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Priya Parker has worked in India, Africa and the US on peace-building and social-innovation. Read all of Priya's blog posts here.

In my last blog post I wrote about the Afghan peace jirga held in June.  One idea that was put forth in President Karzai’s peace proposal was to pay insurgents not to fight. Like any interesting idea, not only is the devil in the details, but it’s also in the implementation.  Apparently the Iraqi government has experimented with a “cash for loyalty program” and at least according to some accounts it “turned the tide” in the country.

What would have to happen for this to work?

•    Incentives must be aligned.  The government would have to figure out a way to make subscribing to this program attractive to citizens who are otherwise fighting for primarily economic reasons.  The government would have to structure the program, including pricing, delivery, and timings of payments in such a way that meets and surpasses the opportunity cost of joining the Taliban. 

•    Given that it’s a government program, how would they avoid corruption, leakage of payments, or inadvertently funding the Taliban? In any cash transfer program, it is commonly known that leakage happens.  In India, for example, a country that struggles with corruption, Rajiv Gandhi once famously estimated that only 15% of development aid reaches the poor.  How would the government secure such payments, particularly when funds could strengthen the fighting forces?

•    Would it cause a price-war between the Taliban and the government? While it sounds a bit strange, by paying someone not to fight it both acknowledges that as an important choice, but it also commodifies the action.  If the Taliban knows the government is paying a certain amount not to fight, perhaps the Taliban could just pay the same people more.  

•    How would they safely transmit money?   Perhaps through mobile payments. 

•    If they have funds to pay people not to fight, what else could they pay them to do?  Work brings dignity as well as something to do during long days.  Perhaps the government can also pay Afghans to work or help with security projects. 

•    How would one guarantee they didn’t fight anyway? 

Do any readers know of any other examples of governments paying citizens not to fight in a civil war? 

Thanks to onlinedegrees.net for listing Ashoka Peace as one of the "50 Best Blogs for Following Human Rights News".

See the full list here. It will show you "not only how you can help protect under-served or persecuted communities, but also how you can apply your new understanding of the world to society and business back home".

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Ashoka Peace interviews Esra'a Al Shafei, founder and Director of MidEast Youth.

AP: What is the innovation you have pioneered? What are you doing that nobody else is doing?

ES: At Mideast Youth, we leverage the power of new media to facilitate our struggle against oppression in the Middle East and North Africa. We're driven by our passion for civil engagement, freedom of speech, and employing innovative solutions to these pervasive and persistent human problems. Relying on open source platforms like WordPress and Ruby on Rails, we began experimenting with community-based sites, widget applications, Facebook applications, Twitter applications, Google map apps, iPhone and BlackBerry applications as well as comics, video animations and infographics that document and expose human rights violations against ethnic, religious, sexual and intellectual minorities in the region. Aside from building our own websites and tools, we also provide free hosting, development, and design to organizations and free speech advocates throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Our latest projects include Mideast Tunes, a platform profiling and connecting underground musicians using music as a tool for social change, and CrowdVoice.org, user-powered service that tracks voices of protest from around the world. In total we operate 15 campaigns, but support the development of hundreds throughout the region.

AP: What's the biggest challenge you are facing right now?

ES: We are facing three main challenges. The first one is state censorship, and us constantly having to find better ways to easily bypass it. The second one is our personal security and the security of our authors and activists. Finally, our struggle to find interesting models to financially sustain our work. This has been hard because we really believe in the free services that we provide, and every new tool or application that we build, we wish to make completely open source. But we're spending the next year exploring ways to can monetize our upcoming projects.

AP: At what point in your life did you realize that you simply had to do this? What was your personal turning point?

ES: Increasingly frustrated in my early college years by the prejudicial stereotypes throughout media of Middle Eastern youth – a portrayal unanswered because of censorship and state control of media in the region - I turned to my keyboard to respond with my own voice, to show not only the diversity of ethnicities, religions, and cultures in the region, but also the diversity of opinion, fervor, ideals, hopes, and politics; to prominently portray in the global discourse Middle Eastern youth in all our depth, our feelings, and our complexity. The moment I started using the web I knew it had promising potential, the opportunities provided were limitless. I knew right then that I had everything I needed to turn my vision into reality, so I started right away.

