1. OVERVIEW OF WORKSHOPS
The discussions focused on the actual and potential roles of CSOs in preventing a re-emergence of armed conflict and in confronting the challenges to sustainable peace-building in Northern Ireland. Participants were asked to consider some of the structural and institutional conditions that inhibit the sector in its efforts to promote conflict prevention, peace-building and reconciliation, as well as the structural and institutional factors in place that facilitate these efforts..

2. CONTEXT
Northern Ireland is in transition from a conflict to a post-conflict society. The transition is marked by the contentious and incomplete implementation of the Belfast Agreement (negotiated in 1998), poor relations between the nationalist and unionist communities illustrated by a growing tendency towards highly segregated housing and provision of services, the replacement of formal violence with an increase in the number of violent sectarian incidents which have heightened tension at a series of interface areas across Belfast, Derry and in some rural areas. Apathy characterises much of the middle classes who appear to be comfortable in a culture of silence and avoidance, a culture reinforced by an education system that is almost completely segregated along religio-ethnic lines. Despite the apathy that characterises a large proportion of people in the Republic of Ireland, the relationship between the two parts of the island remains a divisive issue, which the Belfast Agreement only partially addresses. The border continues to exacerbate cultural differences and distrust and to perpetuate political conflict in Northern Ireland. The critical transnational dimension of the Belfast Agreement, which provide for north-south institutions, creates the possibility of a win-win outcome to the border contest. But this element has been underplayed to date, and, in Workshop one it was proposed that this presents obstacles to reconciliation in Northern Ireland and on the island as a whole.

3. Issues and Challenges in the Transition
Key issues that challenge a sustainable peace were identified during the three workshop sessions; these issues present challenges for civil society and political actors. It was agreed that many of the issues are shared by other societies that are in a transition from violent conflict to sustainable peace. The FYR of Macedonia was mentioned in particular in this context; the post-conflict reconstruction process in the Balkans and the enduring ethno-national conflict in the Basque region were also mentioned.

Table 1:Challenges for CSOs, governments and international organisations in transitional societies (based on the Northern Ireland case).


i. Managing violent disorder and anti-social behaviour at a local level
ii. Containing localised outbreaks of violence to avoid a knock-on escalation of violence in other areas
iii. Developing strategies that reduce opportunities for those who retain an interest in perpetuating violence at a local or regional level to do so (this frequently relates to intra-group relations)
iv. Addressing social issues that feed cycles of conflict
v. Moving beyond conflict management (simultaneously) to help reduce negative perceptions and build long-term trust between communities
vi. Promoting reconciliation where the roots of conflict remain in dispute (in this case the border) and where reconciliation frequently has competing interpretations


Civil Society Organisations are addressing these challenges on a number of levels and speakers and participants highlighted a number of CSO strategies.

Facing these Challenges: The Role of CSOs
3.1 Creating Space for Conflict Prevention
Interface communities tend to suffer most directly from the type of violence that characterises the post-conflict or transitional phase in Northern Ireland. The roots of disorder in interface areas lie in a ‘complex interplay between local and national, between contemporary activities and historical events, between social processes and political practices, which make the problem of sectarian violence persistent and difficult to address. Localised outbreaks of violence have a negative impact on wider community relations and on efforts to fully implement the Belfast Agreement. The relationship also works in reverse. Escalating violence frequently sparks violence in other areas several miles away and such protests tend to have a recurrent and a seasonal nature.

A relatively successful mechanism for containing and preventing cycles of violence was initially developed in response to violence in North Belfast which was sparked off by the controversial Orange Order Parade over 50 miles away in Portadown, Co.Armgh.

For many grass-root civil society groups in North Belfast, the biggest frustration was their inability to tackle and manage the spiralling violence, despite a desire to do so. Their inability was in a large part due to poor communication between communities and between community organisations and the police; poor communication stemmed from a combination of distrust of the other community and a fear of hardliners within one’s own community, but also from the absence of a mechanism that could overcome these barriers. The Mobile Phone Network, which enabled a number of activists in each community to have 24 hour access to each other, was designed to overcome these barriers.

This permanent line of communication creates the space that can dispel rumours and myths, that allows CSOs to take actions to control unrest within one’s own community before a tit-for-tat escalation can begin. The Network is a mechanism that empowered communities to tackle incidents that lead to an escalation of violence by indirectly reducing the scope and opportunity for those who aim to perpetuate violence. This mechanism requires the existence of at least two people, (one in each community), who commit to always maintaining 24-hour communication and who have significant standing in their own community; it should strive to include all members of the community, especially those most wary of contact with the other community. The network included paramilitary actors. Its usefulness is vastly increased if the police are co-operating with the CSOs: the network can be used to create trust between the police and the communities and to ensure that the police do not intervene in such a way that leads to an escalation in violence.

