PeaceWatch

The United States Institute of Peace has opened the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. 

 

The goals of the Academy are to 

The Academy’s curriculum encompasses core courses on conflict prevention, management and resolution, as well as skill-based and sectoral courses. The courses are designed to complement existing academic and professional programs in international security, conflict management and peacebuilding. Through the Academy, participants from diverse backgrounds including the military, international organizations, the non-profit sector, international development agencies, and educational institutions have an opportunity to participate in a common learning experience on the critical issues and tasks that they will face in conflict zones.

 

Over the last 20 years, the global security environment has moved from the relative stability of the Cold War era to a more chaotic environment characterized by conflicts based not only on political ideology but also on ethnic, religious and cultural identity. Many of today’s threats and national security challenges do not come from other powerful states. They come from weak ones, failing ones, troubled friendsand complicated partners. They come from war-torn regions and virtual communities. They come from nonstate actors. Above all, they often come from conflict zones, places of bad governance, weak institutions, deep-seated communal cleavages and the types of social environments that drive young men into criminal businesses, piracy, illegal networks and terrorism. “These courses fill a major gap in the availability of training opportunities for a range of U.S. and non-American professionals from the official and nongovernmental communities interested in best practices related to the management and resolution of violent conflict,” says Chester A. Crocker, chairman of the Academy’s Advisory Council and former assistant secretary of state for African Affairs. “Setting up a range of coursework for participants physically present in Washington or via distance learning, the Academy will cover the conflict management waterfront from analysis to facilitation and from prevention to post-conflict peacebuilding.”

 

 

“Working in this environment, we have learned that the conflict manager’s toolkit must include many things—negotiation, institution building, capacity building, the development and transmission of norms, the arts of reconciliation and communication across divided societies,” says Pamela Aall, vice president for Domestic Programs, Education and Training Center. Unlike the Cold War period, these political tools are widely diffused and distributed throughout our society and the international community in NGOs and regional organizations as well as the U.S. and the UN. These evolving challenges require improved preparation for international professionals working in such environments. 

 

Around the world, intractable conflicts continue to resist peacemaking efforts of the UN, the U.S. and others. In the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians have struggled for years to reach a negotiated settlement with only modest results. In parts of Eurasia, secessionist struggles, power struggles, border disputes and guerrilla insurgencies ebb and flow but show few signs of receding entirely. The conflicts in Kashmir and the Philippines continue to flare up despite concerted efforts to engage in talks. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, including Sudan, northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, intense intrastate conflicts exact a high toll on their own populations and threaten to flow into neighboring countries. 

 

In addition, U.S.-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have underscored the finite uses of military power and the importance of identifying other instruments to restore political order. Military power—to be effective—must be applied in a political context. 

To address root causes of instability—rather than simply its results—a number of governments and other organizations are taking on the tasks of conflict prevention, peacebuilding and post-conflict operations. National and international leaders have also come to recognize that today’s global security challenges are intertwined with humanitarian concerns, and that hard military and economic power must be integrated with soft power to achieve peace and security. Intervention has become increasingly long-term, multi-dimensional and complex. 

The Academy will be a space for this learning, providing a place where the contribution, strengths and weaknesses of all of the tools of conflict response—military, political, official and nonofficial, American and international—can be explored, examined and made accessible to current and future practitioners.

 

The Academy currently offers a number of courses held at the Institute’s headquarters in Washington. These are generally 40-hour courses, held either intensively during one week or in shorter evening sessions over a six to twelve week period. The courses offered through USIP’s education and training center include a mix of theory and practice, with a heavy emphasis on applied exercises, including case studies, simulations, and practical and small group exercises. They take a two-fold approach to teaching. They are largely elicitive in nature, meant to draw out and utilize each participant’s professional experience. The classes also have a prescriptive component: new concepts and analytical tools are introduced, with the aim for each student to identify and articulate how these ideas can be directly applied to his or her work.  An essential aspect of the courses will be distance education. In time, all courses will have an online component to reach much broader domestic and overseas audiences.

Academic credit may be offered for some courses through partnerships with degree-granting organizations. In addition, the Institute will give a certificate of achievement in conflict management for each course. Students who complete four of the courses will receive a credential in conflict management. Students who complete eight courses and complete a capstone exercise or submit a thesis will receive a diploma in conflict management.