AP: How do you know you’re being effective? (i.e. affecting social change)

ES: Mideast Youth has had a pronounced effect on the conversation in the region and beyond. We don’t see our success only in numbers of readers, but in the add-on effect down the line. Most of our efforts are dedicated to aiding others in setting up successful web campaigns. We know some governments are threatened by our work as many have tried to block our efforts by censoring our content. We know that millions of people are aware of our message, primarily due to the growing amount of media coverage we are generating worldwide as we raise controversial issues otherwise not covered by the press in our countries.

Read more about MidEast Youth here.

Given that the world's most-watched sporting competition - the football World Cup - just concluded, we'd be remiss if we didn't have at least one post relating the World Cup to peacebuilding.

And this heart-warming story comes from one of our own Ashoka Fellow organizations, Search for Common Ground. On their blog, they tell the story of how one of the world's best footballers, Ivory Coast's Didier Drogba, attempted to unify his very fractured country. Read the blog post here, and the full story here.

This story highlights again the extraordinarily influential role that athletes play in their respective countries, and perhaps also reveals that they could be doing a lot more, especially if we asked. What do you think can be done to involve more great athletes and other societal role models in the quest to end violent conflict?

PS: For an example of an Ashoka Fellow who uses football as a way to build a better world (including more peace), read about the work of Jurgen Griesbeck's streetfootballworld, which is also involved with FIFA and the World Cup.

Nick Martin is the Founder of TechChange and Executive Director of the US Association for the University for Peace (UPEACE/US). Read all of Nick's blog posts.

On June 24th my new organization TechChange co-hosted an event with the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) entitled: Can You Help Me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding In Afghanistan. The event featured panelists who were country experts on Afghanistan, members from the Afghan telecommunications company Roshan, policy makers from the US department of State, Department of Defense and USAID, and a number of technology for development innovators.

According to the representative from Roshan, just over half of all Afghan homes had mobile phones as of 2009—44 percent in rural areas—and one percent of Afghans are now using text messaging to get news at least once per week. Some 1.2 billion dollars is being poured into Afghanistan’s Telecommunications industry, which sees over 12 million mobile users—a dramatic increase from 150,000 users in 2007.

This was the first time so many distinguished key players had been assembled to explore this issue and it was really fascinating to see the interplay among individuals from these different sectors. For another post about the event by one of my colleagues at TechChange on our blog, click here.

TechChange will be working with USIP to produce a detailed follow up special report on the many themes and action items that emerged. But there were two working examples that I thought were particularly relevant to the intersection of peace and social entrepreneurship:

1. Community-level social entrepreneurship for cell tower security: the representative from Roshan shared a story about how the cell phone company originally thought that the best way to protect cell towers in zones of conflict was to increase numbers of armed security guards. This model proved to be expensive and ineffective so they shifted from a security model to a community engagement model. Roshan decided to let the community members take control of security. In exchange, Roshan shared the excess power generated by their solar-powered towers with surrounding homes and businesses and developed a revenue sharing model with the community so that if their towers were operational they saw a percentage of the profit.  This proved to be hugely successful for both the company and the community. I think this kind of model for corporate-community financial and security interdependence is an exciting one with lots of potential to help bring peace through social entrepreneurship. The key though is that companies must have confidence support these strategies.

2. Afghanistan mobile banking pilot projects: Mobile banking is a critical practice that can make a huge difference in restoring stability to Afghanistan. This mobile technology allows users to withdraw money, pay bills, buy groceries through e-currency, etc. Pilot projects have not only eliminated significant corruption but also reduced intermediary time and resources needed to transfer money, handle payroll and provide security.  After listening to her speak I couldn’t help but think of many ways providing financial inclusion to the very poor has huge potential for citizen driven social entrepreneurship to take hold. 

My next few posts will highlight different emerging and ongoing technical efforts that grow from social entrepreneurship beginnings to effectively build peace. So stay tuned!

Looking for a new way to get your news? CrowdVoice is a new online platform that generates up-to-date and often overlooked news stories from local voices around the world, particularly the Middle East and North Africa. These are voices of struggle and protest. By bringing together the global community with topics that might not necessarily be covered by mainstream media, CrowdVoice provides a platform for freedom of expression in areas of oppression around the world. It also connects us at a personal level with one another's daily struggles by seeing what people really want to share. The content is user-powered - the submitted information is chosen and approved by the community. Finally, CrowdVoice helps us to become better informed about a topic, outside of mainstream coverage.

