Nongovernmental Organizations

USIP's Haiti team organizes a group of top experts to produce analysis and draw attention to isues facing Haiti, and works in country on issues that include legal reform, criminal violence and conflict resolution.

Peace doesn't automatically return when the guns stop firing or an agreement is signed. This team works to advise newly-forming governments and institutions, promote and maintain community reconciliation, and help different groups on the ground to coordinate their efforts to maintain security and provide services.

Since 2004, USIP's "Iraq and its Neighbors" initiative has sponsored track II dialogues and ongoing research on relations between Iraq and its six immediate neighbors. As part of this work, the Institute—in partnership with the Stimson Center—sponsored a bipartisan, independent, and unofficial Study Mission to Syria and Saudi Arabia in mid-January 2009. The delegation met with a wide variety of leading political figures, businesspeople, NGOs and foreign policy experts in both countries, including President Bashar Assad of Syria and Prince Turki al-Faysal of Saudi Arabia. The top concern for both Riyadh and Damascus remains blowback from Iraq: the ascendance of ethnic and sectarian identity and the spread of Islamic militancy. The need to contain this threat is the dominant force that shapes their relations with Iraq. Both Syria and Saudi Arabia have a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq's emerging political order is inclusive of Sunni Arab Iraqis, who have not yet been fully incorporated into Iraqi institutions. This working paper represents the initial findings of the Study Mission.

Overall, Syria has marginally benefited from the war in Iraq at both the regional and international levels. After watching the U.S. military unseat the Baathist regime next door in 2003 with unprecedented speed, it looked to many observers—including some in Damascus—as if Syria would be next in line.

USIP's Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding hosted a full-day multimedia showcase of state-of-the-art simulation and "serious gaming" tools that promise to transform the way that peacebuilding organizations train, plan and collaborate. The "Smart Tools for Smart Power" event featured presentations from such innovators as IBM, the Army War College, EBay, Lockheed Martin, Second Life, and USIP's own Education and Training Center.  U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Beth Noveck presented the keynote address.

Public event sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Economies of the United States Institute of Peace