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Briefing From Berlin: Conference on Environment, Development, and Conflict Prevention

APRIL 2007—European Community Looks to Integrate Policies

Key officials from European Union (EU) member states, the European Commission, civil society, the private sector, and the scientific community came together at a conference in Berlin on March 29-30 to discuss new perspectives and approaches to environmental and development policymaking. The conference—"Integrating Environment, Development, and Conflict Prevention"—was hosted by the German EU Council Presidency, and sought to identify the key issues and best practices for addressing interdependencies among environment, development, and conflict prevention in policies and programs.

The recently released conference report provides an overview of the sessions, which focused on multi-faceted topics including climate change, energy, and security; environmental peacemaking; and conflict resolution and extractive industries, among others. The report includes a list of recommendations resulting from each session, as well as biographies of panelists, and a list of participants. Along with the report, presentations from the sessions are available from Adelphi Research.

The conference was a learning experience for ECSP's Gib Clarke, who saw marked differences between American and European approaches to environmental security: "To an American ‘outsider' like me, [the] conference in Berlin…reflected the stark contrast between our policies and those of the EU." Read more of his commentary at ECSP's blog, The New Security Beat.

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