After 18 months of blogging at the intersection of peace and social innovation, and leading a field-wide initiative on this subject, Ashoka Peace is excited to announce a new partnership with Peace Direct and its Insight on Conflict initiative. We, at the Ashoka Peace blog, have merged with Insight on Conflict and hope that you will keep reading about this critical subject at the new URL and new avatar.

From our perspective, the new Insight on Conflict blog offers a unique global platform for those interested in how local people can lead peacebuilding programs in their own communities worldwide. Its content is a mix of opinion-pieces on issues or developments, reports from the field, and interviews with respected figures. Its aim is to change opinion and raise the profile of locally led peacebuilding. It is the most prominent element of the Insight on Conflict website – which already attracts 100,000 visits per year.

We're excited about the new leadership for this conversation and invite you to check out the new version of the blog.

Thank you to our regular contributors - Priya Parker, Rebecca Sargent, Gayle Lemmon, Josh Gryniewicz, Nick Nartin, Melanie Kawano and others - for participating and leading the conversation. And thanks most of all to our audience for your faith and readership as we grew the Ashoka Peace blog. We couldn't have done it without you.

Peace.

Rebecca Sargent has been a student of peace and conflict for most of the past decade across several disciplines and programs with a goal of life-long education. Read all of her posts here.

Rehabilitating and reintegrating youth offenders is often overlooked in favor of courts, juvenile detention centers and punishment –based systems. Around half of those imprisoned have committed minor offenses and have a real chance at rehabilitation. Sadly, once imprisoned, many youth simply learn new anti-social and criminal behaviours, which leads to adult criminal activity and further juvenile delinquency. Toronto, Canada-area youth offenders now have new prospects. Newly elected Ashoka Fellow Eva Marszewski is creating a restorative justice solution to help these youth reintegrate into their community and rehabilitate themselves without having to spend months or years in the judicial and penal systems.

Working from indigenous peacemaking processes, Eva uses peace-building circles, mediation and conflict management training to empower high-risk communities to prevent violence. Through Eva's approach, youth aged 12 to 17 talk out differences, take full responsibilty for their behavior, and make amends for their wrongdoings with their victims instead of heading straight to courts and jail.

To mediate the circle, a physical object – a “talking piece” -- goes from person to person as they speak to prevent interruption; allowing each person a turn to discuss grievances fairly. Participants are “encouraged to listen to others, step into their shoes, share their experiences and work towards a common goal." Included in the group could be a police officer, a probation officer, a social service worker, a teacher, community members, parents, and other youth. As the circle process progresses, sometimes over several sessions, the members begin to see each other with new understanding. The circles allow for members to deconstruct conflicts, examine them piece by piece to identify and address the root causes, and then work to create plans to address the conflicts over time.

So far, 100 percent of Eva’s reports at the conclusion of the circles have been approved by school principals, police, judges, prosecution, probation and defense counsels. The process of referring youth offenders to mediation circles has helped to reduce the number of arrests and the number of cases passing through the court systems, allowing judges and legal officers to apply their skills to more serious cases and reducing the burden on the criminal justice system.

Eva hopes to include a mandatory conflict resolution curriculum for law schools. She is also training volunteers from many ages and walks of life to act as facilitators to work her approach in a broader community. Her organization, Peacebuilders International, also runs a free Youth 4 Peace Summer Program, where youth aged 16-20 can learn communication skills to resolve conflicts as an alternative to violence.

One thing that is fairly common in the business world yet extremely rare in the citizen sector is the occurrence of mergers. Indeed, many influential figures in social entrepreneurship are starting to speak out on the need for non-profits to begin to engage in mergers and acquisitions in order to achieve economies of scale, reduce competition for limited pots of funding, and thereby increase their impact and reach.

Although we at Ashoka Peace have not staked out an opinion on the desirability (or not) of mergers, we did note with great interest the recent merger of The Genocide Intervention Network and the Save Darfur Coalition, which together now comprise the world's largest anti-genocide organization. Click here to read about the details of the merger. 

Ashoka Fellow Mark Hanis, who founded The Genocide Intervention Network is now the President of the newly merged, so-far nameless, entity. Recently, Mark sat down with Ashoka to share his thoughts on the merger.

You can read more about the merger here go directly to the video interview here.

