Radio Miraya
2703: UNFPA South Sudan: Common Ground Approach Training on Conflict Resolution and Peace Building in Malakal
UNFP is South Sudan in partnership with such four common ground South Sudan has conducted a co-op common ground approach training on conflict resolution and peace building in Malikal under the youth leading peace project and yesterday the training was conducted for the youth and today the participants will be parliamentarians of the Appanel State Legislative Assembly. It will be held with support from the United Nations Peacekeeping Peace Building Fund. Now to discuss the purpose and beneficiaries of this training we're joined on phone with Kidani Abrahaf who is the UNFP program advisor. Kidani, welcome to the program. Thank you very much and good morning and thank you for having me. Right. Just tell us about the Bespis Building program that you are conducting in Malikal. What are the broad aims of this program? UNFP in collaboration with UNESCO including the local implementing partners like the Search for Common Ground are working together to implement a project that uses lead peace project and the purpose of this project is to establish a participatory and inclusive local and national mechanisms for implementing a youth peace and security agenda in South Sudan and the overarching project goal of this project is actually to promote additional light use participation in peace building processes in South Sudan and it adopts a three prolonged use centric and gender strategy that is highly consultative and bottom-up in nature and that's why now we are engaging both the youth and parliamentarians at that level and this tool is to expand spaces for youth participation in peace building process at the national and state level so that's the overall purpose of this project. Oh yes and as UNFP you have partnered with such the Search for Common Ground like you mentioned why is it important to have these collaborative approaches to addressing peace building most especially in Malikal? Yeah actually this project is we are conducting train in Malikal as part of the comprehensive purpose of this project and happening actually in all the states it's not just specific for Malikal it's just happened that this is now the term for Malikal otherwise it's a nationwide approach and this is actually training mainly focus on conflicts analysis as I said earlier on conflict transformation leadership advocacy and non-adversarial communications and it helps also for the use for negotiation, mediation and consensus building and this is actually focusing on gender conflict sensitivity so the Common Ground approach actually is aimed to build the capacity of young men, women, to prepare them to engage across conflict dividends as you know ethnic, political and also it pre-presenting engaging non-adversarial manner with political leaders on safety topics related with insecurity and as you know South Sudan have one of the useful countries and we have to build a capacity of our youth so that we expect them to pass it in state level this for a build their understanding and conflict evaluation in a gender equality manner so it's just an initiative that's happening so the country and the Malikal is one of these areas where we are implementing it as part of the project right right what about the just concluded activities yesterday what were the highlights of these discussions yeah the highlights of this discussion for the youth is actual as I said just you know and that brings them to understand what how youth can engage in peaceful you know conflict resolutions non-violent and also to understand the peace dividend how it can contribute to national development agenda and so that you know youth if you give them the platform and earn them very well with the knowledge and capacity negotiate peacefully in this you know peaceful conflict resolution then it helps them actually to positively contribute to the national development agenda right so today you are meeting with the legislators right yes so what issues will be important for them to deliberate on when it comes to conflict resolution yeah actually this this uh the purpose of having the parliament current in this negotiation is actually aimed at approaching like three targeted outcomes and the main purpose of government stakeholders will be well prepared actually to receive and engage with the youth especially young women and also to create a platform to engage directly you know so that the this will be a constructive mutual aggregate of contact of discussion with the youth and they will also contribute for the development of a constant national strategy or news peace and security and this will create ownership so that in this way they have clear understanding of the role of the youth in peaceful resolution then they will be supporting implementing the strategy which is going to be developed right and finally it also increases the acceptance and support of the youth pass between the peaceful building processes right and speaking about the youth in their role in in peace building what are the priorities that the young people have when it comes to peace building and conflict resolution from what you have observed yeah thank you so much uh actually you know uh do as they use uh the most most important thing is you know recognize recognition is critical and also understand their need what this is a hot age you know and they have a lot of requirements and uh we need to share them very well so that they will have you know positive development positive attitude and also you know they can now really contribute and we this will be possible actually if you give them the platform for education job creation and also have a support for them to interact in their national agenda right kiddani thank you so much for making our time to speak to us so what impact do you expect the training uh to bear on your participants yeah so as i said since we are having a post the youth as well as parliament parents at the end of the day it will create you know a common ground as we said so that whatever issues of conflicts peace building comes both of them will be both the parliament parents and the youth will have in a common understanding and positive attitude on how they can support one another you know in and minimize you know diversifying you know uh you know ideas and and have you know a peaceful platform to discuss issues in a non-violent manner right kiddani uh abra thank you so much for your time thank you so much for having me and have a good day you too