A new online "Peacebuilding Portal on Sierra Leone" was launched on 18 July 2007 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It was established as an independent project by the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, in cooperation with a non-profit organization, HPCR International, to assist practitioners and policymakers in elaborating peacebuilding strategies.

The idea behind the portal was to use the power of new information technologies to support a better informal debate and provide a basis for decision-making, according to Peter Maurer, the event host and Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations. He cautioned, however, that information technology cannot replace political decision-making or solve problems in conflict countries. The pilot portal will facilitate access to documents and be a forum for providing information to the general public, said Kenzo Oshima, Permanent Representative of Japan and Chairman of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. It will also be a very valuable source of information about the work of the Commission and enhance its public advocacy role, he added.

Carolyn Mcaskie, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, who has been watching the "mushrooming of peacebuilding activities all over the world" and the new peacebuilding architecture in the United Nations, said that the Sierra Leone Portal, as the first of its kind, was designed to further garner attention to selected priority areas of work in the country. "It is an important initiative for establishing sustainable peace and will help us understand the conflict and conflict evaluation in countries like Sierra Leone and hopefully facilitate a two-way, if not multidimensional, dialogue", she added.

Claude Bruderlein, Director of the HPCR Program at Harvard University, explained that initially their mission was to identify strategic and operational dilemmas in the field of humanitarian policy and the work of international organizations, including governmental and non-governmental actors. The premise was that all actors and agenda involved in peacebuilding provide an overwhelming amount of information, especially online, in order to establish a coherent and responsive information management system to harness relevant knowledge and experience in peacebuilding for informed policy response, he said. After the first steps, researchers from HPCR tried to establish boundaries on useful information available on peacebuilding, determine the perspectives of both national and international actors, identify gaps of knowledge and stimulate conversation between protagonists.

Mr. Bruderlein highlighted the four priority areas targeted by the Sierra Leone pilot portal, which were determined by the UN Peacebuilding Commission: security and public order, justice and reconciliation, economic and social well-being, and governance and participation. The users' reaction has been good; many said "it is an invaluable resource, an opportunity to share information about peacebuilding and that it was a good tool for university courses", he added. Gaspar Martins, Permanent Representative of Angola, mentioned the latest Commission report, saying that it had asked for the development of new tools, outreach programmes and the implementation of coherent strategies in peacebuilding. Switzerland's assistance in establishing the portal is an important step in supporting Sierra Leone on its road to peace, he noted.

Lungi, Sierra Leone UN photo/ Eric Kanalstein

Sylvester Rowe, Deputy Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone, sees the portal as a symbol of international cooperation for countries like his and others in conflict. He outlined the term "guinea pig syndrome", referring to Sierra Leone's role as a symbol for the capacity of the United Nations and the international community in peacebuilding efforts. International cooperation is a coherent approach for new initiatives in peacebuilding and sustainable development, Mr. Rowe continued, adding that he hoped other countries might learn from what would emerge from the pilot portal for Sierra Leone.

In response to the question whether the portal would be expanded to include other countries in the future, Ms. Mcaskie said that the UN Secretariat could not pre-empt the Peacebuilding Commission's decision regarding the choice of the countries to be selected. There may be the possibility of establishing several portals for conflict countries to be "ready for launching" immediately after the Commission's decision.