As a national, nonpartisan, independent Institute, the U.S. Institute of Peace draws on our exceptional convening power to create opportunities for diverse audiences to exchange knowledge, experiences, and ideas necessary for creative solutions to difficult challenges. We serve as an important, neutral platform for bringing together government and nongovernment, diplomacy, security, and development actors, and participants across political views. The Institute’s events help shape public policy and priorities to advance peaceful solutions to conflict and strengthen international security.
After decades in which the fields of nonviolent action and conflict resolution have evolved separately, new reports underscore that they need to collaborate to prevent social conflicts from turning violent and to build more inclusive societies. On July 26, USIP and its partners reviewed this research and discussed how these distinct paths for seeking sustainable peace can be better combined.
Only July 12, USIP held a panel discussion with leading experts on how a political strategy can help win the peace in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, May 11, at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Senator Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee, shared insights from his trip and discussed the U.S. response to the crisis.
The U.S. Institute of Peace discussed recent research, practice and policy on gender and mediation on Friday, March 31.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s party came to power in Burma a year ago amid high expectations, after an electoral landslide that ushered in the country’s first civilian government in more than 50 years. One year in, the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a day of discussions focused on how her National League for Democracy (NLD) handled Burma’s social, economic and political transitions and dealt with violent conflicts and social tensions with ethnic groups in the country’s borderlands.
When Northern Ireland’s combatants finally made peace in the 1990s, they did so on a broad foundation of grassroots reconciliation and economic development work, built over more than a decade by the International Fund for Ireland. On March 13, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Embassy of Ireland gathered former government officials, peacebuilding practitioners and scholars to examine what worked in advancing peace in Northern Ireland—and what lessons might be applied to the difficult process of peacemaking and peacebuilding between Israelis and Palestinians. Former Senator George Mitchell, who served as an envoy in both peace processes, was the keynote speaker.
On March 7, the U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a discussion with analysts and former diplomats about the viability of the two-state model, and the possibility of alternatives for a sustainable peace.
Cambodia’s 1991 peace accord launched a process of cease-fire, peacekeeping and rebuilding that stabilized the country, but left deep wounds still unhealed from the 1970s genocide and decades of war. The Cambodian peace process was one of the first of its scale undertaken by the international community after the Cold War—and a quarter-century of work to implement it offers lessons for current and future peacebuilding work, both in Cambodia and worldwide. On December 15 at USIP, two panels discussed how the accords were achieved, political tensions since then, lessons that might be drawn from Cambodia's experience for other peace processes, and what role the international community might play going forward to preserve the peace and the intent of the accords.
International attention toward Myanmar has focused largely on the country's transition from a half-century of military rule toward democratic governance. On November 4, the U.S. Institute of Peace gathered specialists on the peace process to examine its current state and highlight ways that the international community can help.
While Colombia’s government and the guerrilla group known as the FARC work on the final details of a comprehensive peace deal, one part of the proposed accord is already in effect: the commitment by both sides to recover and return the remains of tens of thousands of “disappeared” people—those presumed to have been secretly killed in the conflict. USIP and the Latin America Working Group Education Fund held an event on April 22 for an early assessment of how implementation of the agreements on disappearances is proceeding.