The FPC is working again with the SEPAD (Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation) project at the Richardson Institute for Peace at Lancaster University on a series of virtual public seminars focused on peacebuilding in Lebanon, Bosnia, Syria and Yemen. The project will address each country situation individually but it will seek to learn from the experiences of Lebanon and Bosnia (both the successes and ongoing/growing problems) in terms of power sharing and how this might guide our thinking around solutions to the intractable conflicts in Yemen and Syria. For each panel we will be bringing together a mix of academic experts from the SEPAD project with politicians and potentially international officials or NGO experts.

This first seminar in the series seeks to examine the complex relationship between peace building, power sharing and sectarian identities in Lebanon. It hopes to interrogate the ways in which the conflict in Lebanon was ended through the implementation of power sharing agreements and the long term implications of those agreements for peace and prosperity. It will examine the interplay between those arrangements and the current areas of political tension and state dysfunction in the country. It will also look at the real challenges of improving public trust and reforming institutions in ways that enhance and protect peacebuilding in Lebanon.

Listen to an audio recording of the event below and you can watch the video of the event here.