April 25, 2007

Announcements

Project Ploughshares supporter honoured

Grace Kaattari, a long-time Ploughshares supporter and one of the
founders and leaders of the local Ploughshares group, which was
active for many years in Sudbury, has received a YWCA Sudbury
Women of Distinction Award. Our congratulations to Grace who
continues her social activism with the local Committee for Social
Justice.

Staff transitions

Emily Schroeder joined Project Ploughshares on 2 April 2007 as
Program Associate with particular responsibilities for small arms and
peacebuilding programs. Emily will be in Juba, Sudan on 9-10 May 2007
for a roundtable organized by Project Ploughshares and Africa Peace
Forum (APFO) as part of the joint project, “Building the Capacity for
Sustainable Peace: Track II Diplomacy in the Sudan.”

Program updates

Small arms

Executive Director John Siebert participated in a 18-22 February 2007
Djibouti roundtable organized by APFO on building a peace and security
architecture for the Horn of Africa. Participants included representatives
from 5 of 6 member countries of the Inter-Governmental Authority on
Development (IGAD) as well as staff from the IGAD Peace and Security
unit, the African Union, the East Africa Community, and the Common
Market for East Africa.

Delegates outside IGAD headquarters in Djibouti	Amb. Ochieng Adala (left), APFO, with fellow participants

John and Senior Program Associate Ken Epps were in Ottawa on
27-28 February 2007 for two events. The first event was the 27 February
dialogue organized by Project Ploughshares as coordinator of the Small
Arms Working Group of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating
Committee. The dialogue explored the connection between development
programming and the reduction of armed violence, with speakers from
the United Nations Development Program, CIDA, Viva Rio (Brazil), Centre
d’Étude et de Coopération Internationale, and CANADEM. The second
event was the 28 February final workshop of the joint CIDA-Ploughshares
project to provide guidance for CIDA on integrating small arms control
into Canada’s development programming. A briefing paper prepared by
Ken, “Towards Safe and Sustainable Communities: addressing armed
violence as a development priority”, was discussed at the workshop and
will be published as a Ploughshares Working Paper.

Ken made a presentation on “Common Arms Transfer Standards:
Regional Progress” at a roundtable in Montebello, Quebec, 26-27
March 2007. Hosted by Canada and the Helsinki Process on Globalisation
and Democracy, a joint project of Finland and Tanzania, this event drew
together representatives from other governments to consider current
multilateral small arms agreements as well as NGO proposals for an arms
trade treaty.

Space security

John Siebert and Program Associate Jessica West, along with 40
international space experts convened in Montreal on 15-16 March 2007 to
review the draft text of Space Security 2007, an annual assessment of
space security, to be published in June 2007 by Project Ploughshares and
partner organizations of the Space Security Index (SSI) project. On 14
March 2007 John and Jessica also participated in the Canadian
consultations on a “Code of Conduct for Responsible Space Faring
Nations” held in Montreal. Jessica presented trends emerging from recent
research at a conference hosted by the United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research in Geneva on 1-2 April 2007.

Participants at the 15-16 March 2007 Space Security Index meeting in Montreal

Nuclear disarmament

Senior Policy Advisor Ernie Regehr presented a paper, “India and the
Disarmament Obligations of Nuclear Weapon States,” to the 19-20 March
2007 roundtable, “Canadian Policy on Nuclear Cooperation with India:
Confronting New Dilemmas.” The event was held in Ottawa and hosted
by the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research,
University of British Columbia and the Canadian Centre for Treaty
Compliance, Carleton University.

Jessica West represented Project Ploughshares at the 16-17 April 2007
meeting in Ottawa of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Participants attended the 17 April 2007 speech on nuclear disarmament
by Senator Roméo Dallaire in the Senate of Canada.

Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

In mid-March Ernie Regehr participated in an international conference
on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) at the University of California,
Berkeley. Ernie was part of an interfaith working group on R2P,
representing the work of the World Council of Churches Commission
on International Affairs on the issue.

Building Peace

Ernie Regehr was in New York in early March in a joint project with the
World Federalists of Canada to interview officials, delegations, and
NGOs linked to the new UN Peacebuilding Commission in preparation
for a paper on mechanisms for NGO involvement in the work of the
Commission.

On March 16, 2007, Ernie gave a keynote address, “What Happened to
the Human in Security?” to the 2007 Dalhousie University Graduate
Student Symposium on the theme, "From Defence to Development:
Resolving Threats to Global Security".

Youth event

Program Associate Grant Birks led a group of senior high school students
through a workshop titled “Underdevelopment and War” at a Global
Youth Forum on 29 March 2007 in Waterloo, hosted by the Centre for
International Governance Innovation and the YMCA.

Publications Now Online

Myth-making, peace-making, and sacrifice in Afghanistan
Ernie Regehr, 16 April 2007

The Spring 2007 edition of The Ploughshares Monitor is now online.

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