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Dear colleagues, partners, and allies,

First of all, I would like to wish you a happy and peaceful 2021!

Now that 2021 has started, we can finally put all of our hard work over the past year into practice. We look forward to the next 5 years, implementing the ambitious programme that we’ve conceived together.

This first newsletter offers an overview of the programme, information about activities in the coming weeks, and key practical information and content that you can use to announce the launch of Just Future.

I look forward to working with you on this important and challenging programme.

On behalf of the International Secretariat, warm regards,

Mirjam Andriessen - Consortium Coordinator

What’s it all about?

Just Future is the name of a new alliance, formed in response to the challenges of a fragile world. Consisting of 6 established CSOs and networks, from the Global North and South, our work will strengthen the capacity of CSOs and enable their collective action to bring about more inclusive and peaceful societies.

Just Future’s vision is of a world in which all people in fragile states benefit from more accessible, responsive and accountable security and justice institutions, and more inclusive arrangements for political governance and peace-making.

Just Future will work in solidarity with CSOs in each country—especially those representing women, young people, displaced people, and identity-based groups—enabling them to represent the voices of the most excluded at the local, national, regional, and global levels.

Just Future’s vision will be delivered through achievement of three inter-related outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Security providers are more responsive and accountable, and take action enabling the most excluded constituencies to enjoy safety, protection, and enforcement of the law

• Outcome 2: Justice providers are more responsive and accountable, and take action enabling the most excluded constituencies to defend and enforce their rights, redress grievances and resolve disputes

• Outcome 3: The most excluded constituencies influence policymakers in a context of adequate civic space and respect for human rights, leading to more inclusive political decision-making and peace processes

Where is Just Future active?

The programme will be implemented across 6 countries: Afghanistan, Burundi, DRC, Mali, Niger and South Sudan, and at the regional and global level.

How will Just Future intervene?

• Lobbying and advocacy toward state security and justice institutions (police, judiciaries, customary authorities), elected officials at local and national levels, and regional and international organizations like the African Union, EU and UN, based on research and evidence

• Civil society Capacity strengthening, based on a shared learning agenda, enabling all Alliance members and country-level CSO partners to benefit from knowledge-sharing, peer mentoring, and tailored training—especially through fragile-fragile linkages

The Just Future Alliance

Just Future will be implemented by an Alliance of partner organizations. The Just Future Consortium consists of:

• African Security Sector Network (ASSN):

The African Security Sector Network (ASSN) is a pan-African network of experts and organizations working in the area of Security Sector Reform (SSR). Founded in 2003, the network is headquartered in Accra, Ghana, with regional hubs in Addis Ababa, Johannesburg and Nairobi.

• Women’s International Peace Centre (WIPC):

Women’s International Peace Centre (The Centre), formerly Isis-Women’s International Cross-Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE), is a feminist organization with a mission to ignite women’s leadership, amplify their voices and deepen their activism in re-creating peace.

• West Africa Network for Peacebuilding:

The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a leading Regional Peacebuilding organization founded in 1998 in response to civil wars that plagued West Africa in the 1990s. Over the years, WANEP has succeeded in establishing strong national networks in every Member State of ECOWAS with over 500 member organizations across West Africa.

• The Liaison Office Afghanistan (TLO):

Founded in 2003, The Liaison Office (TLO) is an Afghan non-governmental organization (NGO) that emerged from a Swiss peace pilot project on good governance after the organization was approached by South Eastern province community elders requesting assistance for participation in the peace and reconstruction process. TLO has since evolved into an independent Afghan NGO conducting research and analysis across Afghanistan.

• Search for Common Ground:

Founded in 1982, Search for Common Ground works to transform the way the world deals with conflict - away from adversarial approaches and towards collaborative problem solving.

Search works with local partners to find culturally appropriate means to strengthen societies'​ capacity to deal with conflicts constructively: to understand the differences and act on the commonalities. Search’s mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict: away from adversarial approaches, toward cooperative solutions.

• Cordaid:

Cordaid is an internationally operating emergency relief and development organisation. Cordaid believes in a world where people can break through barriers of poverty and exclusion, influence decisions that affect them, and participate in equitable and resilient societies.

Cordaid operates in fragile settings, where citizens have no access to even basic services, because of poverty, armed conflict or power imbalances. Cordaid supports local communities and their endeavours to improve healthcare, food security, education, security and justice. Where disasters strike, Cordaid offers humanitarian assistance.

Next to the Consortium, the Alliance consists of 3 research partners:

• Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):

SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. Based in Stockholm, SIPRI is regularly ranked among the most respected think tanks worldwide.

• Rift Valley Institute (RVI):

The Rift Valley Institute (RVI) is an independent, non-profit organization, founded in Sudan in 2001, currently working in eastern and central Africa. The aim of the Institute is to advance useful knowledge of the region and its diverse communities, bringing a better understanding of local realities to bear on social and political action. The RVI works with institutions in the region to develop and implement long-term programmes that combine action-oriented research with education and public information.

• Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden University (VVI):

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI) is part of the Leiden Law School. The VVI seeks to develop and disseminate socio-legal knowledge and theory regarding the interaction between law, governance and society. More specifically, the Institute studies the emergence, functioning, and evolution of legal institutions. The VVI combines a top-down with a bottom-up approach; it considers perspectives of both state agents, citizens and other non-state actors.

Finally, the Alliance also comprises our network partner:

• Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS):

The Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS) is a member-led international network composed of civil society actors, practitioners, experts and academics from the Global South and Global North who work together on conflict and crisis prevention, peacebuilding and statebuilding in over 27 fragile and conflict-affected countries (FCAS).

What will happen in the next few weeks?

In the coming weeks, we will:

• Finalize activity plans

• Sign contracts between Cordaid (as lead organization) and partners

• Plan kick off meetings at global and country levels

• Establish the International and National Steering Committees, as well as the International Secretariat and National Secretariats

• Set up the Communities of Practice

• Launch the Just Future website

• Invite you to contribute information and content for the next (external) newsletter

• and much more.

The International Secretariat will contact all Alliance partners and national coordinators for further planning.

Help us get the word out

We’d like to get started promoting the programme and the Alliance. To do so, we’ve made some communications materials available, including the logo, report template and PowerPoint template. You can find them by pressing the button below:

We’d like to ask you to share your commitment to Just Future by promoting it on your social media. To do so, we’ve created template social media posts for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that you can access using the button below.

Make sure to tag @Just__Future on Twitter!