The Annual Conference of Centre Delàs brings together a hundred people to reflect and debate on alternatives to hegemonic security.

On November 24, Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau held its Annual Conference 2022 under the title “Another security is possible and urgent. New scenarios to build peace from the margins: the role of cities and civil society”, co-organized with the Human Rights Institute of Catalonia (IDHC) and the International Peace Bureau (IPB).

The conference took place at the Blanquerna Auditorium, Barcelona, and aimed to put on the agenda the failed response to the militarization of global and local conflicts, and the need to address new and old challenges such as violence, climate emergency or insecurity in cities, from new perspectives.

For this purpose, a first inaugural round table was set up, where the presidents of both Catalan organizations, Nora Miralles (Centre Delàs) and Montserrat Tafalla (IDHC), highlighted the need to build and organize deliberative spaces on peace and security. Next, David Llistar, Director of Global Justice and Cooperation of the Barcelona City Council; and Ovidi Octavi de la Varga Mas, advisor of International Strategic Projects of the International Relations Directorate of the Diputació de Barcelona, intervened. At the end of this first round table, Wobine Buijs-Glaudemans, mayor of the municipality of Oss (The Netherlands) and president of the International Committee of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG), also addressed the participants, stressing the importance of municipalities working seriously on alternative security proposals.

The next round table, “New scenarios for security after the war in Ukraine”, presented and led by Crític journalist Laia Soldevila, aimed to analyze the scenario that has unfolded in terms of security since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. For this, the journalist and writer Rafael Poch-de-Feliu analyzed the presence of several wars within the Ukrainian conflict; Ukrainian civil war, Russia’s war against NATO, US war against China and the role within it played by the European Union.

The round table “Building peace from the margins: the role of municipalism and civil society” explored athe local perspective when adressing peace and violence, soughting to illustrate how current approaches to security are not working and provided examples and offered alternatives that have generated significant changes.

You can watch the complete video of the conference here: