Local Ownership in Asian Peacebuilding by SungYong Lee

Author:SungYong Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783319986111
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Coalition Building

In Mindanao, a strong coalition network is utilised as a platform on which local peacebuilders can mitigate external influence. Since civilian peacebuilding activities were actively promoted in the 1990s, a significant number of coalition and informal networks were formed to foster a holistic approach to peacebuilding and facilitate mutual support between the agencies. Some aimed at more practical objectives of information sharing, skill development on planning and organising civil movements, and expanding the scope of activities through collective action while others intended to develop more ‘solidarity’ for sharing the visions for peace and coordinating collective actions (Coronel-Ferrer 2002). A few examples include the Mindanao Caucus of Development NGOs Network (MINCODE), Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society , Mindanao Peace Advocates’ Conference, and Mindanao People’s Caucus .

Advocacy organisations such as Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) Kusog Mindanaw (Mindanao Force), and Mindanao People’s Peace Movement (MPPM) have paid attention to developing such networks (Rood 2005). For example, IID is a Davao-based advocacy organisation for which the primary areas of work are human rights , democratic governance, and the peace process between the GPH and the Mindanao resistance groups. While IID ’s key activities consist of three types of activities—legislative lobbying for legalising Bangsamoro’s self-determination , collective campaigns like public demonstrations regarding human rights issues, and advocacy and coordination of the civil society actors within and outside Mindanao, this organisation is particularly well-known for its support of various networks and coalitions of peacebuilding agencies at local, regional and global levels.

IID ’s solidarity initially focused more on building international network between the civil societies in the global South. Resisting the power dominance of the global North, IID aimed to gather and consolidate voices from the global South. At regional levels, for instance, IID established and supported the Asia-Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET), the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC), and the Alternative ASEAN Network for Burma (ALTSEAN-Burma). At a global level, IID took a lead in organising the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and the World Forum for Democratization in Asia (WFDA), and the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect (ICRtoP).

IID ’s promotion of the solidarity between the civil society actors in Mindanao started in the late 1990s. These Mindanao-based networks mostly aimed to coordinate collective actions of grassroots organisations vis-à-vis the ongoing peace processes between the Mindanao resistance groups and the GPH. For instance, IID formed Mindanao Peoples Caucus (MPC) in 2001 in order to encourage and support the grassroots actors representing three different religious /cultural groups (tri-peoples) to engage more in the ongoing peace processes. In addition to lobbying on the peace negotiations, MPC supported the creation of Bantay Ceasefirea, a civilian ceasefire monitoring mechanism. Moreover, IID became a founding member of the Mindanao Peace Weavers (MPW) , a broad umbrella network that supports other networks and coalitions of grassroots actors. MPW ’s decisions are consensus-based and IID facilitate a wide range of contacts and discussions behind the scenes when MPW conduct collective actions (Fig. 4.2).

Fig. 4.2The structure

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