Next up in our interview series is Paul van Zyl, a recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship for co-founding the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an award-winning organization which assists countries pursuing accountability for past mass atrocity or human rights abuse.

1. What is the innovation you have pioneered? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?

The innovation behind ICTJ was recognizing that there are lessons available globally about how societies confront a violent past, and that there is a need for an institution that facilitates access to this information and helps societies adopt best practices and strategies. Once those strategies are adopted, it is critical to get the same actors (victim groups, civil society groups, actors responsible for the transitional justice policies, etc) to help implement and execute those policies in their societies. Prior to the creation of the ICTJ, there wasn't a clearinghouse or mechanism for this.

Continuing our interview series, Ashoka Peace interviews Daniel Lubetzky, serial peace entrepreneur who is creating new models for bridging the for-profit and non-profit worlds, and showing our peacebuilding can be financially sustainable.

1. What is the innovation you are pioneering? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?

What we like to do is to build models where business and social interests are totally aligned and reinforce one another. It is not easy to do.  A lot of the area of “corporate social responsibility” is structured around perceived sacrifices to the bottom line in order to address other important societal objectives.  The fun stuff comes when you are able to innovate through ventures whose financial and social objectives reinforce one another. 

Guest blogger Derek Brown is Executive Director of the Peace Appeal Foundation. In this two-part blog entry, he describes the state of the art in the field of peacebuilding as we leave behind an extraordinarily conflict-ridden decade and enter a new and hopefully more peaceful one.

Exploring Touchstone's "If": The State of Peacebuilding - Part 2

(Click here to read Part 1 of this essay)

The need for skilled, sustained, on the ground peacemaking, working with political leadership to develop new alternatives in conflicts remains acute. Historically, technical advice in this arena was provided sporadically by international diplomats (and occasionally independent solo practitioners), who often parachuted in and out of conflict zones, with mixed results. Today we recognize the need for more robust, comprehensive initiatives that can address the adaptive complexity of our world’s most challenging conflicts.

Guest blogger Derek Brown is Executive Director of the Peace Appeal Foundation. In this two-part blog entry, he describes the state of the art in the field of peacebuilding as we leave behind an extraordinarily conflict-ridden decade and enter a new and hopefully more peaceful one.

 Exploring Touchstone's "If": The State of Peacebuilding - Part 1

“Your If is the only peacemaker, much virtue in if” - William Shakespeare, As You Like It

As Shakespeare’s fool Touchstone noted four centuries ago, peacemaking requires the exploration of the possible. Peacemakers challenge us to look at the world as it can be: What if violence was not the means we choose to resolve conflict? What if we recognized the grievances of our enemies, What if...? This insight applies as much today as it did in Shakespeare’s time.

How to promote the exploration of “if” is then the central question all peacemakers. How do we equip and aide ourselves and others in conflict with the knowledge, material and human resources - be they ideas, insights, skills, relationships, funding, arguments, or institutions that can lead to peaceful relations?

Photo credit: Guineanews.org

Everyday in the news Afghanistan is tagged with words such as "war", "terror", "killings", "explosion", "bomb" and many other destrutive terms. Rarely, if ever, do we see positive news about Afghanistan, particular that coming directly from civil society. This is why the 3D Security Initiative's "Video Tour of Peacebuilding in Afghanistan" is so critical to the peace building field - it's the most positive news coming out of Afghanistan that I've seen in quite some time. 3D recently published a set of 11 videos that highlight peace building initiatives throughout Afghanistan, including educational peace and conflict programs, individual-led peace projects, civil society organizations, and a new Afghan website dedicated to peace building, all initiated and led by Afghans in Afghanistan. You will be both inspired and comforted to hear from these changemakers.

For more on-the-ground peace solutions led by Afghanis check out these Ashoka Fellows working in Afghanistan.

The United Nations Democracy Fund invites civil society organizations to apply for funding for projects to advance and support democracy. Project proposals may be submitted on-line between 16 November 2009 and 31 December 2009 at www.un.org/democracyfund, where applicants can also find guidelines, FAQs and lessons learned from previous rounds. Only on-line applications in either English or French will be accepted.

This is the Fourth Round of Funding to be launched by UNDEF, which was established by the UN Secretary-General in 2005 as a United Nations General Trust Fund. UNDEF funds projects that strengthen the voice of civil society and help ensure the participation of all groups in democratic processes.

The thematic categories for applications are:

• democratic dialogue and support for constitutional processes;
• civil society empowerment, including the empowerment of women;
• civic education and voter registration; 
• citizen's access to information; 
• participation rights and the rule of law in support of civil society; 
• transparency and integrity.

The selection process is expected to be highly rigorous and competitive, For the Third Round, fewer than 70 project proposals were selected out of more than 2,100 received.

Toilets that don’t flush. Showers without water.

Those aren’t things one would think are hindering peace and stability. After all, it seems implausible that something so small could be a piece of the complex puzzle that is war.

Yet in Guinea-Bissau, a small West African country The BEFORE Project is currently working in, this is an indication of something much larger: the relationship between the government and the military.  Throughout Guinea-Bissau’s 35-year history, the military has played a key role in the civilian governance. Unfortunately, this role was not always conducive to civil society development as action sometimes came in the form of military over-throws of civilian governments.

In the first of a series of posts on or by organizations not supported by Ashoka, yet whom we believe are doing interesting and innovative violence prevention work, guest blogger Ruairi Nolan describes the work of Peace Direct and it's program Insight on Conflict.  

Founded in 2004, Peace Direct has applied the energy and freshness of a social entrepreneurship organisation to the challenge of supporting local peacebuilders in doing the work they want to do. Our aim has been to find innovative peacebuilding groups who have not yet reached the stage where they can apply for funding or support themselves. The conscious parallel has been with the way in which a venture capitalist might invest in early-stage, high-growth potential companies. Underlying all this has been the belief that local people offer the only sustainable option for long-term peace in conflict-affected societies.