Issues covered by CrowdVoice include: Censorship in China, Human Rights Violations in Suddan, Protests over Fuel in India, Prisoners of Conscience in Iran, Israeli raid on Gaza flotilla, and others. Pick a "voice" and see what people on-the-ground are saying about it. Then post your own images, videos or links to add your own voice. You can also follow or spread stories. Or "request a voice", i.e. submit your own issue and begin to crowdsource around this topic. Instead of checking traditional news, video and social networking sites, consider CrowdVoice for updates on issues that matter to you.

Guest blogger Zoe Cooprider of the Institute for Economics and Peace highlights some of the findings from this year's Global Peace Index.

As the global economy continues to falter, this year’s Global Peace Index (GPI) shows an intensification of conflicts and growing instability linked to the downturn that began in 2008, with several countries seeing sharp increases in homicides, violent demonstrations and fear of crime. The release of this fourth annual Global Peace Index generated hundreds of articles around the world, including in The Guardian and in Bloomberg.

The increase in violence is depriving the global economy of assets when they are needed most. A 25 percent reduction in global violence would free up $1.8 trillion USD annually - enough to pay off Greece’s debt, fund the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and meet the EU’s 20-20-20 climate and energy targets.

The only study to quantify global peacefulness, the GPI is produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). This year it has expanded to rank 149 independent states. Composed of 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators, it combines internal and external factors ranging from military expenditure to relations with neighboring countries and levels of violent crime.

Commenting on the results, Prof. Jeff Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University said: “The GPI continues its pioneering work in drawing the world’s attention to the massive resources we are squandering in violence and conflict. The lives and money wasted in wars, incarcerations, weapons systems, weapons trade, and more, could be directed to ending poverty, promoting education, and protecting the environment. The GPI will not only draw attention to these crucial issues, but help us understand them and to invest productively in a more peaceful world.”

Taking a fact-based approach to studying peace, the GPI is a valuable resource for scholars, researchers, business leaders, policy analysts and philanthropists alike. In an increasingly interconnected world, realizing greater levels of peace will enable us to address the challenges of the 21st Century. Peace used to be the domain of the altruistic, but today, it is in everyone’s self interest.

Watch this terrific short video below on why peace is good for profits:

For more information visit The Global Peace Index. You can also click here to read the discussion paper, results report and find press releases in 12 different languages.

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking the first-ever academic course on Technology and Peace. Taught by Ashoka Peace blogger Nick Martin at the University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica, the central focus of the course was the role that emerging "social technologies" such as cell phone applications, social media, and video games can play in building a more peaceful world.

The course mixed both working professionals and UPEACE students, who ranged widely in terms of familiarity with using these new technologies. Studying at the beautiful and calming UPEACE campus was a highlight. See here for a review of the course, what it covered, and student feedback.

My favorite aspect of the course was how the instructor inculcated new technologies into the pedagogy itself. He replaced books and readers with flashdrives, used TED Talks instead of academic papers for the course reading, and used class time for live demonstrations of these technologies (an Ushahidi simulation, a global Twitter chat, playing video games) rather than lecturing, of which there was very little.

Following on from the class, Nick's pioneering new venture - The Institute for Technology and Social Change (TechChange) - is going to pilot a suite of new tech-based courses, which I believe will begin to seriously disrupt the traditional ways of teaching and learning for development and peacebuilding students and professionals. This will be a major new contribution towards shaping the field of peacebuilding. (Follow TechChange's growth here.)

I recently came across an interesting program of UNICEF's that involves incorporating children's voices into reconstruction efforts in Haiti. Through drawing, children are encouraged to envision a better surrounding environment. Their drawings are then being used as a tool for developing proposals for reconstruction efforts, from cleaning up trash in camps, to designing schools, to improving lit areas for increased security for girls.

In post-earthquake Chile, UNICEF is supporting a traveling 'Caravan of Happiness', which includes cinema, musical numbers and 'laugh-therapy' sessions. The project's mobile support team will travel to about 50 affected cities, targeting some 30,000 girls and boys. This initiative arose in part from a UNICEF-commissioned study which found that 93 percent of children in the quake-affected region show signs of emotional stress. Among the activities, clowns that play soccer while riding a unicycle are raising the spirits of children during an uncertain and distressful time.

