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2020-10-29
FSG;
A case study on Energía para la Paz, a shared value initiative of Grupo Energía Bogotá.After Colombia's historic 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group, people in rural areas heavily affected by the conflict began dreaming about a different future. However, decades of violence had left hundreds of landmines, thousands of deaths, and millions of people displaced, in addition to high levels of poverty and a weakened social fabric.To tackle some of the challenges from decades of conflict, Grupo Energía Bogotá (GEB)—a leading energy and natural gas multinational company—launched Energía para la Paz. This shared value initiative revolves around landmine clearance and trust-building to increase the safety and prosperity of communities in post-conflict areas. Developing Energía para la Paz required a mindset shift to how GEB embedded social impact at the heart of its business's success.This case study is available for download in English and Spanish. Este estudio de caso se encuentra disponible para descargar en español y en inglés.
2020-01-31
Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project;
The first-ever U.S.-DPRK summit meeting in Singapore yielded an agreement in principle that satisfied both sides' key demands, but the two overreached in Hanoi. Ever since then, North Korea has been demanding unilateral steps by the United States to demonstrate its commitment to end enmity before it will return to the negotiating table. After the failed summit, opponents of engagement in Pyongyang began pushing back against negotiations. Kim Jong Un responded with an April 12, 2019 policy speech to the Supreme People's Assembly imposing an end-of-the-year deadline for an offer he could accept and hinted he would end his self-imposed moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and the longer-range missiles to deliver them. Despite U.S. attempts to meet him part-way, he ramped up testing of other missiles and continued fissile material production. He also held relations with Seoul hostage to further advances in talks with Washington. Yet it seems unlikely he is giving up seeking the same goals sought by his grandfather and father to reconcile – end enmity - with Washington and Seoul in order to hedge against the rise of China. Unlike his forebears, he has willing partners in the U.S and South Korean presidents, but his increasing nuclear leverage may tempt him to overplay his hand in coercive diplomacy either by resuming tests to enhance that leverage or by asking for more than President Trump can give.
2020-03-10
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This study focuses primarily on the 'Final Report' of the OAS audit of the election results and shows how the authors of that report misrepresent the data and evidence found in the audit in an attempt to further bolster their claims of intentional manipulation on the part of Bolivia's former electoral authorities. The OAS Final Report identifies many real problems with the management of the elections that should be addressed. However, despite claims to the contrary, it does not provide any evidence that those irregularities altered the outcome of the election, or were part of an actual attempt to do so.
2020-07-13
Candid;
In 2019, Candid and Centris, with support from PeaceNexus Foundation, conducted a survey, Philanthropy for a Safe, Healthy, and Just World. The results, based on 823 civil society organization responses, reveal philanthropists can do better to support global peacebuilding efforts.The world today continues to be shaken by armed conflicts, yet, according to research by Candid, peace-related grantmaking comprises less than 1 percent of all grants. Further, the study found that only 18 percent of survey respondents indicated that conflict transformation and peacebuilding were "very important" to their work; in fact, it ranked at the very bottom of the list. Still, 57 percent of respondents said that supporting resilience and stable societies—a key component of peacebuilding— is either important or central to their work. Moreover, it was more common for organizations to see their work through the lens of social justice or human rights than through the lens of peace, suggesting a broader understanding and acceptance of these frameworks compared to peace.
2020-04-01
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute;
The ongoing renaissance of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world. Just like many other developing countries, India and Pakistan—the two nuclear-armed states of South Asia—are exploring the subsequent opportunities for economic and social change. Their political leaders seem to prioritize civilian applications of AI over the military, and public attention reflects the political priorities. National efforts to militarize AI do not receive the same public coverage as civilian AI developments
2020-03-01
China Africa Research Initiative, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University;
The African continent's threat spectrum compasses all the risks, from criminal to political violence,that public and private Chinese companies are going toexperience throughout the Belt & Road Initiative. From Libya to South Sudan, China has witnessed how severely limitingthe sole reliance on economic development to promotesecurity and sustainable development can be. As such,security is an increasingly important priority, especially for Chinese companies operating in politically volatile areas. Compared to their American or Russian peers, Chinese private security companies (PSCs) are latecomers to the African security sector and their services are unrelated to the provision of military services or the delivery of military equipment. At present, China's PSCs are still evolving from local security enterprises operating in low risk environments in Mainland China into international companies able to maneuver abroad in high-risk areas. Africa is the litmus test for Chinese PSCs, with tasks including assets protection from riots, theft, or terrorism to maritime anti-piracy missions.Therefore, local best practices and lessons that Beijing cane xtract from Cape Town to Cairo are not only of paramount importance for the Chinese African cooperation mechanism but also for a broader collaboration with local and international stakeholders.
