Principles

Civil Society Conflict Prevention Network KATU is an open forum for conflict prevention. It brings together capacities of different non-governmental organizations and creates new ones.

KATU participates in the public dialogue wanting to introduce a broader concept of security that prioritises the non-military aspects of security.

The purpose of KATU is to:

• compile and provide information on conflict prevention and civilian crisis management;
• organise conflict prevention and civilian crisis management training;
• increase general expertise on conflict prevention issues;
• give recommendations for action to the sectors of the society and political actors that work or could work for the prevention of conflicts; and
• carry out concrete conflict prevention projects.

The nature of violent conflicts has changed. Instead of inter-state conflicts, internal conflicts have proliferated. Often, the whole civil society is involved in these conflicts. The real threats to security are included in the broader concept of Human Security. Human security consists of various dimensions: economic, political, social and personal as well as environmental security.

Therefore, NGOs have an important role to play in conflict resolution and, above all, in conflict prevention. Civilian crisis management complements the existing crisis management systems. The civil society and NGOs have various possibilities to work for the prevention of conflicts. They include developing democracy and rule of law, capacity building of civil society, supporting human development, supporting free media and communication, human rights work, mediation and election observation. NGOs can prevent violent conflicts by taking into account these aspects in development cooperation and humanitarian aid as well as in regional and neighbourhood cooperation. The proactivity of the civil society is needed and NGOs' contribution to conflict prevention, together with the state actions, is a necessity.

In future, NGOs should be considered important actors in the field of conflict prevention and crisis management, and states should make them able to participate both planning and implementation of conflict prevention and crisis management activities.