The Haiti program was organized by UNICEF's Global Movement for Children along with World Vision, Plan International, Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages International and CARE. It excites me that development organizations like these are using strategies similar to those adopted by social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs have found that including community voices in future development projects ensures the sustainability of such projects. For example, to create the most useful public toilets for communities, Ashoka Fellow David Kuria taps into the creativity of the local population to generate architectural ideas for the facilities. The theme of his workshops is, “Think beyond the toilet,” to encourage participants to develop their ideas. The participants first draw their ideal facilities. Then David’s extensive experience and advanced understanding of structural design allow him to advise the community about practical considerations for the space and the available resources.

The strategy of 'clowning' is also used by social entrepreneurs. Ashoka Fellow Wellington Nogueira took the idea of the transformative power of humor and applied it with ground-breaking success in the Brazilian context. His organization, called the Doctors of Joy, uses clowns to work with hospitalized children, their families, and with doctors and nurses, thereby bringing a human element into hospice care. Wellington's fundamental idea is to make the clowns available to children, so that they can regain control over their own lives and bodies, an element that is frequently lost in the often invasive and traumatizing process of a hospital stay.

Whether it be health care, public sanitation, reconstruction efforts after natural disasters or other contexts, there are common strategies in social change work which seem to work across the board. Integrating community voices in development projects and taking advantage of the power of humor are just two of many strategies leveraged by social entrepreneurs and other social change organizations.

The United Nations mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) is hosting a Twitter discussion on Technology and Peace tomorrow, Friday June 17th from 1:00 - 2:00 pm EST. Use the #TechChange hashtag on twitter to join the conversation. More information can be found here.

The discussion will address the following three questions:

1. How can emerging technologies best be used to build peace?

2. What ideas do you have for applying existing technologies in news ways to create peace?

3. How do we maintain the human or personal aspect needed to build peace in an increasingly technological world?

Hope to see you there!

Did you know that we live in a country where 48 percent of Americans hold an unfavorable opinion of Islam? (ABC/Washington Post poll 2009) Many people see mainstream Islam as advocating for violence against non-Muslims; the misunderstandings that exist towards Muslim populations are vast and they have negative implications for the wellbeing of civil society. (For other stats on misunderstandings between mainstream Americans and Muslims go here.)
 
Alex Kronemer, founder of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF), recognized the direct correlation between tension and xenophobia towards Muslim populations, and the lack of familiarity with these populations. After releasing their first film, Muhammmad: Legacy of a Prophet, UPF saw individuals and groups, both muslins and non-Muslims, around the world viewing and discussing the film, and building personal relationships around this emerging dialogue and debate. Alex and his colleagues recognized a fundamental power in film that they had not witnessed before. 20,000 Dialogues emerged from the insight that film has an amazing potential to facilitate positive dialogue about Muslims and Islam, and to ultimately build bridges of understanding. 
 
Why film for interfaith work?
1) Films get people talking (everyone has an opinion) and they are low barrier (no one needs to be an expert to watch).

2) Dialogue breaks down barriers: Discussing a film is a practical, meaningful way of helping people share ideas and build new perspectives.

2) New perceptions turns into action: Equipped with the right tools and resources, people will want to get involved with a cause and share their experience with others – and the ripple effect begins.
 
How does UPF measure its impact?
A major challenge in using film for social change is measuring its social impact. UPF does it through measuring attitude shifts. After researching how the popular media portrays Muslims, it identifies key areas of misunderstanding. Across these areas, UPF measures participants’ attitudes before and after they watch and discuss a film. Participants have shown a substantial shift in understanding as a result of the 20,000 Dialogues experience. Over 80 percent of participants rate the experience as highly effective in breaking down stereotypes towards Muslims.
 
You can run your own dialogue
View 20,000 Dialogues' award-winning films and choose one to screen in your own community. Check out 20,000 Dialogues resources to learn how you can run your own dialogue in your school, church, or even your living room. UPF empowers you from promoting and publicizing, to facilitating your own dialogue, to evaluating the program.
 
For more information contact Daniel Tutt at daniel@upf.tv

Priya Parker has worked in India, Africa and the US on peace-building and social-innovation. Read all of Priya's blog posts here.

I’ve been watching the events of the peace jirga that was held this past week in Kabul with interest.  UK Foreign Minister David Miliband mentioned this planned national consensus building process at his talk last month at MIT that I blogged about here.

This past week, at the invitation of President Karzai, about 1600 Afghan delegates and 200 foreign dignitaries met at Kabul’s Polytechnic University to consult on President Karzai’s  proposed peace plan and suggest ways to bring peace to Afghanistan. 

