This week’s peace picks
Peacebuilding and corruption get a lot of attention this week. I hope “Frankenstorm” won’t affect too many of the events.
1. Global Corruption: Money, Power, and Ethics in the Modern World, Monday October 29, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, Choate Room
Speakers: Laurence Cockcroft, Michael Hershman, Claudia Dumas, Raymond Baker
Corruption is a key factor in sustaining appallingly high levels of poverty in many developing countries, particularly in relation to the provision of basic services such as education and health. It is also a major reason why increases in the growth rate in Africa and South Asia have failed to benefit large segments of the population. Corruption drives the over-exploitation of natural resources, capturing their value for a small elite – whether timber from Indonesia or coltan from the Congo. In the developed world, corrupt party funding undermines political systems and lays policy open to heavy financial lobbying.
Corruption has to be seen as the result of the interplay between elite ‘embedded networks’, political finance, greed and organized crime. It has been facilitated by globalization, the integration of new and expanding markets into the world economy, and by the rapid expansion of ‘offshore’ financial facilities, which provide a home to largely unregulated pools of finance derived from personal fortunes, organized crime and pricing malpractice in international trade.
This analysis probes beneath the surface of the international initiatives to curb corruption which have evolved since the 1990s. It indicates that there remain key ‘roadblocks’ to real reform which have to be addressed before major progress can be made. These include recognizing that the huge ‘shadow’ unrecorded economy in many countries is a reservoir of corrupt payments, that organized crime is a critical factor in controlling many political systems, that the finance to fund political parties always requires a pay-off which endangers political stability, and that ‘mispricing’ by local and international companies continues to prevent a just return to lower income countries participating in world trade.
RSVP for this event to pbenson@gfintegrity.org.
2. Diplomacy in Conflict: A Panel Discussion of US Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis, Monday October 29, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Elliott School of International Affairs
Venue: Elliott School of International Affairs, 1957 E Street NW, Washington, DC 20052, Room 213
Speakers: Edward Gnehm, David Shinn, Patricia Lacina
In the wake of the tragedies at the U.S. outposts in Libya and Egypt, this event will serve as an opportunity to examine what goes on inside embassies and consulates during times of crisis. The panelists will discuss their experiences in the Foreign Service, the communication flow from leadership to staff on the ground, and other realities of diplomacy in conflict zones.
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Pre-reception
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM Discussion
Register for this event here.
3. From Conflict Analysis to Peacebuilding Impact: Lessons from the People’s Peacebuilding Perspectives, Tuesday October 30, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Venue: Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Rome Building, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, Rome Building Auditorium
Speakers: Janet Mohammed, Teresa Dumasy, James Ndung’U, Robert Parker
Rigorous conflict analysis is essential for all actors operating in settings of violence and social conflict. Many different assessment frameworks are in use by various international non-governmental and governmental institutions working in development, peacebuilding, and governance sectors, including US agencies. But analysis tools and the manner in which assessments are conducted vary widely, with mixed results.
Saferworld and Conciliation Resources are leading NGOs working internationally on programs and policies relating to conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The People’s Peacemaking Perspectives (PPP) project was a joint initiative implemented in close collaboration with a number of local actors and organizations on the ground. Panelists will present the conclusions of the PPP project and implications for US agencies and other institutions working in conflict settings using case studies in Kenya and other contexts. They will illustrate the benefits, success criteria and challenges to taking a participatory approach to conflict analysis.
This special event is co-sponsored by 3P Human Security, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Register for this event here.
4. Third Annual Conference: Preventing Violent Conflict, Wednesday October 30, 9:00 AM – 5:15 PM, USIP
Venue: USIP, 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037
Speakers: Abiodun Williams, Jim Marshall, Nicholas Burns, Deborah Avant, Johnnie Carson, Robin Wright, Moeed Yusuf, Victor Cha, Lawrence Woocher, Michael Lund, Joseph Wright, Michael Lekson, Patrick Meier, Melanie Greenberg, Bertrand Ramcharan, Patricia Haslach, Chester Crocker, John Prendergast
Preventing violent conflict has been high on the agenda of several governments, international institutions, and non-governmental organizations in recent years. Last January, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared 2012 the “Year of Prevention.” These various actors have also taken necessary steps to develop frameworks for designing and implementing prevention strategies, as well as to enhance their institutional capacities for prevention. The justification for this is clear: conflict prevention is preferable to reactive approaches for moral, strategic, and economic reasons.
Yet from Syria to Mali, from Iran to the Korean Peninsula, effective conflict prevention remains an immense challenge. There is a need for a better understanding of how conflict prevention strategies can be applied to country-specific situations. To support this effort, USIP will convene experts and policymakers to discuss challenges and opportunities for conflict prevention around the world at its third annual conference on Preventing Violent Conflict.
The keynote address will be delivered by Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Professor at Harvard University and former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. The first panel will highlight regional challenges in preventing future conflict. The afternoon panel will reflect on the roles and tools available to key prevention actors, including the U.S. government, the United Nations, regional organizations and civil society. This year’s conference includes four concurrent break-out sessions allowing participants to discuss specific challenges facing conflict prevention efforts, including the prevention of mass atrocities, nuclear proliferation, and violent transitions from authoritarianism.
The goals of this event are to spotlight the importance of conflict prevention; address specific challenges facing prevention efforts; and identify priority areas for USIP’s future work on conflict prevention.
Schedule for this event here.
Register for this event here.
5. What the UN Can and Should Do to Fight Corruption, Wednesday October 31, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM, UN Foundation
Venue: UN Foundation, 1800 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20036, Conference Room
Speakers: Frank Vogl, Janine Wedel, Nathaniel Heller
Frank Vogl, a founder of Transparency International, will discuss his new book “Waging War on Corruption- Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power” to begin the conversation on corruption and transparency worldwide. Vogl’s book has received positive reviews from media sources, having already been featured in The American and in interviews with Trust.org and Voice of America.