Last week, Fast Company published an article on the importance of investing in post-conflict zones to kick-start the local economy, foster entrepreneurship, and reduce the chances of a relapse. As the article states:

"The global cost of conflicts is $100 billion; dishing charity cash and sleeping bags to these regions doesn't change much -- but introducing innovation and business skills to the local economy can."

We couldn't agree more. Read the full article here.

Josh Gryniewicz is the Communication Coordinator for CeaseFire, a unique violence prevention initiative founded by Ashoka Senior Fellow Gary Slutkin.

Earlier this month, CeaseFire hosted five youth workers from London— Jason Featherstone, Mark Shopi, Pam Hothi, Chris Preddie, and Samantha Lee— who have founded Chaos Theory, a fledgling violence prevention program using the CeaseFire methodology. This series of documents explores what initially led to forming the group and the first step in the CeaseFire International replication process. Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

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As a field of study, chaos theory observes seemingly random occurrences—changes in weather, population growth in ecological systems, molecular vibrations—to discern underlying patterns. This is a simplified description of the theory, but apt to explain why it is the namesake for a fledgling London-based violence prevention program looking to replicate the CeaseFire model.

From a societal perspective, nothing appears more random an occurrence than violence, yet behind the attention grabbing headlines patterns do emerge. There are the patterns that lead an individual down their respective path and the patterns of social circumstance that influence a community’s outcome. Those most likely commit an act of violence or to be a victim of it; those communities that are disproportionately impacted. This dovetails well into a fundamental aspect of CeaseFire’s underlying philosophy that the identification of potentially violent individuals and events directly informs the intervention of them. 

“We started thinking of it as a research project, really,” Jason Featherstone, a Chaos Theory team member explains, “We were looking for that pattern of what would lead someone to commit an act of violence. What were the factors that could identify a perpetrator or a victim?”

This eventually would connect Featherstone with John Grieve CBE QPM, Emeritus Professor at London Metropolitan University and a senior research fellow at Portsmouth University in criminal justice. Professor Grieve is a forward thinker and passionate advocate that public safety has to be broader than policing strategy. He saw potential in the project and eventually agreed to serve as a Trustee on their board. In late-August, he was the first Chaos Theory representative to come out to Chicago and see the model in action.

 
Jason Featherstone and Samantha Lee of Chaos Theory meet with Dr. Gary Slutkin, CeaseFire founder and Executive Director

“We had looked at so many models,” Featherstone says, “throughout the U.S. and Europe. We logged a lot of time investigating different strategies and approaches that could achieve the kind of intervention we proposed. CeaseFire caught our attention right away. It was the results, as much as a 67% reduction in some communities, that is what peaked our interest.”

CeaseFire was the solution they were seeking, a violence prevention strategy that had proven effectiveness for intervening with the highest-risk, but it would take nearly a year to get things in order to approach the program about replication. Seed funding and support from Allen and Overy Foundation would provide the boon for them to move from research to adaptation. 

Josh Gryniewicz is the Communication Coordinator for CeaseFire, a unique violence prevention initiative founded by Ashoka Senior Fellow Gary Slutkin.

Earlier this month, CeaseFire hosted five youth workers from London— Jason Featherstone, Mark Shopi, Pam Hothi, Chris Preddie, and Samantha Lee— who have founded Chaos Theory, a fledgling violence prevention program using the CeaseFire methodology. This series documents what initially led to forming the group and the first steps in the CeaseFire International replication process. Part 1 can be found here

***

For the members of Chaos Theory the journey into violence prevention began at the foot of a mountain.  Cold, hungry, wet and facing a steep climb up a harsh rock face the members of the fledgling CeaseFire replication recount this moment as a physical and symbolic representation of their founding. Literally, they found themselves in Scotland on an unconventional youth leadership training program hosted by the Home Office; metaphorically, this marked the first steps toward creating a mediation program that could intervene in conflicts with those at the highest-risk for violence.

CeaseFire Englewood chats with members of Chaos Theory.

“There was no one out there doing this work,” Jason Featherstone explains, “Collectively we have worked for some fantastic organizations doing much-needed work in the youth & gang violence arena. There are some great programs in early intervention – confidence building workshops, anti-bullying programs — but nothing that worked on stopping violence immediately and directly.” (Read CeaseFire Director Dr. Gary Slutkin explaining the differences between types of school-based violence here).

