PrintRecent Priority Grant Competition Awards
In 2009, the USIP Board of Directors approved the following grant awards:
Afghanistan | Iran | Iraq | Pakistan | Sudan
SEMPLE, MICHAEL and NAQIB STANEKZAI, Culture and Development Center (CDC/AJP), Kabul, Afghanistan: The Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP) holds some of the most extensive documentation of past war crimes in Afghanistan. It is vital that these materials are made accessible to authorized researchers, through the newly-established Afghanistan war crimes documentation center, and that ultimately they become a resource for the Afghan people. These documents are indispensable for governmental vetting, as well as for longer term human rights and transitional justice efforts in Afghanistan. This project seeks to update the holdings of the Afghanistan Justice Project database, filling gaps, and ensuring both quality and coverage of war crimes from all relevant periods. It will make material from the Afghanistan Justice Project database and ongoing research available to transitional justice initiatives, under appropriate safeguards, and will complete a study of a sample of mass graves which takes into account popular narratives concerning the crimes and their victims in each case in the sample. The project aims to ensure that the corpus of war crimes documentation assembled by the Afghanistan Justice Project from 2002 to 2008 is accessible to authorized researchers. It will make available primary source material to transitional justice initiatives that require such data, and provide background documentation and statements for prosecution cases and asylum hearings. (SG-172-09) $74,300
DIMAGGIO, SUZANNE, Asia Society, New York, NY: For 30 years, the U.S. and Iran have been locked in a dangerous contest of wills, with inadequate knowledge of intentions and motivations to evaluate adequately prospects for breaking the stalemate. For the U.S., engagement with Iran, including via unofficial initiatives, could serve to advance core interests including stemming the proliferation of nuclear weapons, stabilizing the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Middle East, countering terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, and addressing drug trafficking in the region. The Asia Society has launched a series of private meetings to bring together influential and knowledgeable Americans and Iranians to discuss the contentious issues that divide the two countries. In the absence of official diplomatic relations, this effort aims to establish an ongoing, informal track for dialogue that seeks to identify areas of common interest and think through possible policy options. This initiative will include four meetings in a European city, two roundtables in New York City, and a series of briefings/debriefings in Washington, D.C. This dialogue represents the first (if not only) bilateral initiative that is being carried out on a sustained basis with a new cadre of Iranian policy specialists. As such, its main objectives are to communicate what is learned from the discussions, provide analyses and recommendations to policy makers in both governments and establish both the feasibility of sustained, constructive dialogue over time and the potential for policy impact. (SG-168-09) $100,000
NELSON, C. RICHARD, Atlantic Council of the United States, Washington, DC (Project Director(s): C. Richard Nelson): Although U.S.-Iranian relations continue to be characterized by distrust and hostility, they are not expected to remain static. With upcoming political changes in Washington and potential changes in Tehran, there may be new opportunities for more productive engagement between the two countries. To pursue such opportunities, officials must first understand the complex set of sanctions, travel restrictions, commercial and military trade embargoes and other legal instruments that govern U.S. relations with Iran. This project will compile a compendium of U.S. policies, laws and regulations on Iran as well as relevant U.N. resolutions, focusing particularly attention on instruments emerging subsequent to the 9/11 attacks. In addition to the full text of the documents, the compendium will include analysis of the background, context, and purposes of the laws, regulations and policies, and suggest ways to address them should opportunities for rapprochement with Iran emerge. The initiative seeks to provide a comprehensive and practical resource and tool for understanding the legal and regulatory framework within which U.S. policy toward Iran functions. The resulting analytic compendium will be widely disseminated among a broad range of U.S. government departments and agencies, particularly those which will have responsibility for implementing future policies related to Iran, and among scholars, policy analysts and those in the private sector who address U.S.-Iranian relations. (SG-167-09) $49,000
In the Iraqi case, historical narratives stressing sectarian perspectives have become widespread, fueling inter-communal violence and inhibiting reconciliation. As a result, alternative narratives recalling periods of inter-communal tolerance have been displaced and overshadowed. Efforts are needed to reclaim these periods of Iraq's past, and to ensure that reconciliation efforts are able to draw on historical narratives that express indigenous possibilities for peace and tolerance across ethnic, regional, and sectarian lines. The project will explore ethnic diversity and a common Iraqi heritage through oral history interviews with older Iraqis. It will train 20 young Iraqi journalists from diverse backgrounds in oral history techniques. These recorded interviews will help preserve the memories of older Iraqis of a common Iraqi identity, their interactions across ethno-religious lines, and political and social life. The collected materials will be used to capture 20th century Iraqi history, and to counter the despair of 50 years of dictatorship, war, and recent inter-communal violence. The final product will serve as a resource for reconciliation and nation building efforts.
