A peace movement, obviously, is a group of persons that seeks to discern concrete problems confronting its society and which they can resolve in a nonviolent way. This myriad of problems differs from country to country and linked to culture, population, urban or rural environment and that is why it is necessary to study nonviolence, its philosophy and religious dimension for the purpose of training on the strategy and tactics of solving them.

The need for civil societies to develop skills on peace education, promote vigorous peace initiatives, fact-finding, mediation, conflict prevention and resolution cannot be overemphasized and this is the crux of our existence over the years. It is equally necessary for an appropriate mechanism for conflict prevention particularly through traditional methods to be put in place.

Pan-African Reconciliation Centre aims at developing a comparative curriculum to encourage a preventive policy that takes into account socio-political, economic, cultural and technological issues. By this process, we aim at mobilizing all available human and material resources for ensuring a purposeful peaceful corporate existence and pressurize our governments so that, among other things, they will be tended to reduce arms and defense expenditure, re-allocate financial resources to science and technology as well as education in general.

From Abidjan to Zinder and Lagos to St Louis, nobody wants to touch violence with a ten-meter pole. Apparently conflicts, if not instigated by the outside influences often arise out of ignorance, impatience, intolerance and greed. People should be mindful of the fact no matter how long and bloody a conflict may be, it will have to end one day and they must still come to the roundtable to iron out their differences.

Anyone who observes the mind shattering and gory pictures of genocide and ethnic cleansing in many of our countries in the news media would always wonder whether the helpless victims were God created beings. The imaginable irony of it all is that the weapons of destructions used for these senseless killings are not manufactured in Africa but imported from the west despite the United Nations arms embargo in most cases.

To counter this ugly situation, the United Nations and other regional bodies are urged to do everything possible to discourage the manufacture of arms of any description but also ensure that these weapons do not find their way into any African country. Furthermore, there must be a strong determination and willful persistence to heavily penalize any individual, corporate body and country that violates arms transfer laws.

Apparently, the fate of the people lies in their own hands and so our keen expectation from the international community is to help us pool the available resources for feeding our teeming millions and not bombs and bullets to kill our offspring. Let us do everything humanly possible to ensure that peace reign supreme in our lands so that we may hand over a banner without stain to the coming generation.

In playing the ombudsman role, our focus is that of an information clearing. This is also by linking resources, promoting and encouraging capacity building through various enlightenment programs, materials, bulletins, brochures, books and video shows.

In addition to conferences, seminars, workshops, symposia and colloquia, peace essay competition will be organized for primary and secondary schools pupils in the region on controversial issues that border on conflict resolution, human rights, social justice, peace-building etc...Prizes ranging from cash, books and souvenirs will be awarded to the first three best adjudged entries. This, no doubt, will go a long way in fostering the ideals of the UN Culture of Peace.

In many international fora, peace has been identified as a prerequisite for development and for it to be attained, conflicting parties must be reconciled and not polarized. Peace should not just be regarded as an absence of war, violence and hostilities whereby everybody has equal access to economic, social justice, enjoyment of human rights and basic freedom.

We shall continue to foster training and empowerment in peace and nonviolence education for groups through the appropriate local and foreign institutions and enable them face the existing and future challenges. Main focus will be on civil courage, conflict intervention, mediation and negotiation, listening and reconciliation. It is hoped that that national and international organizations and friends of Africa in the global community will readily support our efforts in this lofty direction.