LINES OF WORK
A Culture of Sustainable Peace
At the beginning of the 1990s, “democratic regimes” spread out across the world. Yet, it has never been clear if those regimes were truly democratic or hybrid (resulting from the coexistence of democratic and authoritarian rules and practices). At that time, most predicted the start of a new era of international peace, but ethnic conflicts exploded in different countries while other internal armed conflicts protracted, fueled by old and new dynamics of collective violence.
The first 20 years after the Cold War era showed a reduction of the casualties of political violence. However, the trend of diminution in the number of internal conflicts has recently reversed. The firsts decades of the 21st century have shown that the expansion of democracy was neither solid nor irreversible. Countries that have been an example of pacification (i.e. El Salvador, Mozambique) and even countries that have not known recent episodes of extended political violence (i.e. Mexico) are now experience contexts of collective violence similar or worse than “traditional” civil wars. Also, democratic processes were nullified in countries such as Russia and Nicaragua, and disappeared in some weak but nevertheless stable representative democracies (i.e. Venezuela). Even long-standing consolidated democracies (i.e. England, United States) are today facing revitalized forms of nationalism and populism. The fragmentation of social consensus resulting from the spreading of fake news through social media and from latent forms of racism and intolerance, among other reasons, weaken rational debate and the social fabric, both of which are essential for healthy democracy.
Peace, that is the act to relate to others while respecting differences (including religious, ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation differences) and without using the force or the threat of use of force, is linked to democracy, which is the only regime enabling social actors to pursue and defend their interests without using force. In the same way that democratic stability does not only suppose its existence in the present but also the certainty that it will exist in the future, sustainable peace implies the idea that those who act today without using or threatening to use violence will continue to behave pacifically in the future. This is true in all national territories, both at the micro-community and macrosocial level. When the state is absent, armed non-state actors enforce their own rules by force which cannot be called peace. A sustainable peace implies the existence of democratic regimes at the local and national levels.
We believe that change comes essentially from citizens. For this reason, PAZSOS believes that sustainable peace is based in values, behaviors, and lifestyles that reinforce fundamental individual rights and freedoms. In other words, sustainable peace is not only the result of from-above originated processes, at the level of the State and of national institutions (democratic norms), but also from-below, through the reinforcement of a culture of peace. When all willingly reject the use of force and decide to use democratic channels to resolve differences and to defend interests, democracy finds its raison d’être and peace acquires sustainability. The ensemble of PAZSOS’s activities (participating in or organizing forums, creation and delivery of training, research development, evaluations, and others), are linked to the establishment of a culture of a sustainable peace and have the goal of democratic improvement.
Through its work on a Culture of Sustainable Peace, which favors universal access to justice and the construction of responsible and efficient institutions, PAZSOS aims to consolidate not only democratic political institutions, but also social democratic consensus in order to fight all types of violence. A world where citizens’ participation to private and public debates is based on reason and mutual respect is a world where formal democratic channels of conflict resolution do not lose legitimacy, and where individual and collective informal interactions are useful to improve quality of live for everyone.
Transverse lines of action
Collective Action for a sustainable change is neither the result of abstract studies absent of concrete applications nor of practical interventions isolated from theoretical considerations. Social change is effective when it is directed not to change progressively or revolutionarily the status quo, but when it is directed to build the bases of an alternative system where human beings are at the center. PAZSOS aims to implement ideas that offer real and efficient solutions to problems that have been over diagnosticated by providing potentially disruptive innovative thoughts and practices, while emphasizing continuity by considering pertinent past experiences. Sustainability is the result of actions aimed to guarantee that research is translated into specific public policy recommendations, cooperation programmes, and other results with real and quantifiable impact. For this reason, we include three cross-sectional priority axis in our actions: Human Rights, Gender, and Environmental Sustainability.
The Human Rights approach offers a conceptual framework to understand the causes of respect or disrespect of democratic guarantees and freedoms. Based on the UN Statement of Common Understanding on Human-Rights-Based Approaches to Development Cooperation and Programming (the Common Understanding), PAZSOS’s actions are directed to work with the most marginalized, excluded, and discriminated. We work to guarantee that our action:
- Is based on serious studies, capable to identify immediate, underlying, and deep causes of the obstacles to development.
- Details goals, targets, and measurements in close relationship with the Human Rights standards.
- Includes, through strategic partnerships, all State and non-State actors interested to attain the identified results.
- Reinforces national systems in order to promote democratic control over public management.
- Encourages the exercise of Human Rights in a tool to promote development.
- Considers individuals as major actors in their own development (and not as simple beneficiaries of products and services).
- Understand citizen participation as a means and not as an end in itself;
- Favors the empowerment of the most vulnerable as a strategy to reduce inequalities.
- Supports processes and results which are subjected to monitoring and evaluation.
Gender equality, which is the result of the elimination of all forms of discrimination based on gender (as well as on preferences or sexual orientation), is a fundamental element of the Human Rights-based approach. It is also part of the Sustainable Development Goals (objective 5). Gender must be tackled from an intersectoral perspective capable to link diverse mechanisms and structures of inequality including. those related to race, ethnicity, and social class. In other words, a gender approach most be systematically and transversally included in program conception and in specific components aimed to correct inequalities (gender mainstreaming). In the same vein, we use, and if necessary, develop, new indicators to measure the progresses on gender equality, beginning by the indicators defined by the Sustainable Development Goals.
We are in times of ecological transition, where climate change and ecosystem degradation put at risk the continuity of life as we know it. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers an ambitious action framework aimed to generate sustainable consumption and production patterns (Objective 12). The agenda also insists on the necessity to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (Objective 13), to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development (Objective 14), and to work to combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss (Objective 15). Even if, in one way or another, all goals are linked to sustainable management of natural resources, the following points should be highlighted:
- Food security (Objective 2) is attainable only through sustainable agriculture, silviculture, and durable fishing, which does not overexploit soil, oceans, and forests, and which protects biodiversity and the sources of drinking water (water is cover by objective 6).
- Clean energy must be produced at an affordable cost (objective 7). For this reason, public investments in sectors such as transport, irrigation systems, information and communication technologies should be increased (objective 9 focuses on sustainable infrastructure).
- New sources of productive and decent work linked to the green economy must be created (objective 8).
- Cities and human settlements must be inclusive, sage, resilient, and sustainable (objective 11).