As the events unfolded, it is clear that while there is cause for hope, there are more problems with the process than solutions.  That said, a few interesting initiatives have been put forth by President Karzai, including a cash-for-loyalty program that would include paying insurgents to denounce Al Qaeda and the Taliban and stop fighting. 

What is the jirga?
A jirga is a traditional consensus-forming process among a tribal assembly of elders.  President Karzai promised a peace jirga last November in his inauguration speech to attempt to gather support for his peace plans.  This week, delegates met for three days in Kabul and the meetings included an address by President Karzai (during which the Taliban bombed the premises but very fortunately no delegate was hurt), sub-meetings in which the delegates were divided into 28 different sub-committees to suggest ways to bring peace and comment on the 156-page peace plan, and other speeches. 

While parts of the process attempted to follow a traditional jirga process, certain changes were made, including appointing the chairman of the jirga, rather than voting him in, something that has been hotly contested. 

Positive aspects of the Jirga process
•    Using traditional indigenous practices to address conflict rather than imported practices.  The Afghan leadership was wise to attempt using traditional processes to address the conflict.  Both South Africa, in their Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Rwanda in their use of gacaca courts, developed indigenous ways to address their conflicts.  While both of these processes addressed post-conflict reconciliation (rather than bringing about peace talks like is presently happening in Afghanistan), they used traditional methods to address their grievances and to gain buy-in from their citizens.  
•    Attempting to address national problems through dialogue and consensus building.  While there are problems with the way the jirga was conducted (the Taliban and most of the Opposition party are absent), attempting to include major parts of the population in facilitating peace is a necessary complimentary process to the ongoing conflict. 
•    Symbolically powerful.  In the same way mapping peace efforts in Kenya bring attention to those who want peace, publically demonstrating a large gathering of diverse delegates who want peace is an important step for Afghans. 
•    In-country.   It is important for a gathering like this to be able to be hosted in the home country, rather than abroad as many efforts end up doing for security reasons.  It is also important to host such a gathering on neutral ground and the site of this jirga, a university in Kabul and the location of the previous 2002 Loya Jirga, accomplished that.  However, it was a huge government security failure that the Taliban was able to penetrate and attack the gathering. 
•    Small group discussions and reporting back.  Though the entire delegation including around 200 foreign dignitaries was about 1800 people, the organizers gave time to break up into small discussion groups.  These groups had time to go over the peace draft and submit recommendations to the Afghan government.  Breaking up into smaller groups provides a much-needed opportunity for more members to talk and discuss and have more of a dialogue, rather than just listening to a speaker. 

Negatives
•    Too many relevant players not involved.  While the organizers attempted to include a wide-variety of Afghan society, both the boycott by the Opposition and not inviting the Taliban makes it difficult to build consensus among the relevant players.  While the administration attempted to involve a cross-section of society, without the involvement of the parties who are most against the government, a peace process will likely prove fruitless. 
•    Huge security breach.  Many of the delegates are knowingly taking massive community risks by participating in the jirga.  For one thing, the Taliban has already threatened to kill anyone who participates.  While participants in any dialogue process are responsible for making their own decisions to participate and bear the consequences afterwards, they must at least be assured of their security during the process.  The fact that the Taliban was able to breach the security and set off bombs during President Karzai’s opening address is extremely unfortunate and breaks the trust of the safety of such a process. 
•    Too big and too small.  It is extremely difficult to have a national consultation process with 1600-1800 delegates.  Even by breaking into 28 smaller groups, the average group size will still be about 60 delegates.  An ideal dialogue group is between 12 and 18 people, and it is unlikely in a group of 60 that many people had a chance to speak. 
•    Appointments of jirga leadership rather than elections.  In the closing day the Afghan government announced the appointment of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani as the Chairman of the National Consultative Peace Jirga.  There was concern among the participants that the Chairman was not a neutral appointment and not chosen by the delegates.  The role of the chairman of a process like this is extremely important.  If all parties do not perceive the head as a respected, neutral and fair member, then the legitimacy of the process can be questioned even before it begins. 

