BY MENGESHA AMARE
“We are striving for making the political and democratic field inclusive and participatory instead of being a confined corridor of a few monopolizing groups. We have to come up with a political maturity via creating a comprehensive landscape instead of toppling reform trajectory and inciting societal clash that cause the death of innocents devoid of political thinking,” said Muferiat Kamil, Peace Minister.
“The unrest and recurrent conflicts rampant at every corner of the nation do not emanate from the intermingled society leading life in harmonious way for long. Rather it is the attempt of those who have hidden agenda to bend the trekking of nation’s reform,” she added.
She wholeheartedly expressed the firm commitment of the government to bring about a lasting peace in the country, create a democratic nation in which all citizens are treated equally and participate in various political preferences.
Muferiat further stated that her ministry has organized community-based dialogues in collaboration with the stakeholders to discharge its responsibilities of widening the political landscape through dialogue.
In a multinational country like Ethiopia, it is important to craft a comprehensive and well inclusive strategy, and the ministry is arraying strategies that could incorporate the voice of all peoples of the country.
It is quite clear that peace and tranquility are always in the hands and minds of people as everything could never be out of the sight of the general public anywhere in the universe.
Cognizant of the fact that the country has been entangled with myriads of conflicts and disputes across the nation, the Ministry of Peace has finalized preparations to organize a community-based consultative forum with a view to consolidating peace effort in collaboration with citizens at the grass roots level.
“When decisions are cascaded from top to bottom, the probability of them to be translated into practical actions is quite minimal. Since peace is in the minds of the general public and at their palm, entertaining a very participatory approach is pretty indispensable in bringing about real difference,” added Muferiat.
Besides, the conflicts and disagreements happen here and there in the country are primarily orchestrated by whom they don’t want Ethiopia to shine in the world arena. There is a growing recognition by policymakers and practitioners at national level that we must better understand the role that peace process can play a great in helping citizens promote social-wellbeing and livelihood.
However, some anti-peace elements would like to garner political gain fuelling instability and conflict among the people compromising social cohesion, all-encompassing development and peaceful strides.
There is an increasing body of work that investigates the intensity of efforts to create havoc among the community harmoniously living for ages. This situation has also been witnessed following the recent reform the country started enjoying.
In a historical country like Ethiopia, the people need to cultivate the habit of resolving conflict in a democratic way than violence. In the recent times, this habit of tolerance had been overridden. This is the major challenge compromising our effort to build a democratic culture.
The forum creates a platform for political parties as well, and its ultimate goal is creating a national consensus on our common affairs. This forum is a means to lasting peace and stability, too.
The national forum undertaken across the nation with a view to restoring peace, harmonious way of living, trust and fraternity among the society and raising posterity in tune with the national agendum and patriotic gesture is well underway at different places.
Yes, lack of access or inequitable access to social services can be a key trigger or driver of conflict. The contribution of the general public to peace building sought to further deepen understanding on the issues the immediate aftermath of conflict, which listed the provision of interim administrative in Tigray state, for instance.
Obviously, infrastructure and delivery systems that support social services are often severely damaged during law enforcement operation in Tigray state by the defeated groups.
Social services can be offered as peace dividends that reduce social tensions and enhancing the citizen–state social compact through the provision of tangible, needed services, create incentives for nonviolent behavior and support state building efforts at critical junctures in the peace process.
The growing support flooded from various states and the federal government indicates that everyone wants to build a unified and prosperous nation in which every citizen is given equal opportunity, treated fairly and with respected human and democratic rights.
Advocates have long argued that peace settlements must prioritize services that reach war-weary populations outside the capitals to help them a stable and good life.
In the evolving implementation of all the activities of the newly structure interim administration in Tigray sate, fair social services takes an equal position alongside security, governance, rule of law and wider economic recovery concerns in efforts to overcome fragility and conflict.
The federal government is working to develop and sharpen its strategies and programs, including a systematic approach to results, monitoring and evaluation systems. Importantly, these efforts have increasingly focused on how to build upon explicit peace building to contributions the social services can make to peace building.
This special forum needs to be expanded to different parts of the country and make all citizens at all strata well aware of the significance of unity, harmony, fraternity and cooperation.
The contributions of shared experiences and learning from ongoing initiatives and interactions in the field which are striving to make these connections firm.
The forms would highlight how local and even non-formal action must be prioritized as a critical dimension of peace building, especially when conflict sensitive, and in particular, in equity-promoting ways, complementing the customary focus on national political levels and on the state.
At the same time, the roles of local government need greater attention to ensure services are delivered in ways that promote peace building and development in conflict-sensitive ways.
The forum is also a viable way in offering insights into the relationship between social services and other peace building areas, such as the link with transitional justice, reparations, and anti-corruption imperatives.
A recurrent theme in this forum is the importance of investment in social services for peace building at the individual and community levels. This brings together conventional state building logic with the call for local sense of belongingness of peace building and development efforts.
It also links to evolving discussions of hybridity, buttressing arguments about the value, in varied contexts, of parallel systems that deliver what people need.
As externally driven, often hatred-based movements are of cancerous for the development and change of the nation as they highly challenge the political economy dynamics that may have to be engaged, accommodated and transformed.
Weighing the values of the forum she accentuated that the sweeping hatred and being skeptical ones may have brought some immediate disputes threatening peace and tranquility.
Focusing on short-term, predetermined and logistically feasible responses in transitional contexts, she argues that, without a comprehensive overhaul of development policies in general, isolated collective reparations projects are unlikely to address sources of conflict and could ultimately do more harm than good.
If successful, she argues, such programming may inspire confidence in the benefits of stronger decentralization and enhance state legitimacy. In addition, the improved and equitable service provision and citizen–government relations may contribute positively to social cohesion and address some of the root causes and drivers of conflict, especially in contexts where grievances are strongly linked to inequitable treatment or exclusion Peace building involves transforming relationships at all levels of society.
We hope that the contributions it contains will support ongoing efforts to understand and advance the conceptual, practical and policy linkages between social services and peace building.
The Ethiopian herald December 24/2020
