At the time Parliament launched this inquiry, conflict was increasing globally, and in Australia’s region. Now, merely months later, conflicts – violent, economic, and coercive - have broken out in the Middle East and beyond at a scale not seen for decades.
This means Australia has a new operating environment, one in which conflict is more possible than it was, and where mitigating risks of conflict will be a core feature of Australian foreign affairs and development cooperation for the foreseeable future.
This makes adjusting Australia's approach on conflict prevention necessary, even within constrained budgets. The Australian Government has set out conflict prevention as a clear priority and has already stepped up efforts. But in the current context, it is likely that doing more is essential to Australia's interests and for the region.
In the Lab's view, the central issue is not necessarily an absence of conflict prevention activity. It is the absence of a defined, practical, active and operationalised system to ensure consistent and high impact conflict prevention through all elements of statecraft, including the development program.
This supplementary submission sets out practical, immediately actionable options for strengthening Australia's conflict prevention, including through the development program – focused on six priorities for action:
1. A whole-of-government conflict prevention model
2. Ministerial and parliamentary oversight mechanisms with a ministerial statement, a report to government and in-camera parliamentary briefings
3. A central function to prioritise and integrate action
4. A targeted Peace and Resilience Fund
5. Four country pilots in priority contexts
6. A resilience monitoring system
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