Question And Answer
Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
Gauging What Works and What Doesn’t in Peacebuilding
Those of us who work in peacebuilding are constantly reminded that the challenges we confront are big and the resources we command are small. So there is both a practical and an ethical obligation to use those resources wisely and be certain of their value. Toward that end, a little over four years ago, USIP asked me to become the organization’s first director of learning and evaluation. At its core, my job description was simple: help the Institute use evidence to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Why the World Humanitarian Summit Meeting in Turkey Really Does Matter
John Norris told Foreign Policy readers that the Istanbul conference would be irrelevant. It wasn’t.
U.N. Youth-and-Peace Resolution: The Hard Work Begins
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 ...
Afghanistan’s Lesson: Strategic Costs of Civilian Harm
After 15 years of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, the strategic importance of avoiding harm to civilians is an inescapable lesson that policymakers need to fully integrate in American doctrine, planning and training, say the authors of a new report. The report offers “practical, pragmatic, concrete recommendations” to strengthen U.S. military operations overseas by averting losses to civilians and their communities, said former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy in a public d...
Dalai Lama Urges Greater Compassion, Role for Youth
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...
Humanitarian Aid: ‘Radical Change’ After Istanbul?
The two-day World Humanitarian Summit held recently in Istanbul drew criticism for the absence of top global leaders, but it actually broke ground in several ways, experts said in a discussion hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace and Oxfam America. The summit spotlighted the need for “radical change” in a relief system built for the era after World War II rather than today’s small wars, insurgencies and fragmenting states that have unleashed the second-biggest flood of displaced people in hi...
In Fragile States, Put Citizen Involvement First, Panel Says
A common strategy for state-building and development aid to transitional nations—getting basic services to the population—will fail to establish a government’s legitimacy unless citizens are included in the process, a leading researcher on conflict management said at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Lindborg Calls Humanitarian Summit a 'Wake-Up Call'
The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, held this week in Istanbul, should spur political leaders around the globe to recognize that “the world is on fire,” USIP President Nancy Lindborg said. The international community is failing to muster the political will to end the violent conflicts that have ignited the globe’s most dire humanitarian crisis since World War II, she said in interviews at the conference.
For a Victory Amid Crisis, Offer Consistent, Smart Help to Tunisia
As the United States and the international community grapple with interlocking crises in the Middle East and nearby parts of Africa and Asia, we must reserve a special priority for helping Tunisia achieve a strategic victory. Its success could model for the region how to build stability and prosperity through inclusive governance and nonviolence.
Q&A: Drone Strike's Impact on Afghanistan, Pakistan
The death of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, who reportedly was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan on May 21, raises a host of questions about the Taliban’s future, U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and American relations with Pakistan. The strike, which Pakistani officials have protested, was the first publicly-disclosed military action by the U.S. inside Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, and the first to directly target senior Taliban leaders sheltering o...