In the Field

Religion is often seen as the cause of strife around the globe, but in reality, it can provide the foundation for what helps to end conflict. USIP’s work, from Indonesia to Pakistan, demonstrates that religion can play a positive role in managing conflict. USIP’s David Smock, senior vice president for the Centers of Innovation, explores the issue in this brief question-and-answer.

Notes from the field from Virginia M. Bouvier's recent trip to Bogota, Colombia on International Women’s Day.

Colombia is second only to Sudan in the number of people internally displaced by armed conflict and criminal violence.  USIP’s Education and Training Center/International and the Fundacion Ideas Para La Paz, a Colombian think tank, recently partnered to present two training workshops on Gender and Reintegration, Reconciliation and Reparations. 

In September, Program Officer Jonathan Morgenstein, Program Assistant William Owens, and their interpreter Iciar Gomez conducted a two and a half week assessment of Colombia’s reintegration process for recently demobilized paramilitaries. The team traveled to Bogota and Medellin as well as to the northern department of Cordoba, interviewing over one hundred demobilized ex-AUC combatants as well as scores of government officials, NGO representatives, Catholic and Protestant church leaders, and civil society workers. 

The Religion and Peacemaking program at USIP visited Colombia in November 2008 to support a joint-initiative of the Conferencia de Religiosos y Religiosas de Colombia, the organizing body of Catholic men’s and women’s religious orders, and Justapaz, a Menonite organization, to convene a four-day workshop outside of Bogota for Catholic and Protestant women peacemakers. This workshop provided an opportunity for women doing peace work on the ground through their churches to share best practices, network, and conceive future joint-initiatives.