and in a vulnerable position as well. While he called for a surge of diplomacy to broker peace along the lines of the resolution with the UN came into its very existence, he also spoke of social cohesion and closing the gaps that left entire groups and communities like women and children, in the lurch.