Central to this model is a reliable mechanism that can empower communities to dispel rumours and the tit-for-tat escalation that is so prominent in societies coming out of conflict. A different mechanism, but one with the same objective, was designed by CSOs to contain a violent escalation of conflict, fuelled by events at the national and local level, in East Belfast in May 2002. While trust had increased between the two communities over the years since the Belfast Agreement, the escalating violent conflict sparked by disputed parades and leading to the forced evacuation of houses, strained relations. Those who promoted direct communications with the other community were under pressure to put a stop to them.

The obstacles to direct contact between the communities made a Mobile Phone Network unworkable as a response. Yet the same issues perpetuated the violence in both North and East Belfast. A breakdown in trust; the inability of those advocating dialogue to overcome opponents to it in their own community and the lack of a mechanism to dispel rumours created a vicious circle of violence that risked further escalation. Intervention by the police risked their becoming part of the ‘blame-game.’ That party political actors became embroiled in the ongoing ‘blame-game’ highlighted the intimate connection between events at the local and national level and its vicious circle impact.

Mediation Northern Ireland, an independent CSO, responded at the request of community groups who were in favour of, but unable, to engage in dialogue with the other community. It proposed using its network of independent witnesses to marshal the streets as independent monitors of events; the marshals would observe on and record events on a 24-hour basis; this record would serve to both dispel rumours and to provide information from an independent source that reduces the escalating effect of the blame-game. To be effective, however, the monitors needed full access to (and thus the agreement of) the local community group. Building a co-operative, working relationship with the police is also an important ingredient of its success: the risk of violence can be controlled if the marshals report to the police and make recommendations as to the impact of their intervention on the level of violence. Sometimes the Marshals would recommend that police intervention is necessary.

CSOs have developed the Mobile Phone Network and the Independent Marshals models from crisis-management mechanisms into longer-term conflict prevention mechanisms. Mediation Northern Ireland, in partnership with the Belfast Interface Project and TIDES (the partnership ensured that the mediators have the trust of both communities), currently run a long-term project that is designed to run in three phases. The first phase challenges community groups to get ‘their own house in order’ (i.e. to ensure that no member of its community provokes violence) using the independent monitors and communication through mediators across the lines. In the second phase community groups are challenged to develop a permanent mechanism for direct communication and to set up a joint working group of community activists to explore what causes conflict and how it can be addressed. The third phase is to keep local and national politicians informed about the project.

3.2 Creating space through Joint Socio-Economic-Development
Another speaker spoke about the work of CSOs at the volatile interface at Suffolk-Lenadoon, the former a small protestant enclave in largely catholic West Belfast. The forced displacement of much of the protestant community in the 1970s and the fearful and threatening environment in which the small community that remained lived, made for a very volatile interface which suffered its most violent summer in 1997. Despite the violence and the absence of any ordinary contact between the groups throughout this period, the community organisations of Suffolk and Lenadoon have succeeded in establishing a partnership and a social-economy regeneration project at the site of the interface.

For those in the Suffolk Community Forum in favour of the project , the most difficult task was convincing its own people to work with the other community: ‘you cannot ask people to trust where there is no foundation for trust.’ Paramilitaries were the most focal critics of the initiative and the Community Forum tried to deal with their opposition by asking them to allow the Community Forum take the risk on their behalf. The members of the Forum learnt that projects like this need to have a willing champion: but the champion will be the fall guy if the project goes wrong. The threat of opposition was also contained with (i) a policy of inclusion: local meetings were convened to discuss all important decisions, (ii) a veto: it was agreed that the joint forum could make no decisions without the agreement of representatives from both communities who were equally represented on the board; (iii) a ban on the holding of any political activities in the new jointly-owned space.

It was noted that the personal threat (frequently from within their own community) under which many of the CSO workers driving such initiatives work should not be under-estimated. This raised the issue as to the need for ‘single identity’ work or capacity building within communities. One of the speakers who could not make it had planned to discuss the work of the Protestant Interface Network which works across a number of areas with young protestant men (mostly) who are opposed to and therefore unwilling to involve themselves in any cross-community or cross-border initiatives. PIN, amongst other organisations, tries to engage these groups in social activities, whether of a sporting, educational or cultural nature, that create alternative social outlets and opportunities for them. The network also maintains a presence at contentious events that traditionally provide the sparks for an escalation of violence.

