The GPPAC process in Latin America and the Caribbean is coordinated by Regional Secretariat the Regional Coordination for Economic and Social Research (CRIES). For more information on GPPAC in the region, contact:

Andres Serbin

c/o Coordinadora Regional de Investigacions Económicas y Sociales (CRIES)
Lavalle 1619 9°A
1048- Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Argentina
TEL./Fax: +54 11 4372 8351

You can also visit the GPPAC section of the CRIES website at http://www.cries.org/3.5_conflictos.php to read about the GPPAC process in Latin America and the Caribbean in detail. (website in Spanish)

• Buenos Aires, 3 April 2008: High Level Panel on Conflict Prevention in Latin America and the Caribbean

Comparatively speaking, the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is one of the lesser prone regions to develop inter-state conflict. However, recent prospective research shows a trend and an eventual increase in the next few years of intra-state and transnational conflicts in the region. These need to be urgently addressed by civil society organisations and networks.

Within this framework, the regional programme The Role of Civil Society in the Prevention of Armed Conflict in Latin America and the Caribbean aims to address issues related to peacebuilding and conflict prevention, through a wide regional processes of networking, consultation and research. This work is founded upon and intricately linked to the strong involvement and participation of civil society organisations and networks, in coordination with similar initiatives from other regions. The regional process of Latin America and the Caribbean has a general objective: to promote a culture of peace in the region that includes effective strategies of conflict prevention and peacebuilding based on active participation of civil society networks and organisations.

The Regional Secretariat for the Global Partnership in Latin America and the Caribbean is the Regional Coordination for Economic and Social Research (CRIES). This is a twenty-year old LAC network with long-standing experience and a solid reputation in participative research with civil society organisations and networks and also has experience in dialogue and joint action with inter-governmental and governmental organisations. To ensure civil society involvement and support for the LAC regional process and its monitoring, a Regional Steering Group and an Advisory Board were established on the basis of grassroots, local, national and regional nominations, in coordination with the International Steering Group.

Following the beginning of the region's involvement in the GPPAC process in 2003, a number of regional meetings were held in 2004 and 2005, which led to the drafting of the Regional Action Agenda (in Spanish) and provided input for the Global Action Agenda.

Following four years of active involvement in subregional, regional and global research activities, networking and consultations, and a vast production of inputs, civil society organizations (CSOs) of Latin America and the Caribbean have developed a Regional Action Plan 2007 - 2011 containing all the key aspects that were identified with regards to what actions should to be taken both at local and regional levels, and at regional levels towards the global level, to prevent the outbreak of potential armed conflict, to gradually modify the root causes that give rise to structural violence and threaten the institutional stability and governance of the States of the region, and to advance peace building, understood as a public good for all societies.

The Action Plan also includes several recommendations on how to translate these aspirations into reality. The first of them consists in the urgent need to build an early warning monitoring center. The second initiative specifically concerns the consolidation of a permanent network of CSOs, ultimately aimed at producing a paradigm change from reaction to prevention of armed and/or violent conflict and towards the development of a peace culture.

Some other work dimensions were identified as priorities for the

work of the LAC Platform:

1. Networking and strategic alliances
2. Awareness and dissemination
3. Research and knowledge production
4. Advocacy
5. Training / Capacity Building / Education for Peace
6. Early Alert and Response Mechanism.