To address the complexity that will be involved in building an inclusive, multi-sector Asia-Europe strategic partnership on conflict transformation, the next Asia-Europe Roundtable will deploy a scenario-building and formulation exercise to develop different conflict scenarios and possible models of cooperation between Asia and Europe.
Participatory approaches to scenario building allows the generation of practical, creative and more sustainable conflict management strategies by evaluating the different trajectories (emergence of conflict, escalation of violence, de-escalation of violence are some examples) that any conflict may follow. Examining multiple scenarios with a diverse set of actors allows the development of conflict management (prevention and reconstruction) strategies which are realistic, credible and bottom-up in their approach.
Exploratory scenarios (intuitive logics method) have been designed to:
- Generate insight for stakeholders with regard to complex environments
- Build new or strengthen existing connections and communities based on mutual trust
- Catalyse action by identifying collaborative strategic options
The 8th AER will use the empirical knowledge and contents from the previous AERs as the foundation upon which scenarios would be built during the meeting.
OBJECTIVES
The overall objective of the 8th AER will be to enhance regional conflict transformation/management mechanisms in Asia and Europe and develop various Asia-Europe strategic partnership models. More specifically, this roundtable will also:
- Use a multi-stakeholder approach to conflict management that emphasises the long term navigation of uncertainties.
- Generate policy and strategy recommendations that are relevant for regional institutions – ARF, ASEAN, OSCE amongst others – and other organisations in this field.
- Enable targeted regional actors to operationalise the knowledge learnt and action plan generated
APPROACH/METHOD:
Using existent AER material as background reports, the scenario building workshop will be led by an external consultant and involve 15 - 20 participants from Asia and Europe. The proposed scenario building workshop will take place over three days and will work to set up a common dynamic strategy around the following strands of conflict transformation - conflict prevention and peace-building processes.
