To Build Peace, Take Action: Peace Day Challenge 2016

To Build Peace, Take Action: Peace Day Challenge 2016

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

By: Nancy Lindborg

His Holiness the Dalai Lama made a powerful point during a visit to USIP last month, a day after the Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 49 people and wounded 53. After leading the audience in a moment of silence for the victims and survivors, he noted his own skepticism about the power of prayer alone. “The real effect,” he said, “comes through … serious action.”  

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & PreventionViolent ExtremismYouthFragility & Resilience

Nationalistic Narratives in Pakistani Textbooks

Nationalistic Narratives in Pakistani Textbooks

Thursday, July 7, 2016

By: Ahsan Butt

History textbooks capture a state’s official narratives regarding particular events, territory, groups, or phenomena. These narratives reflect and constitute a state’s national identity and can generate the potential for conflict because of their divisiveness. This brief summarizes initial baseline research on Pakistani textbooks, revealing the importance of bureaucratic politics, and highlights several implications for education reform and national and international stability.

Type: Peace Brief

Violent ExtremismEducation & TrainingYouth

U.N. Youth-and-Peace Resolution: The Hard Work Begins

U.N. Youth-and-Peace Resolution: The Hard Work Begins

Thursday, June 16, 2016

By: Fred Strasser

The United Nations Security Council recently addressed a force quietly shaping the world: a generation of young people that, numbering 1.8 billion between the ages of 10 to 24, is the largest in history, and has enormous potential to build peace amid the violence that so often rocks their world. The council’s resolution on youth, peace and security was the first to deal with the role of young people on these issues. The hard work now is to turn the resolution’s words into reality, H.E. Ahmad ...

Type: Analysis

Violent ExtremismYouthGlobal Policy

Dalai Lama Urges Greater Compassion, Role for Youth

Dalai Lama Urges Greater Compassion, Role for Youth

Monday, June 13, 2016

By: USIP Staff

A day after the United States’ deadliest-ever mass shooting, the Dalai Lama led a Washington audience in a silent prayer for peace. But he said prayers will be ineffective without “serious action” to erode religious and other communal divisions. Building peace in and among nations requires improved education, leadership by youth and women, and “personal contact” among people of disparate groups, the Buddhist spiritual leader said. “We have to live on this small planet… with a sense of brother...

Type: Analysis

ReligionYouth

Lindborg Calls for New Approaches to Syrian Refugee Assistance

Lindborg Calls for New Approaches to Syrian Refugee Assistance

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

By: USIP Staff;  

The Syrian crisis has dramatically increased the urgency to reconsider fundamental approaches to humanitarian assistance, and American leadership and support is vital to developing smarter, more effective and more efficient policies, U.S. Institute of Peace President Nancy Lindborg said in testimony today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Type: Analysis

Violent ExtremismYouthFragility & ResilienceHuman Rights

Landmark U.N. Resolution Elevates Youth in Work for Peace

Landmark U.N. Resolution Elevates Youth in Work for Peace

Friday, December 11, 2015

By: Nancy Lindborg

In a landmark decision, the United Nations Security Council this week adopted its first resolution to address the critical role that young people play in preventing and resolving conflict. Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security, which passed with the unanimous support of the U.N.’s 193 member states, is especially vital given that more than half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, and 70 percent of them are concentrated in Africa and the Middle East, two regions roiled by violent conflict.

Type: Analysis

YouthReconciliationGlobal PolicyMediation, Negotiation & Dialogue

Understanding and Countering Violent Extremism in Afghanistan

Understanding and Countering Violent Extremism in Afghanistan

Thursday, September 3, 2015

By: Reza Fazli;  Casey Johnson;  Peyton Cooke

Youth recruitment into extremist groups in Afghanistan continues to be a major source of group building. In field studies and interviews conducted in three provinces to elicit views on extremist groups, both violent and nonviolent, and factors thought to induce youth to join such groups, violent extremist groups emerged as unpopular and mistrusted, being perceived as un-Islamic and controlled by foreign powers. Nonetheless, the activities and ideologies of such groups have not been effectivel...

Type: Special Report

Violent ExtremismYouth