In February 2003 the Centre for Peace Studies arranged a conference on Peace, Development and Reconciliation in North-Eastern Sri Lanka. The conference was initiated by Mr K. Sivarajah, leader of the North East Development Fund in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Centre for Peace Studies. Invited guests from Sri Lanka included Dr. Augustine Soosai from the University of Jaffna and Mr K. Godage from the Peace Secretariat at the Prime Minister's Office. However, on this occasion Mr. Godage was presenting his own views, and not those of the Sri Lankan government.

Also present as speakers were PhD student Camilla Orjuela from PADRIGU (Department of Peace and Development Research at Göteborg University in Sweden) and Jens Revold from the Norwegian College of Fishery Science. Orjuela emphasized the role of civil society in the peace process and Revold elaborated on the role of Norwegian universities in assisting universities in Sri Lanka in development. We were fortunate to be joined by Geir Sjøberg from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who gave a speech about Norwegian experiences with peace processes in general. All the contributions from the conference were collected in a report published in our series of working paper.