Lt Gen Chander Prakash (Retd) Writes: Current approaches to peace-building are West dominated and ignore local context. New actors such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa and Turkey are emerging on the global scene as new donors. These countries generally refer to their initiatives as development and aid assistance which falls within the ambit of peace-building. They have their own innovative political and technical approaches to peace-building. The rising powers’ initiatives are demand driven, do not impinge on sovereignty and targeted to achieve long term sustainability. The international consortium comprising United Service Institution of India (USI), the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Jakarta (CSAIS), the South Africa based ACCORD, Istanbul Policy Center (IPC), the Norwegian Institute Of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Washington based American University’s School of International Service (SIS) has undertaken a project to study and analyse the philosophy, approaches and contributions of the rising powers to peace-building and their consequence on geo-politics. In this regard a workshop was held at Vesalius College Brussels on 24 Aug 16 and at The Hague Institute for Global Justice at The Hague on 25 Aug 16.
The project reflects on rising powers’ new roles in development and peace-building. However, it is to be seen if these countries will be able to sustain these new roles and there is need to “walk the talk”.