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.
Tunisian and American activists to end violence against women joined 20 youth leaders from the Middle East and North Africa in a webcast discussion from the U.S. Institute of Peace on Oct. 11 focusing on the role girls play in building peace. The event took place on the International Day of the Girl Child and was part of USIP’s 60 days of activities connecting issues of youth, peace and gender equality.
Much of today’s regional disorder and global upheaval is driven by fragile states—those with a frayed social compact between their people and government. State fragility fuels problems from the unprecedented refugee crisis to turmoil in the Arab world, and from pandemic diseases to some of humanity’s deepest poverty. To meet this challenge, three Washington foreign affairs institutions made recommendations to the next administration and Congress to produce a more strategic, disciplined, and sustained U.S. approach. The study’s chairs—William Burns of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Michèle Flournoy of the Center for a New American Security, and USIP’s Nancy Lindborg—public launched their report.
On Wednesday June 29, Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet, addressed an audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace on the urgent need for a concerted, global response to the current refugee crisis. She also previewed the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees that President Obama will convene at the U.N. on September 20.
On November 12, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the U.S. Institute to deliver a policy speech focused on Syria. Read the event coverage, Kerry Says Assad Staying as Syrian Leader Is a "Non-Starter".
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley led a discussion September 18 of how the United States and its partners should respond to the greatest displacement of people since World War II. With former British foreign secretary David Miliband, USIP President Nancy Lindborg and other panelists, they focused on the steps needed to address this crisis at its roots.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Linda Thomas-Greenfield, ex-British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Elizabeth Cousens, a former top American diplomat at the United Nations, joined U.S. Institute of Peace President Nancy Lindborg for a conversation about the connections among state fragility, violent conflict, and humanitarianism. The discussion on June 3 took place as the U.N. finalized its Sustainable Development Goals for adoption at a U.N. Summit in New York in September.
Around the globe, the struggle between civil society voices and government repression is giving rise to violence, extremism and toxic politics. Professionals in peacebuilding and in governance/democracy recognize the need to work together on issues of governance, legitimacy, fragility and disenfranchisement that underlie many violent conflicts.
Building international peace and security requires women’s participation and leadership. That principle underlies the work of the U.S. Institute of Peace and is the focus of its annual Sheikha Fatima Lectureship. The 2015 event, on May 11, Third Annual Sheikha Fatima Lectureship addressed "A Shared Global Vision for Women and Peacebuilding.”
On February 26, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, spoke at an event hosted by U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) and the U.S. Institute of Peace in Hart Senate Office Building. The speech was during her first trip to Washington since Liberia’s declaration of a state of emergency over the Ebola outbreak last July.