2020-01-01
National Bureau of Asian Research;
Under Xi Jinping, China has become more vocal about its dissatisfaction with the existing international order. Whereas its posture used to be mostly defensive, it has recently engaged in a more forward-leaning, assertive effort to reshape the system. Xi is confident in China's growing material power but is aware that the country still lacks "discourse power"—the ability to exert influence over the formulations and ideas that underpin the international order. Although the Chinese leadership has mobilized intellectual resources to fill this gap, it has not explicitly laid out an alternative vision of what the world should look like. However, a close reading of ongoing internal discussions and debates suggests that China's vision for a future system under its helm draws inspiration from traditional Chinese thought and past historical experiences. The collective intellectual effort reflects a yearning for partial hegemony, loosely exercised over large portions of the "global South"—a space that would be free from Western influence and purged of liberal ideals. The contours of this new system would not be traced along precise geographic or ideological lines but be defined by the degree of deference that those within China's sphere of influence are willing to offer Beijing.
2020-11-19
Rockefeller Archive Center;
The proposed project for the research at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) was "a re-assessment of the discourse of the International in the twentieth century." It was to examine how the idea of the "International" was formed. By the "International," I meant the counter-communist notion of the "International," which became the core of what we often term the "liberal international order" of the twentieth century. This research now forms a part of my broader book project. What follows here are my findings on one of the three focuses in this recent research at the RAC, which were also synthesized with documents from the League of Nations Archives and the Unesco Archives, and my thoughts on them.
2020-11-19
Candid;
Through the Peace and Security Funding Index, Candid and the Peace and Security Funders Group aim to illuminate the field of peace and security grantmaking and provide a nuanced understanding of the issues and strategies peaceand security funders support.The Index tracks funding for work to prevent future conflict, resolve existing conflict, and support stability and peace across 24 issue areas (e.g., peacebuilding, nuclear issues). It includes grantmaking by institutional funders, including private foundations, public charities, and community foundations.In 2018, 335 foundations made 2,539 grants totaling $376.8M for peace and security.
2020-06-01
International Alert;
Violence and poverty sadly remain endemic and social division is on the rise. Questions are being raised about the benefits of wider international cooperation. Now the deadly coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is spreading across the globe with an ever-climbing death toll.While much is unknown about what lies ahead, one thing is certain: the programmes and activities carried out by International Alert and our partners in the peacebuilding sector are needed now more than ever.In 2019, we ran projects in 21 countries and territories, with training, research or one-off consultancies and business partnerships in a further 18. In total, we implemented 114 projects, 21 of which took place in multiple regions.
2020-11-04
Palgrave Macmillan;
The birth year of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), 1963, is often considered Africa's year of independence. But political freedom did not mean freedom from the repression and violence which had characterized the colonial period. Wars and conflicts have scarred the continent since independence. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, they became more complex and widespread. And so, too, did the international efforts to restore and (re) build peace in Africa. Countries worst affected by violence and conflict included Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan/South Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali, and Libya. In recent years, the quest for sustainable peace in Africa has taken on a new urgency, as instability and insecurity continue to negatively impact the lives of millions of Africans and hinder the continent's economic growth and development. This book joins the quest for peace by examining 30 years of peacebuilding in Africa, highlighting key lessons learned and offering some recommendations for making peace stick.
2020-10-03
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
Through its involvement across sectors, civil society plays a critical role in peacebuilding processes. It does so by involving in wide-ranging peacebuilding processes in several capacities, including facets of justice and the rule of law, economic and psycho-social recovery and security and public order. Hence, CSOs serve as pillars of democratic systems, playing important roles in democracy and good governance for pre-and post-conflict societies. The role of civil society has increasingly been recognised in both the domestic and international arenas. Peacebuilding programmes continue to give support to CSOs, echoing the growing importance of these groups in development cooperation (Belloni, 2006). In societies transitioning from war to peace and democracy, this interest corresponds to even more specific motivations. Read Full Publication here.