As a result of violence and sectarianism, Iraqi youth today interact less with their counterparts from other faith communities than in the past. Iraqi youth lack a basic understanding of human rights and respect for diversity that is needed to rebuild their country. Iraqi youth are untapped resource for civic advocacy, yet remain unsure of how to contribute constructively to peace building. The education system in Iraq has not been able to address the needs of students within the school curriculum. The proposed initiative will train youth in advocacy and reconciliation skills needed to support constructive forms of civic engagement. In order to equip Iraqi youth with the tools needed to effectively participate in peace building activities, the project will train up to 240 students on advocacy and mediation skills. The project will implement a total of 12 workshops targeting young men and women between the ages of 15 and 30 in five provinces. A final conference will connect young men and women throughout Iraq’s governorates to promote the culture of human rights, peacebuilding, nonviolence, and civic advocacy.
Three decades of rule under Saddam Hussein fundamentally eroded the capacity of Iraqis to engage independently in efforts to mitigate drivers of social conflict in post-Saddam Iraq, including sectarianism, poverty, corruption, and a pervasive environment of violence. These conditions push susceptible youth towards militancy and extremism. Structured alternatives are needed to demonstrate the viability of peaceful approaches to conflict resolution, tolerance, and inter-communal understanding. The project will conduct a month-long summer school program for 70 youths from three governorates. It will implement three-week training programs in each of the targeted governorates, and will target IDPs, college students, civil society activists, and young women between the ages of 16-25. Participants will be brought together for a final week long conference in one of the governorates. The conference will allow the top students from the three governates to meet and plan an ongoing network. Training topics will include peace building, conflict resolution, gender, human rights, human security, and tolerance. The training will promote the free exchange of ideas among targeted youth, provide them with constructive means of resolving conflict, and establish a common knowledge of nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution, as well as information about a culture of dialogue, human rights, and responsible citizenship.
RANA, MUHAMMAD AMIR, Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Islamabad, Pakistan: The media organs of Jihadi organizations play a critical role in propagating militant ideologies. The message of Jihad against an assortment of enemies, mainly the United States, is spread through newspapers, journals, radio stations, websites, CDs and DVDs. Yet this component of the Jihad enterprise remains a relatively unexplored phenomenon. Scores of studies on the military, political, and sociological dimension of terrorism are available but there is little research on Pakistan’s Jihadi media and its various components. This is primarily a research, publication, and networking project, which will produce a directory of the Jihadi print media and will focus on its genesis and evolution, as well as the organizations and people behind this industry. The content analysis will include monitoring of Jihadi print media and analysis of the themes, focus, and treatment of issues. The financing, outreach, and impact of the militant media will also be assessed. A report will be produced, to be followed by two seminars and a policy dialogue. The final report and recommendations will be published in book form. The main objective of this project is to document and analyze the media used by Islamic militant groups and to launch an awareness campaign by discussing the threat and impact of Jihadi print media in Pakistan. Through seminars and dialogues on the project report, it will also initiate a debate in Pakistan on the role of Jihadi media whose impact has thus far been largely ignored. (SG-171-09) $55,429
NUTT, SAMANTHA, War Child Canada, Toronto, Ontario: The marginalization of "Arab" nomadic communities is regarded as a driver of conflict in Darfur. However, humanitarian organizations have largely ignored these groups, even those that have not engaged in violence. To achieve sustainable reconciliation in Darfur, it is crucial that moderate elements in these nomadic communities be engaged in resolving conflict. An important target of these peacebuilding efforts is youth because they are vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. Nomadic youth in two communities will be trained in conflict management skills through a peacebuilding curriculum adapted from War Child's Youth-to-Youth life skills training project. Two youth committees will be formed and will receive support to implement "peace projects" in their communities. The project will culminate with a state-wide conference on youth and peacebuilding that will include both Arab and non-Arab youth, as well as high-level politicians and policymakers. The fundamental goal of the project is to build the capacity of nomadic youth to participate in restoring peace in Darfur. By the end of the project, youth will not only be trained, they will have implemented their own peace projects, and will have engaged with non-Arab youth during the final conference. The project will produce a series of profiles of Darfurian youth leaders who are implementing peace projects as well as an in-depth report of the youth conference. (SG-175-09) $111,023