“There are no interventions in the UK to work with gang members around violence and conflict mediation,” Pam Hothi elaborates. “The high-risk target groups over the age of 18 years have no services available as they are considered ‘adults.’ While the UK has a number of gang intervention programs, including early-intervention providing diversionary support for young gang members, no one has really made in-roads to older members controlling the streets and dictating violence.” 

In Scotland, the group identified this huge gap and began a search for solutions that would eventually lead to CeaseFire.  Between them the team had lost 20 people to serious youth violence, including a brother, three cousins, thirteen friends and three clients. The latter victims underscored the revelation that with the right strategy such incidents could be prevented.

A war had been raging for over 4 years between two rival street organizations. Following the death of one unaffiliated young man a spate of tit-for-tat retaliations escalated the consequences for both sides. One Chaos Theory (CT) team member, who had been providing counseling for clients on one side of the conflict, saw an opportunity to intervene. An ‘older’ member of the street organization, rattled by the loss of close friends, stated that he didn’t want the conflict to continue. The CT member acted fast to try and arrange a formal intervention, but frustratingly came up against a lack of resources providing such service and an inability to reach influencers on the other side of the conflict. This case provided urgency on the team’s journey to fill this gap in violence prevention.

Josh Gryniewicz is the Communication Coordinator for CeaseFire, a unique violence prevention initiative founded by Ashoka Senior Fellow Gary Slutkin.

Jason Featherstone is a long way from home. As one of the founding members of Chaos Theory, a fledgling London-based violence prevention group, he is part of a five person team that has come to Chicago to learn firsthand how the CeaseFire Model works. CeaseFire is a national public health strategy that has been proven to reduce shootings and killings through a combination of science and street knowledge. In Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood, one of the most violently impacted communities in the city, they are shadowing Violence Interrupter Ricardo Williams as he gets a read of what is happening on the street. If trouble is percolating, Ricardo is going to be one of the first to hear about it, and will have a lead on how to disrupt it. Most of this work is conducted just by maintaining strong communication with individuals still involved in the life.

It is uncharacteristically warm out and somewhat quiet on the block. In fact, it doesn’t take long for the Chaos Theory to become the main attraction as Ricardo waves people over to come meet his friends from London.

The week long immersion, sponsored in part with seed funding from Allen and Overy Foundation, is packed with such community visits –Englewood, Little Village, CeaseFire West – as the team is put through the paces on a packed itinerary. They visit the Emergency Department at Advocate Christ Medical Center, a level-one trauma center where CeaseFire has a hospital-based partnership; sit in on a Violence Interrupter strategy session; and get a full introduction to the components of the Model.

On the block in Auburn Gresham they are greeted warmly. The young men seated on the stoop connect with the youth workers “from across the pond” almost immediately. They have no reservations openly sharing stories of life in the community, even showing the bullet holes drilled into the wall that make that life so challenging. The team may be a long way from home geographically, but when an impromptu freestyle session lead by team member Chris Preddie – a playwright, rapper and youth worker – Deon “Don Dillionaire,” an aspiring artist and Auburn Gresham resident, breaks out in front of the house, it is clear that they are not out of their element.

Left to Right:  Mark Shopi & Chris Preddie of Chaos Theory connect with residents from Auburn Gresham.

“This could be any one of the neighborhoods where we work back home,” Mark Shopi, a team member explains, “The scene, the attitudes, their experiences – they’re all very similar to the communities where we work in England.”

The success of CeaseFire internationally relies on understanding these similarities –that violence is a learned behavior and that it is epidemic in nature is not only integral CeaseFire’s philosophy, but instrumental in its intervention.

Zoe Cooprider, of the Global Peace Index, sent us this note.

The Institute for Economics and Peace and Media Tenor have released “Measuring Peace in the Media”, the first study that takes a fact-based approach into understanding the accuracy of international television networks’ coverage of peace, violence and conflict.
 
The results show broad inconsistencies across geographies and networks, with US broadcasters much more focused on violence and conflict than their European and Middle Eastern counterparts. Al Jazeera was found to be the network providing the most balanced coverage on Afghanistan. BBC World led the way when it came to breadth of coverage. It regularly reported on 67 countries across six continents which is nearly twice as many countries as the average level of coverage.

The study analysed 37 TV news and current affairs programmes from 23 networks in 15 countries and then cross-referenced this with the Global Peace Index which measures the levels of peace and violence in 149 countries. BBC 2 Newsnight and ZDF Heute Journal were found to be the programmes whose editorial policies aligned their coverage most closely with the rankings of the GPI.

