“Priority for civil?!” was the title of an online dialogue about Germany’s contribution to global peacebuilding and the prevention of violent conflicts organised in mid-April by forumZFD and the Civil Conflict Management Platform (Plattform Zivile Konfliktbearbeitung). For the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) , Dr. Jörn Grävingholt, peace and conflict researcher in the research programme “Transformation of Political (Dis)Order”, took part in the virtual panel discussion. The main focus of the event was the balance sheet of four years of guidelines on “Preventing Crises, Resolving Conflicts, Building Peace”, which the German government had adopted in June 2017. Grävingholt, who is also a member of the Federal Government’s Advisory Council for Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding, emphasised that the guidelines had given Germany’s commitment to peace in the world a new boost, but that important things remained to be done. In shaping its external economic, resource and energy policy, Germany still had a long way to go to achieve coherence for peace. Major crisis operations such as those in Afghanistan would also have to be evaluated earlier and comprehensively.
At the end of March 2021, the Federal Government presented an implementation report on the guidelines. The Advisory Board for Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding has published a statement on the report (in German).