3.3 Tackling the Social Issues that Drive Cycles of Violence
It was pointed out during the workshops that while some of these CSO-driven mechanisms have succeeded in managing crises and preventing cycles of conflict, other factors which reduce the size of the community (in either community) who perceive the perpetuation of violence as a goal are simultaneously at work. The intervention by Mediation NI in 2002 may have faced even more obstacles if socio-economic development, CSO-driven cross-community youth education projects and a number of north-south contact programmes had not been providing more opportunities for people and promoting better relations between communities.

The point was made, and accepted, that permanent mechanisms for communication like those described, are necessary but insufficient mechanisms for the building of a permanent culture of prevention. As one participant argued, ‘we know the symptoms at the interfaces…..we need to look at long-term remedies that will cure the symptoms: the fact is that rioting at the interface is the main attraction for young people……it’s the biggest show in town and it’s free.’ This participant was of the opinion that most violence is not political or cultural but social, that in many of the poorer areas of Belfast (in particular) young people become involved in violence and paramilitarism because of boredom and a perceived lack of opportunity. A long-term, developmental approach to peace-building, one that focuses on cultural education and the development of skills which provide young people with opportunities that do not involve violence. Some community groups have been able to go further than others in developing responses to these social issues.

3.4 Promoting Reconciliation Where the Roots of Conflict Remain in Dispute
While there was a consensus on the need to focus on the social impetus behind some forms of violence, the discussion on strategies for the promotion of reconciliation reflected the enduring significance of the political. In place of an official reconciliation process, reconciliation between communities in Northern Ireland and between the of Ireland, North and South, has been largely pursued through small group encounters promoted by civil society organisations and/or schools and supported by the EU Peace and Reconciliation Programmes and some government sources. Small group encounters engage in ‘storytelling,’ dispelling historical myths, promoting mutual understanding through joint partaking in educational, artistic or other activities. Storytelling, one commentator noted, was responsible for perpetuating many of the myths that lead to conflict; storytelling is a good means of dispelling them.

There was some discussion of the merits of this approach. The question was asked as to whether or not CSOs have the capacity or should be asked to both deliver services and to reconcile. While one participant spoke about the challenge for civil society to catch up with the over-arching steer towards constitutional consensus in the Belfast Agreement, others spoke of governments and political parties unable to reconcile, unable to agree on a reconciliation strategy and therefore happy to allow civil society groups to take responsibility for it. The difficulty is that where there is no consensus on the causes of the conflict, a formal reconciliation process can appear to aim to narrow political and cultural differences and therefore will exacerbate conflict. For example, some border protestants in Northern Ireland (a minority) equate the word ‘reconciliation’ with a threat to their culture and survival. One participant who favoured small group encounters said that her group avoided the word ‘reconciliation’ instead striving to promote mutual understanding and respect for one another’s views.

The consensus in the workshop seemed to be that the pursuit of reconciliation, or mutual understanding, through small-group encounters driven by CSO was a positive strategy. However, as will be pointed out in the final section will, without institutional support for these initiatives, including a funding regime that supports the promotion of mutual understanding on an all-island basis, a sustainable culture of prevention and peace-building will remain elusive.

3.5 Creating Space for Transcending Conflict at the political level
A small number of CSOs and individuals have played a very specific role in creating space for dialogue between political actors in the NI conflict. While there was some will for a strategy other than conflict during the late 1980s, it was critical that an individual or a group was available as a secret mediating instrument to link political actors together so as to drive this will forward. Father Alex Reid’s creation of back channels between actors served this purpose. Mediation by Paul Arthur in the 1990s ‘enabled a small group of Northern Irish politicians to become versed in a joint learning process…it changed the way they saw each other.’

The Glencree Centre for Reconciliation’s Political Dialogue Programmes started after the 1994 cease-fires and aimed to build on this momentum towards a political agreement. The Programme was guided by a number of principles: confidentiality, the provision of a safe and non-threatening space, inclusion of representatives from all traditions, informal conversation aimed at consensus building and in which the participants set their own agendas and continuity (i.e. it was about sustained contact between these political actors over the years and out of this comes the possibility for actors to know each other and to understand one another’s positions. they work primarily with the sub-leadership level). Glencree has deliberately aimed its programmes at the sub-leadership level and one participant commented that: “this is a particularly good strategy for bringing about change…in the ten intervening years many of these political actors are in influential positions and that is where the sustainability of the initiatives lies. The CSO is building a leadership that it will take with it and this is the real prize of CSOs building these links with mid-level political actors.”

4. Facilitating and Inhibiting Factors

4.1 Funding Regimes
4.1.1 Avoid “Short-Term Projects with Long-Term Aims”
A number of over-arching concerns ran throughout all discussions, whether those concerning violence at interface areas, social causes of violence, the need for cultural and educational initiatives or the extent to which reconciliation should be all-island rather than cross-border. The first concern is the need to move away from the peace-building model that promotes the engagement of civil society in ‘short-term projects with long-term aims’ . This challenges both the level of funding for CSO initiatives but, perhaps more importantly, the design of resource programmes which tend to fund projects in one-year or two-year cycles. For example, despite winning a UK Urban-Regeneration Award in 2003, the Suffolk-Lenadoon Community Forum was working in dire financial conditions and was only informed that it would have another year’s funding two days before the previous year’s funding ran out. A sustainable culture of conflict prevention cannot be built by civil society organisations who are unable to plan strategically for the future: this does not require huge resources but it does require secure, ongoing resources.

A senior Northern Irish Minister said to Mediation NI that the cost of their project equalled the bill for one and a half days policing in West Belfast: ‘Do it.’ Other funding bodies do not have the flexibility to allocate resources in this need-focused manner. This limits the extent to which the resource regime is actually facilitating CSOs to meet the real needs of peace-building and conflict prevention.

This not only concerns the interface communities where physical violence is a real threat. It was felt that this principle should inform all peace-building initiatives, in particular, CSO-driven cross-community and cross-border cultural and educational contact initiatives and government or CSO-led social regeneration projects. It was suggested that supported for such activity should be mainstreamed if a culture of conflict prevention is to be sustained .

4.1.2 Do Not ‘Punish’ Successful Conflict Prevention Initiatives
The need for a long-term commitment to conflict prevention led the discussions to a second issue which is continually raised in Northern Ireland: the tendency for funders to shift resources away from areas that appear to be ‘quiet.’ This ignores the work that CSOs are doing to prevent outbreaks of conflict and the result is that while conflict may be contained the cycles of violence are not broken. In addition to this, this type of funding allocation can inadvertently create incentives for violence.

4.2 Institutional Level
4.2.1 The Transnational Element: Ireland, North and South
It was commented that the critical transnational dimension of the Belfast Agreement facilitates the promotion of a culture of prevention: if well developed, theses institutions have the potential to provide a ‘win-win’ solution by diminishing the cultural significance of the political border. But these institutions have been under-played by the governments; this leaves the way open for the consolidation of the cultural border that is the root of conflict and which cages the conflict in Northern Ireland. This reduces the prospect for ‘resolution. ’

One knock-on effect of this was that the governments have abdicated the responsibility of reconciliation and leave the onus on civil society groups in the vacuum of any consensus on what caused the conflict in the first place. One participant highlighted how this institutional structure has implications for the design of peace-building programmes that support CSO activity. The EU Peace Programmes does not fund peace-building and reconciliation initiatives on an all-island basis, instead funding some peace-building work in the immediate border region. You cannot, she said, divorce the rest of the Irish state from the conflict. Doing so reduces the chances of reconciliation. This participant was also critical of the lack of reconciliation-focused work funded under the above peace programme, despite the fact that measures incorporating reconciliation were over-subscribed.

4.2.1 The European Union
The concept of the EU and its transnational dimensions and shared space, initially conceived to resolve conflict, was mentioned as providing a stable framework for improving North-South relations. However, the EU was mostly discussed in the context of its Peace Programmes which have empowered civil society organisations to pursue peace-building from below when events at the political level have been stalled. There was some criticism about the ‘funding regime,’ its restriction to Northern Ireland and the 6 border counties of Ireland and the impact of its short-term funding ethos on civil society.

4.3 Relationship between CSOs and Government
4.3.1 Challenge to CSOs to Engage at the Political Level
Running through the discussions was the argument that to promote sustainable peace the cross-cutting challenges (Table 1) need to be tackled simultaneously and coherently at all levels. The concern was, therefore, the need to address the disengagement between the political and the peace-building process. While some participants expressed the frustration sometimes felt by grass-root CSOs at the perception that only the political elite can bring about historic breakthroughs in peace processes, there was general consensus that a sustainable culture of conflict prevention needs the active involvement of political actors and institutions as well as CSO actors.