Professor Janine Wedel from George Mason University and Nathaniel Heller from Global Integrity will follow with brief remarks on the topic before all three speakers invite audience questions.
Please feel free to bring your own lunch to enjoy at this event.
Register for this event here.
6. The Missing Peace Symposium: Sexual Violence in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings, Thursday November 1 through Saturday November 3, USIP
Venue: Attendance by webcast at www.usip.org/webcast or at USIP by invitation only
Speakers: Donald Steinberg, Zainab Hawa Bangura, Jody Williams, Patricia Sellers, Melanne Verveer, Wegger Christian Strommen, Abigail Disney
Sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings is increasingly recognized as a threat to international peace and security. From conflicts in the Balkans to the Democratic Republic of Congo and from East Timor to Guatemala, state and non-state armed actors have used sexual violence against women, men, and children to intimidate and to terrorize populations, and as a means of displacing people from contested territory, destroying communities and silencing victims. As these wars have ended, however, sexual violence often does not end—which, in turn, undermines reconstruction efforts and the transition to more stable, secure, and peaceful societies.
Despite the increased international attention to sexual violence as a weapon of war, including the adoption of UN Security Council resolutions, and important rulings in international criminal courts, initiatives to prevent or mitigate these violent acts continue to fall short. Existing international interventions may lack an integrated understanding of the causes for sexual violence and its implications for societies at large.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute North America (SIPRI North America) will convene a group of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and military and civil society actors to examine the issue of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings, identify gaps in knowledge and reporting and explore how to increase the effectiveness of current responses to such violence.
See the conference schedule here.
7. Military Strategy Forum: The Future of the United States Army: Critical Questions for a Period of Transition, Thursday November 1, 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM, CSIS
Venue: CSIS, 1800 K Street NW, Washington DC, 20006, B1 Conference Room
Speakers: Raymond T. Odierno, John J. Hamre, David Berteau, Kim Wincup
Discussion with General Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army, and Dr. John J. Hamre, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Followed by Q&A with General Odierno, moderated by David Berteau, CSIS Senior Vice President and Director of the International Security Program, and Kim Wincup, CSIS Senior Adviser.
Discussion: 10:30-11:00 a.m.
Q&A: 11:00-11:30 a.m.
Sponsored by Rolls-Royce North America
Dress is business attire or working uniform
Register for this event here.
8. Linking the Caspian to Europe: Repercussions of the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline Agreement (TANAP) for Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the Region, Thursday November 1, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Rethink Institute
Venue: Rethink Institute, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002, Suite 1125
Speakers: Michael J. G. Cain, Rovshan Ibrahimov, Michael Ratner, Fevzi Bilgin
The intergovernmental agreement recently signed between the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey begins the next phase of the Trans-Anatolian natural gas pipeline project (TANAP). The pipeline, which is estimated to cost $7 billion, will transport 16 billion cubic meters of gas each year from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, with most of the gas volumes going to Europe. Deliveries of Azerbaijani gas are expected to begin in 2017, while project planning starts in 2013.
Although the volumes of gas reaching Europe are relatively small compared with the original Nabucco project, TANAP officially opens the coveted “southern gas corridor” to EU states. This corridor will provide Caspian gas directly to European markets not controlled by Moscow or Tehran. Despite the strong backing of the United States for Nabucco across several US administrations, the European goal of weakening Moscow’s resource influence on the economies of the European Union remains a distant dream. Considerations of power politics notwithstanding, European, US and Russian power probably did not ultimately determine Nabucco’s fate. Realist power politics had little role to play. Instead regional political and commercial considerations associated with the smaller TANAP project sealed Nabucco’s fate. TANAP emerged as the preferred pipeline to Europe from the Caspian, because of its local political and economic appeal. This suggests an important lesson for international relations in the 21st century-that regional politics when combined with commercial interests and local market development can trump geopolitical resource competition.
Why did realist politics among the great powers give way to the local interests of smaller regional states? This paper identifies several key internal domestic drivers of TANAP for both Azerbaijan and Turkey to better understand why TANAP prevailed over the much heralded, Western backed Nabucco pipeline project. These domestic factors illustrate how exploiting natural resources and geographic comparative advantages translate into increased political power for each state. The paper also shows how the construction and operation of TANAP will likely accelerate the economic integration of Caspian states while strengthening the economic and political linkages of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia to Europe.
Register for this event here.
9. Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers, Friday November 2, 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM, Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
Venue: Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, 3307 M Street, Washington, DC 20007, Suite 200, 3rd Floor Conference Room
Speaker: Eli McCarthy
Why do many US residents, Catholics and Catholic leaders among them, too often fall short of adequately challenging the use of violence in US policy? Even when community organizers, policymakers, members of Catholic leadership, and academics sincerely search for alternatives to violence, they too often think about nonviolence as primarily a rule or strategy. Catholic Social Teaching has been moving toward transcending the limits of these approaches, but it still has significant room for growth. In order to contribute to this growth and to impact US policy, McCarthy draws on Jesus, Gandhi, Ghaffar Khan, and King to offer a virtue-based approach to nonviolent peacemaking with a corresponding set of core practices. This approach is also set in conversation with aspects of human rights discourse to increase its possible impact on US policy.
Eli McCarthy, author of Becoming Nonviolent Peacemakers: A Virtue Ethic for Catholic Social Teaching and US Policy, will be joining us to discuss his new book and provide insights into these questions.
Register for this event here.
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