Suggestions for moving forward
•    Take the recommendations proposed by the delegates seriously, assign a timeline, and show public benchmarks on their implementation.  While officially this jirga was a “consultative process”, the Afghan government would do well to publically share the major recommendations of the delegates and demonstrate a commitment to the consideration and implementation of each.  The government should offer a timeline and public benchmarks to show its commitment to the process well after the 3-day jirga has passed. 
•    Follow-up with smaller working groups.  The National Consultative Peace Jirga should develop smaller working groups from cross-sectors of society to continue to work with the government on the report and its implementation.  For these working group meetings to be effective, participatory and inclusive, they should be limited to groups of 15-20 in a room.  In dialogue, less is often more. 
•    Backroom dialogues with trusted representatives appointed by the opposition party and the Taliban.  If not already doing so, the Afghan government should host track 1 ½ dialogues in which citizens that hold the trust and respect of the opposition party and the Taliban (but are not its current leadership or member) should engage in a dialogue with the government to determine ways forward.  It is often difficult to give any concessions on either side when in the public eye.  Without some buy-in from these important groups, any peace gained will not likely be a lasting peace. 
•    Find public forms of accountability for follow-up.  To legitimize the jirga the government should regularly update the public on its progress and find public forms of accountability (such as television interviews and more public forums) to increase public trust and buy-in to this process. 
•    Think seriously about how and whether to involve the Taliban in peace talks and at what cost.  The government seems to be caught between a rock and a hard spot in that the US government won’t agree to peace talks with the Taliban until they lay down arms and the Taliban won’t engage in peace talks until “all foreign troops” leave Afghanistan.  Regardless of the timing and the conditions of the talks, the government and the Afghan people need to seriously consider under what conditions they will allow the Taliban to re-enter politics.  If the Taliban, for example, would want to forbid women from attending school again, or implement other aspects of its earlier regime, for the price of peace, the Afghan government and people need to have a serious conversation around what they are willing to give up for peace, or at least, an absence of violence, as the case may be. 

During the Q&A session last month with Foreign Secretary David Miliband, I asked him whether this jirga would be a one-time event a sustained process, and what plans there were for follow-up.  He indicated that there would be follow-up, but wasn’t clear on who or how or what.  In any of these processes, much attention and money is placed on the one-time event and much less so on follow-up.  To see whether or not this jirga was indeed cause for hope, the bulk of the work still remains in the follow-up and implementation phases. 

Guest blogger Josh Gryniewicz is Grants and Contracts Specialist at CeaseFire.  

In many ways, this is a story about what didn’t happen.

As a respected Shī‘ah anniversary date approached, representing a divergence in religious thinking with the Sunni, tensions in Basrah, Iraq were high. A date reserved for reverence historically triggered violent clashes. Anticipating the conflicts the Basrah Anti-Violence Campaign (BAVC), a replication of the CeaseFire violence prevention health model, went into action. Using social marketing and public health communication strategies, BAVC launched targeted messaging around the anniversary to interrupt the potential for violence. BAVC conflict mediators visited mosques, clerics and tribal leaders to defuse simmering tensions before they erupted.

The campaign was successful. Tribal warfare did not ignite. Feuds did not spill out into the street. Family homes were not torn apart by gunfire or bombs. So in many ways, this is a story about what didn’t happen, and since January 2009, CeaseFire’s Iraq-based implementation has prevented 105 violent incidents. 

CeaseFire is a violence prevention health system. It re-envisions violence as a public health issue rather than a moral one. In the parlance of epidemiology it detects and interrupts all potential transmission of violence, determines those who might transmit next and reverses the transmission potential, and changes community norms. On-the-ground this translates to recognizing the significance of events like the Shī‘ah anniversary date and their inherent potential for violence. It means sending highly-trained conflict mediation specialists into the community to visit mosques, clerics, tribal leaders and community influencers and recruiting them to the cause. It means coordinating a culturally-specific social marketing campaign with focused messages.

For the model itself Iraq is a proof-point. While it has earned favorable results since first being launched in 2000, this has primarily been applied to urban violence in the United States (an independent evaluation demonstrates its tremendous Chicago impact), but it had previously been untested overseas. Proof of its effectiveness in a different cultural context lends enormous credibility to CeaseFire’s underlying theories. In short, that violence is an epidemic and can be treated with disease control methods.

This success has received some attention. A case statement on the Iraq-based implementation will appear in a Center for Disease Control & Prevention book slated for publication mid-summer. Dr. Gary Slutkin, founder and executive director of CeaseFire and an Ashoka fellow, presented the Iraq-based program at the World Bank for a workshop on “Evidence-Based Approaches to Violence Prevention.” This discussion focused on strategies that are effective for reducing and preventing violence worldwide with Dr. Slutkin sharing how the CeaseFire intervention can be addressed to international conflict areas. This recent interview with Dr. Slutkin from Next Billion.net further elaborates on the intersection between economic development and conflict internationally.

