After many months of quiet effort, three years ago ministry for peace secured enough support in Parliament to set up an official All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues. The purpose of the APPGCI formally stated in the Parliamentary Register, is 'To encourage dialogue, on the basis of expert information and opinion from across the political spectrum, on issues relating to conflict; especially on the practical means to prevent, transform and resolve violent conflict.'

Establishing this group, a major step forward for ministry for peace, generated a lot of interest across government and amongst those who work in the field of conflict management. The APPG provides a forum where Parliamentarians, government officials, NGOs, academics and others come together on a regular basis to share ideas and thoughts about the challenges of non-violent approaches to managing conflict.

To follow the activities of the APPG please go to: http://www.conflictissues.org.uk/ .  The APPGCI's most recent project was to act as the Secretariat for the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention and Human Security. This was launched in the UK Parliament on Thursday 26th March. The Parliamentarians Network is an international, non-partisan initiative of the EastWest Institute that brings together parliamentarians from across the globe to direct political will and resources to prevent conflicts before they begin. The UK launch was hosted at Westminster by the APPG on Conflict Issues.

In order to give as much time and energy as possible to the APPGCI, and, more recently to the launch of the Parliamentarians Network, we did not hold any ministry for peace meetings open to the public from summer 2008 until our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 29th April, 2009.  The report is elsewhere on this website.

The Parliamentarians who agreed to support the APPGCI group formally are listed below. We are very grateful to them, as well as the many others who expressed their support informally.