From 3-4 November 2008 the African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme at ACCORD hosted a Peacebuilding Consultative Workshop in Bujumbura, Burundi for stakeholders to the peacebuilding process in that country.
The workshop brought together 32 participants representing the Government of Burundi, the United Nations Integrated Office in Burundi (BINUB), the armed forces, and civil society. The workshop served as a forum for discussion on the peacebuilding process to date and the way forward in the consolidation of sustainable peace in Burundi, was utilised to identify some of the challenges encountered in the peacebuilding process to date, and to generate lessons which had been learned in the peacebuilding process. A representative of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), a country in which the African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme also works, attended the workshop, and the opportunity was utilised to draw lessons from the peacebuilding process in Burundi and to share the Liberian peacebuilding experience with colleagues from Burundi.
The workshop therefore provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the peacebuilding process in Burundi to date, to draw valuable experiences and lessons from similar experiences in Liberia, and to identify some of the major lessons which had been learnt in peacebuilding in Burundi.
For further information on this workshop, or on the work of the African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme, please contact Mr. Walter Lotze at walter@accord.org.za.