In this post, guest blogger Roberto Lorente discusses connections between microfinance and conflict prevention.

Microfinance is nowadays widely recognized as a powerful tool for combating global poverty by giving micro-entrepreneurs access to small loans and other financial services to which they usually would not have access. But how about its potential as an instrument for preventing violent conflict? This post will concentrate on Paul Collier’s theory about the economic causes of civil conflict, and how microfinance could potentially address these issues before a violent conflict breaks out.

In his paper “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy”, Collier states that there are two ways of looking at the causes of civil conflict. On one hand, there is what he calls the “popular perceptions of the causes of conflict”, which see rebellion as a fight against injustice, hence motivated by grievance. On the other hand—and this is the point of view he defends—there is the economic theory of conflict. It argues that the factors which ultimately determine whether a country will experience civil war are not related to grievance, but rather depend on the potential for a rebel organization to sustain itself financially.

Collier lists a series of risk factors which, as he argues, determine the likelihood of a civil war to break out. Here’s a short summary of these factors:

Natural Resources: Countries with a substantial share of their income coming from the export of primary commodities bear a higher risk for civil conflict.
Geography: It is more difficult to control a highly dispersed population than one in a small area.
History: If a country recently had a civil war, the risk of further war is very high (40% chance of further war).
Diaspora: Countries with large diasporas in wealthy countries bear a higher risk than countries with small diasporas (36% vs. 6%). Diasporas harbor rather romanticized attachments to their group of origin, they are much richer than the people in their country of origin and can therefore afford to finance vengeance, and they do not suffer any of the awful consequences of renewed conflict as they don’t live in the origin country.
Economic opportunities: i.e. the higher the education level, the lower the risk; the higher the population growth, the higher the risk; the higher economic decline, the higher the risk.
Ethnic and religious composition: Risk of conflict doubles if one dominant ethnic group constitutes between 45% and 90% of population. By contrast, ethnic and religious diversity makes a society much safer.

Microfinance can certainly not influence on geographic conditions and the recent war history of a country, on the size of its diaspora, or on the ethnic and religious composition of its society. Where it actually could have a positive impact is on the economic opportunities and maybe, to a lesser extent, on a country’s primary commodity export dependency. Access to microfinancial services can certainly contribute to a deceleration of economic decline and to economic growth.

Further, the influence microfinance can have on the level of education is not be underestimated. On one hand, it gives families a higher financial independence and allows them to send their children to school rather than to force them to child-labor in order to help sustain the family. On the other hand, many MFI’s do not only provide microfinance services, but also transformational training covering topics such as basic business skills, budgeting, leadership, communication, and civic responsibility. And if fostering social entrepreneurship leads to economic diversification, this could even result in a shift in the GDP, lowering the share of primary commodities exports.

Microfinance is certainly not the instrument for preventing civil war. But it can be considered a helpful contribution to positively impact some of the risk factors that Collier outlined.

One result of Lebanon's civil war was an undermining of sectarian diversity among the country. Violence forced people to be confined to their villages, with few opportunities for interaction with other communities of varying religious sects. As borders and checkpoints were dismantled, psychological barriers remained and people stayed confined to their small towns. As a result, generations have grown up self-identifying solely with their town, village or tribe and countless youth have never set foot among Lebanese communities with different backgrounds from their own.

One result of this isolation on youth is a significant focus on ethnic and religious differences as opposed to an emphasis on a collective youth Lebanese identity. Unable to relate to others from different backgrounds, youth lack a national unity and are disconnected from their common land, history and heritage. As conflict prevails in Lebanon’s post-civil war era, a number of initiatives have attempted to build peace and unity through conflict resolution, while others have led programs aimed at preserving Lebanese heritage. However, none combine the two approaches to build peace and solidarity among youth by linking them to their common history.
 