4.3.2 Possible mechanisms for better engagement at the political level included the suggestion that this is a challenge for the middle-range CSO actors: their potential for promoting a culture of prevention depends on their influence on elites and their contact with grass-roots civil society organisations. One participant highlighted as a strategy of his organisation taking the pressure off the grass-root groups and working on the development of civil leadership at the local government level; civil leadership that thinks about ‘how to transcend where they come from and to understand something of the other.’ This suggestion has some echoes of the approach adopted by the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation (3.5) in its programmes specifically aimed at sub-elite (or tomorrow’s) political leadership.

4.2.3 Many middle-range CSO actors are funded under the PEACE and other Programmes to deliver services in partnership with government departments and agencies. While some participants questioned the compatibility of their roles as service providers and advocators of peace-building and reconciliation policy, others argued that engagement with state agencies to jointly provide services (such as the type of service provided by Mediation NI in East Belfast and by Co-operation Ireland through its north-south educational programmes) does not compromise the advocacy role of CSOs. The engagement may facilitate their ability to influence at the political level.

4.2.4 It was suggested that the ability of middle-range CSOs to engage political actors might be enhanced by more constructive partnerships and networks which enable the presentation of coherent and constructive recommendations to government(s).

4.3.5 While the governments were criticised for underplaying the transnational dimension of the Belfast Agreement, it was pointed out that CSOs should use it as a factor that facilitate the promotion of conflict prevention: in order to maximise their potential, CSOs need a more coherent transnational framework to which they can relate. Some participants pointed out that East-West relations (between Britain and Ireland) should not be ignored by those promoting the transnational dimension of the agreement.

4.3.6 Section 75 of the NI Act places an onus on all government and statutory bodies to have due regard to community relations when devising policy. It was pointed out that this is a very powerful lobbying instrument with which CSOs can pressurise the Northern Irish government to prioritise a culture of conflict prevention. The Belfast Agreement itself includes important references to the intention of political parties to fully engage with CSOs and even provides a mechanism for this: a Civic Forum (which has not materialised as the agreement envisages).

4.4 Relationship with CSOs, the Police the Government and the Media
A facilitating factor for civil society organisations and the prevention of conflict is the development of an understanding with the police and other statutory agencies. The impact of the media and its tendency to over-report violent incidents and political stalemate and to under-report the successful peace-building stories was also discussed. While this is a general phenomenon that is, perhaps, unlikely to change, some participants said that ‘if CSOs work with the media, they are more likely to work with CSOs.’ With this type of engagement CSOs can sometimes prevent publication of the sensitive information most damaging to conflict prevention.

5. 1 Recommendation for the Global Partnership’s Action Agenda
With its overall recommendation to the Dublin Conference, the Working Group intend to propose a mechanism designed to meet the policy document’s call for the EU to ‘support the active participation of civil society in the development and implementation of conflict prevention policy and programmes’ (3.2.5).

Recommendation
“Given the need for the enormous change in culture from reaction to prevention, the need for a coherent approach and the Action Agenda’s call for mechanisms to promote conflict prevention we recommend that the European Union support:

A Pilot European-Wide Action Programme to assist those areas threatened by or emerging from conflict. The Programme should enable the compilation of lessons being learnt by government actors and CSOs in the Irish and other regions undergoing or coming out of conflict and should enable interaction and problem-solving networks between CSOs and all actors.

The Programme should focus on developing mechanisms for matching resources to the needs of CSOs (at all levels) in their delivery of:
(a) conflict prevention measures
(b) sustainable peace processes
(c) the prevention of reoccurrence of conflict
(d) Post-settlement reconstruction

There are three important points to note about the proposed programme. One that it is action based involving real life contact and learning networks between groups in different regions; two that it involves government actors and CSOs, three that it is focused on developing mechanisms that will enable the resources and support structures that best enable CSOs to exercise their capacity to prevent conflict and build peace (in partnership with governments and government agencies).

5.2 At the levels of the Northern Irish, British and Irish Governments the Working Group will have a number of specific recommendations which are implicit in the report above but have yet to be finalised. The question was raised as to how many CSOs had an input into the design of the PEACE II Programme? How many have a role in the design of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs’s Reconciliation Fund? Why do most CSOs prefer to receive funding from Foundation Trusts for their most innovative work? The recommendations will reflect these questions.

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