Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Experts on Peace Media for Iraqi Youth Set Goals for New Project
USIP’s Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding organized an expert working group on April 26-27 in Erbil, Iraq to discuss how to create a multimedia program that will provide Iraqi teenagers the tools to help them grow into independent, empowered citizens within a complex society. USIP brought together 25 experts for the working group, consisting of educators, media, youth NGO representatives, government officials and USIP-trained conflict resolution facilitators.
Dispatches from Dilling, Sudan
More people have died in tribal violence in southern Sudan in recent months than in the western Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations special representative to Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, said this week. Creating a peaceful environment before the national elections in 2010 and a referendum on southern independence set for 2011 should be a top priority for the world and Sudanese authorities, Qazi emphasized. USIP has been actively working on the ground to help create a peaceful setting with its U...
Guatemala
A scandal involving murder allegations against the president and escalating violence from drug trafficking threaten Guatemala’s stability. Former USIP grantee Anita Isaacs recently traveled to the Central American country, where she witnessed massive demonstrations that exposed the fragility of Guatemala’s democracy.
A New Day for Sri Lanka
USIP peace scholar Benjamin Schonthal provides a first person account of the excitement at the end of Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war. And, he also reminds us that the hard work of peace is just beginning.
Dispatch from Port-au-Prince, Haiti
The process of drafting and passing new “people friendly” criminal laws is a difficult one but it is certainly not impossible. USIP's Vivienne O'Connor visited Haiti recently to help work with the national actors engaged in the reform process by sharing with lawmakers a law reform tool –- the “Model Codes for Post-Conflict Criminal Justice” book -- that we developed in cooperation with the Irish Centre for Human Rights, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Office on Drugs ...
Dispatch from Nepal
USIP’s Rule of Law program is preparing to conduct a baseline survey on security and access to justice in Nepal. Acting Director of Rule of Law Colette Rausch and Program Assistant Morgan Miller visited Nepal in May to discuss final preparations with the Kathmandu-based team leading the survey effort.
CoESPU Workshops on Negotiation and Mediation for Police in Peacekeeping Environments
Senior Program Officers Nina Sughrue and Noor Kirdar continued USIP’s support for the international Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units (CoESPU), run by the Italian Caribinieri in Vicenza, Italy. CoESPU, which was established on March 1st 2005, stems from an Italian initiative, supported by the G8 countries to provide technical and financial assistance in order to improve global capacity for sustaining peace stability operations, particularly in African countries.
Electoral Violence Prevention Program in South Sudan
In March and April 2009, the ETC-I/CAP team brought the electoral violence prevention (EVP) program to South Sudan. In Juba, the participants included up to ten members of the South Sudan parliament, leaders of youth and women’s organizations, journalist and political party representatives. Participants in Yei were local clergy, civil society organizers, police and security services, and even a local chief.
Electoral Violence Prevention Programs in Khartoum and Dilling, Sudan
ETC/I Senior Program Officers Jacqueline Wilson and Linda Bishai and Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution Program Officer, Jon Temin, conducted a short-form electoral violence prevention consultation in Khartoum with high-level political party representatives, journalists, academics and civil society leaders. This program included the four voter-education theatre vignettes by Mohammed Sharif and his troupe.
Empowering Communities to Resolve Local Conflicts Along the Sudan-South Sudan Border
Current USIP grantee Peace Direct is in the final stages of a project to empower peace committees to defuse local conflicts in communities in Southern Kordofan and Unity states near the contested Sudan-South Sudan border. Peace Direct is undertaking this project in conjunction with its partner, the Collaborative for Peace in Sudan, which includes 30 peacebuilding organizations in both Sudan and South Sudan.