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.
Six million Somalis are at risk of famine due to drought, and the looming drawdown of the regional peacekeeping force, AMISOM, threatens to derail the country’s fragile transition if the training of Somali forces is not expedited. Former Somali Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Abdirahman Yusuf Ali Aynte (Abdi Aynte) and U.S. Institute of Peace President Nancy Lindborg discussed the challenges and potential solutions in a webcast conversation.
Following the Global Coalition's meetings in Washington, USIP held a conversation with Ambassador Ekkehard Brose, who co-chairs the Global Coalition’s “Stabilization Working Group”, and Joseph Pennington, deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq.
Only July 12, USIP held a panel discussion with leading experts on how a political strategy can help win the peace in Afghanistan.
The U.S. and other donors spend billions each year to improve governance in the name of development for war-torn or fragile countries. But good government is crucial for another reason: its capacity to reduce violence that undermines the very development the international community seeks. On July 12, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the World Bank discussed this vital element of the Bank’s “World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law.”
To achieve stability, effective governance and prosperity, Afghanistan needs to reform and restructure its political institutions. This is a tall order in a country that is still reeling from years of turmoil, but it is not impossible. The U.S. Institute of Peace and the U.K.-based Overseas Development Institute held a panel discussion in London on July 10 that explored concrete steps and reforms that should be taken before 2020 to provide the foundation for long-term political stability.
U.S.-backed military offensives, at Mosul in Iraq and at Raqqa in Syria, are squeezing the Islamic State (ISIS) from its last territorial strongholds. But what will replace ISIS rule? Persistent conflicts in both countries, including new ones fueled by ISIS’ brutal rise, continue to undermine stability. Can Iraq steady itself, even as ethnic Kurds have called a referendum on independence? In eastern Syria, what groups might fill the post-ISIS power vacuum? Will ISIS even be truly eliminated? On June 30, experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace held a Facebook Live discussion on the rising challenges.
After eight months of fighting for Mosul, Iraqi troops are closing in on the last of ISIS’s forces in the city. The government’s recovery of the main ISIS stronghold in Iraq will open a new phase in the country’s struggle for stability. Iraq must resolve longstanding domestic conflicts that contributed to ISIS’ rise in the first place and avert new cycles of vengeance arising from the terrorists’ brutal, three-year reign in Iraq’s northwest.
On June 26, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the organization Inclusive Security held a discussion on Rwanda’s transition from genocide to a country at peace, where women hold 64 percent of seats in parliament.
On Friday, June 23, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the University of South Carolina’s Rule of Law Collaborative held a daylong symposium highlighting new approaches and technologies to further the rule of law.