The World’s Eye on Afghanistan

The report includes a detailed case study on coverage of Afghanistan, which shows that a disproportionate amount of coverage is focused on defence and crime, while neglecting news of progress in critical areas needed to build lasting peace.

CNN International, BBC World and Al Jazeera English all had similar number of reports on the topics that received the most total coverage – warfare, elections, crime and international politics.  However, Al Jazeera had the greatest breadth of coverage, including more coverage on topics which related progress in creating peace. Al Jazeera News was the most positive and had three times as many positive stories as BBC World, and more than eight times as many positive stories as CNN International Desk.

“Regardless of whether the tone of the coverage is positive or negative, it is essential for the media to spend editorial time focussing attention on the building blocks of peace ”, said Steve Killelea, founder of the IEP. “There is always some progress being made no matter how dire the situation. And, when too much media attention is placed on violence and security this reinforces the view that these are the only ways to establishing peace. This runs contrary to what experts tell us about how to create peaceful societies”.

Positive-peace stories make up just 1.6% of the total number of stories examined in the study. These are stories that report on active steps taken to rectify violent situations. Such a small percentage may be partly related to what is considered newsworthy and dramatic, such as high-impact, violent or controversial events. However, the stereotyping of nations which are low on the GPI makes it harder for audiences to gain empathy and therefore to support governments and make headway towards creating peace.

“Informing the public on what will build long term peace and stability is vital to the war on terrorism,” said Roland Schatz, CEO of Media Tenor. “Given the media’s role in shaping and informing public opinion, a robust and diverse coverage of the most important topics is essential.”

You can find the full report here along with interviews on the subject with Amre Moussa, the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, and the World Bank’s Nick van Praag.

For more information, visit www.visionofhumanity.org or www.mediatenor.com

Rebecca Sargent has been a student of peace and conflict for most of the past decade across several disciplines and programs with a goal of life-long education. Read all of her posts here.

In my previous post, I discussed the key concerns that will exacerbate conflict in fragile states during climate change from the Initiative for Peacebuilding’s report on climate change, conflict and fragility. This post will reflect on the policy and adaptation recommendations for reducing conflict risk.

The report outlines five main policy objectives for reducing climate-induced conflict:

1)　 Adaptation needs to be conflict- sensitive

2)　Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proof

3)　Shifts toward low-carbon economies must be supportive of development and peace

4)　Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage climate and conflict risks

5)　Greater efforts are needed to plan for and cope peacefully with climate-related migration

Ensuring these policy objectives requires a fundamental shift in the way institutions are organized and the way inter-linkages between organizations are addressed. Institutions responsible for climate change adaptation need to be structured to maximize the participation of ordinary people and focus at the local level to hedge against uncertainty. This includes disseminating information in ways that ordinary people can understand and utilize.

The first step that is necessary is to undergo a large-scale systematic study of the likely costs of adaptation that includes both the social and political dimensions. This study needs to be done in tandem with thinking about how that money should be used, what governance and institutional changes must be made and considering the role of actors from development and peacebuilding communities, as well as the private sector in adaptation. These sectors must work with existing structures to create more adaptable institutions that are able to draw on shared research, ensure the right people know how to access the right information, interpret the information, communicate it in the field and are able to adapt and evolve to accommodate uncertainty. These new institutions must consider things holistically, by wrapping issues of climate change, conflict and governance, poverty and livelihood all together.

Discovering how power is organized within the current structures will help in the building of new structures that can alleviate the privileged access to economic and political opportunity, and ensure that the provision of goods and services does not become a corrupt money making scheme. Good governance means increased resilience to violent conflict or poverty. In many cases this will mean not merely how are institutions "presently organized (to) meet the challenges of climate change," but rather "how should institutions be organized in order to meet these challenges?" It becomes a case of adapting development to adapt to climate change. Separating development and adaptation funding is fundamentally misconceived as cooperation across and between sectors is necessary for any real chance at success.

Many rich countries will be simultaneously shifting to low-carbon economies to meet demands on climate change adaptability. This shift must be peace-friendly and supportive of the adaptive development happening in poorer countries. For example, a switch to bio-fuel in richer countries caused food prices to rise by 30% in 2008, which directly caused violence in over 30 countries. This type of shift will be counter-productive.　 Migration must also be dealt with in a responsible manner, with immigrants seen as an asset for local society rather than a burden in their new areas.

