Civil society groups lobby for participation in regional conference

A regional network of civil society organisations involved in peace building is lobbying for participation in an international conference on the Great Lakes region scheduled to be held in November, a lobbyist told IRIN on Thursday. The man spearheading the effort, Mwesiga Baregu, is a professor of political science at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He said the Great Lakes Peace and Security Network was seeking to participate at the conference independently "and by way of a parallel process". The office of the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to the Great Lakes Region and the African Union (AU) are facilitating the process for the holding of the first summit of the Great Lakes conference in Dar es Salaam. Baregu said representatives of civil society groups from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia were due to meet in Dar es Salaam in June to consolidate their concerns and chart what they would like to see discussed at the UN-AU conference. "Fifty organisations have been contacted and have already joined forces in the network's preparatory process," he added. Baregu said the civil society network would also be lobbying to have its members engaged more directly by their governments in peace building efforts in the region. "Throughout the conference, issues such as community security, cross-border conflict, insecurity, human rights violations, good governance and sustainable peace building, internally displaced persons and refugee crises, should be addressed," he said. The UN-AU international conference on the Great Lakes aims to bring together regional leaders to establish a framework for the adoption and implementation of a stability, security and development pact.