On September 26th, GPPAC organised a round-table aiming to identify (best) practices on both a strategic and operational level in civil-military synergies / cooperation that are relevant for the EU, including examples from other actors such as the UN. Specific countries of interest are Mali, Ukraine, Georgia and Yemen.

To review and critically reflect on "best practices and lessons learned" will be a relevant part of the agenda. It seems that good practices often remain ad hoc, under specific circumstances, which can fall under civil-military cooperation, but do not perhaps provide evidence of synergy taking place, or institutionalized forms of this. In our quest for answers, we invite practitioners and experts on this to provide feedback on our questions and input as to what evidence there is of relevant practices that may be taken beyond ad hoc initiatives.

The discussion will also include the notion of civil-military synergies, which needs to be unpacked in order to be meaningful, especially in the context of the EU's "integrated" or "comprehensive" approach.

 The outcomes of the round table will feed into a report on the topic of civil-military synergies which will be delivered to the European Commission, to be published in December 2016, in the context of the WOSCAP project.

 

The guiding questions of the round table will be:

1.      Concept: What (outcomes) do civil and/or military actors refer to as ‘synergy'? Does the word 'synergy' exist in their standard vocabularies especially at operational level?

2.      Practice: What do civil and/or military actors regard as concrete examples where synergy has taken place; and (if there is any) what are the underlying factors in each of those situations that they think made 'civil-military synergy' possible?

3.      What lessons or opportunities are relevant in your view for the EU to enhance its capabilities, either civilian or military, in the field of peacebuilding and conflict prevention?