Peace and Governance Enablers for Green Growth
Overview As a new organization, at the very early stages in its evolution, PIDF offers an enormous opportunity to do things differently. Discussion focused on peace and governance mechanisms at local, national and regional levels.
Two Themes Accountability: how to encourage/ ensure greater compliance by governments with regional undertakings; following through with the Green Growth agenda. Inclusivity: how to empower all actors and stakeholders (but especially the ‘people’) so that there is broad ownership of the Green Growth agenda
Actions and recommendations. 1. Important role of mediation; if all levels of society adopted mediation practices – were trained in mediation techniques – this would not only empower communities, but would facilitate peaceful dispute settlement; *PIDF should have a dispute resolution mechanism
Actions 2. PIDF should become the mechanism that forges unity among regional governments and thereby builds commitment to Green Growth; fosters dialogue; strengthens political will; builds trust and confidence (recalls the Pacific Way of an earlier era)
Actions. 3. Multi-stakeholder approach is what sets PIDF apart from other regional agencies/ actors. This is also its strength and can help ensure or facilitate accountability. Two important proposals in this respect:
• The ‘people’ component of the multistakeholder partnerships needs to be strengthened; • The role of resource owners needs to be recognized and PIDF needs to include their voice.
Actions 4. PIDF needs to promote a culture of ‘social dialogue’ – so people who have never had a voice before are heard; This does not come naturally so needs to be nurtured.
Actions. 5. Need to empower the head (Secretary General) of the PIDF Secretariat as a way to ensure accountability (but PIDF needs to decide what kind of organization it will be ‌)
Actions. 6. As PIDF settles on its institutional framework and governance structure, it needs to provide for periodic review to ensure it remains relevant;