Internal incentives for receiving funding within existing donor institutions are frequently based around meeting quantitative targets rather than qualitative issues that might be more appropriate. Establishing rules, norms, guidelines and incentives that reward for innovation will better equip a country to manage uncertainty. Large-scale humanitarian responses will be necessary on top of the restructuring.

This report outlined the necessary adaptation needed in fragile states, but completely neglected that of powerful states, which are susceptible to climate conflict as well. One needs only look to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the southern states six years after Hurricane Katrina to know that even rich states are often ill-equipped to deal with weather crises. If these crises are compounded and not isolated to one location within a nation, or result in large-scale destruction of entire areas, even rich states may be unable to deal with the crises that emerge. The expectations in richer states for action is higher, therefore state failure may be reacted to with all the more intense violence. Informing the public of options and creating local structures able to deal with uncertainty are necessary to hedge against this type of crises in richer states as well.

Rebecca Sargent has been a student of peace and conflict for most of the past decade across several disciplines and programs with a goal of life-long education. Read all of her posts here.

The Initiative for Peacebuilding’s report on climate change, conflict and fragility covers policy recommendations and adaptational capabilities that will be necessary to hedge off violent conflict in fragile or weak states.  One needs only see the example of the Haitian earthquake, the current flooding in Pakistan or even the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in the southern US to know that extreme weather can have an effect on peace and security in an area. Whether or not you believe climate change is caused by global warming makes little difference; major weather patterns are currently disrupting areas where peace is fragile at best or where war may already be full-blown. Massive death or displacement of people, combined with state fragility, means overwhelmed security services and government systems, and a lot of angry people who feel completely abandoned.  The impact is felt the greatest among the poorest and most vulnerable members of society who have little means to escape and inequitable access to necessary resources. This inevitably heightens the risk of violent conflict in an area.

Current international negotiations on reducing global warming and responding to climate change almost entirely ignore the aspect of this heightened risk of conflict. Development and humanitarian workers are rarely well informed about the security implications that climate change will have for their work and so adaptation is not being included in long-term rebuilding or restructuring policies within organizations. These potential conflict implications are one of the most compelling arguments for richer states to take serious climate change action as the costs will be massive from loss of life, livelihood and humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping perspectives. Current estimates of costs range from $49 to $380 billion per year by the year 2030, without even taking into account private sector and peacebuilding problems. However, over-stating the conflict dimension can lead to oversimplification and inaccurate perceptions of security which risks overlooking cost-effective and sustainable options in favor of high cost and likely ineffective militarized ones. The key remains in shifting the way institutions are organized, their ability to cope with change and the way they are interlinked with one another.

Managing water supply is vital. Not only is it necessary for human life, but water shortages also affect agriculture causing increased food insecurity, especially for the poor.  The risks to human health from both water borne diseases caused by poor water management and inadequate diets caused by food insecurity will put increased pressure on already strained medical and government resources. Water shortages and food insecurity often lead to violent conflict where poverty, weak governance, political marginalization and corruption reign supreme. Climate change will only exacerbate this problem as already fragile systems become even more overburdened.

Migration of people increases the likelihood of conflict, as newcomers are seen as an unwanted burden that compound social pressures or even transfer conflict from one location to another. Attempting to block immigration with regulations and physical barriers may exacerbate the conflict risk. Migration will be primarily to urban centres, which will increase the strains of maintaining livelihoods and many of the current mega-cities are already in low-lying coastal areas which are at long term risk from rising sea levels. Changing climate will result in the fluctuation of the supply of key resources, which will in turn affect land values and will present money-making opportunities for the already rich and resourceful. Social and economic consequences will not be randomly or “fairly” distributed among the population—in most cases, the rich will get richer while the poor will be the ones to suffer.

Current natural science knowledge is also unevenly distributed and used, with the richer countries having greater access than the poorer countries. Lack of information leads to poor policy making and weak adaptation, which means there is a greater chance of conflict. For example, the UK currently has over sixty different climate change models to work with. Nepal, who has for the past several years been experiencing severe weather changes, has none.

So how can fragile states deal with these inequities and potential conflict risks? In the next post, I will detail the report’s recommendations for adaptation to climate change.