Ashoka Fellow Joanne Bajjaly (shown above) is a pioneer in using heritage as a tool for building citizenship and harmony in post- conflict countries where confessional divides and psychological barriers around identity prevail. Her work targets Lebanese youth in three ways: First, she organizes school trips to sites of national heritage to acquaint children with their history and their fellow citizens from different backgrounds. Second, she provides extracurricular activities to complement and enrich in-school history classes, with rigorous teacher training to implement these activities. Last, Joanne trains and coaches local tourist guides and professional archeologists on using her tool kits and methodology to make heritage sites alive to their clients. By combining all three approaches, Joanne has provided the first integrated model to build a national identity in post-conflict countries through exploring heritage.

To date about 5,000 students from international schools, public schools and orphanages have discovered another face of Lebanon through Biladi, Joanne's social enterprise.

Joanne's model is applicable to countries such as Iraq, Sudan and the Balkans, which remain dominated by ethnic and confessional divides. Joanne will also adapt her model to countries, such as Egypt, where tension prevails as people place religious identity before national identity. Her approach can also be replicated in other countries where cultaral heritage is often undervalued among citizens, such as Egypt and Jordan.

Find out more at Biladi.

Romina joined Ashoka in 2005 and works for Ashoka’s Youth Venture, primarily supporting and creating a strong global movement of young changemakers around the world. Read all of her posts here.

Ashoka’s very own Ryszard Praskier recently co-authored an article on the role of social entrepreneurship in conflict. The article, Social Entrepreneurs and Constructive Change: The Wisdom of Circumventing Conflict presents new strategies when working in the field of conflict. The article argues that social entrepreneurs have the ability to be much more successful in conflict areas because they are able to use new and creative approaches that  shift the focus away from the actual conflict.

Rather than addressing the conflict at hand, they choose to circumvent it by identifying new areas of interest, which the authors refer to as "attractors," which have the ability to create a more cooperative setting and thus making the conflict less relevant. For example, Ashoka Fellow David Kuria from Kenya avoided focusing on the long-lasting conflict around sanitation between the Nairobi-Kibera slum communities and the authorities, and instead directly engaged all stakeholders to imagine what their “dream toilets” would look like. In doing so, he triggered a commitment by all parties and created a community project in which everyone had a stake. By focusing on community business development, he led the way to cooperation and created an increased openness to new initiatives within the community. The authors present several other strong case studies of social entrepreneurs and their strategies from around the world.

What’s great about this article is that each individual case study is compared with a traditional approach to the conflict, making it easy for the reader to identify the differences between the different  approaches and results. The idea of circumventing conflicts isn’t necessarily new and there are a number of similar stories from around the world. For example, in the mid-nineties in Cyprus, peace builders used comparable methods to bring people with common interests together to address common challenges. However, the case studies presented in the article describe how the social entrepreneurs on the ground focus on building strong social capital that in turn allows them to achieve a higher level of trust and cooperation. By circumventing the conflict, they succeed in building a “positive feedback loop” between their initial success and the reinforcement of social capital.

The article is a refreshing new piece and great addition to the field.

Ashoka's Director of News & Knowledge, Keith Hammonds, has written a fascinating blog post describing how social media in Thailand has played a critical role in bringing emergency response assistance and other kinds of help to people caught up in the recent violence.

But, as Keith points out,

What’s remarkable about exchanges like this is that they’re no longer remarkable. They happen all the time, all over the world. People seize on a panoply of media tools – there were at least five used here – to nimbly bypass traditional communications barriers.

He goes on to look at the future of such efforts, which could include the building of an infrastructure to really help this approach take off. Read the whole post here.

Ashoka Peace has featured various stories on conflict mapping and peace mapping, but this online mapping tool is a bit different. The Global Voices Advocacy platform takes advantage of the explosion of information communications technology to support the profession of citizen watchdog around human rights issues. Global Voices Advocacy seeks to build an anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online.

Their tools for bloggers and online activists include:

1.    The Access Denied Map provides an overview of online censorship efforts related to the social web and major web 2.0 websites.

2.   In the Blog for a Cause Guide (available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese) read about how to circumvent internet filtering, anonymous blogging and effective uses of Internet-based tools in campaigns for social and political change.

3.    2.0 Tools for Digital Advocacy include geo-bombing, best uses of cross-posting, and search engine optimization for advocacy.

Check out the authors behind Global Voices Advocacy and read their articles related to online activism and censorship.

At the recent TEDxAshokaU event, one of the speakers was Bernard Amadei, an Ashoka Senior Fellow and the founder of Engineers Without Borders-USA at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Bernard's talk was about the role of engineers in social change, including in peacemaking. The entire talk is brilliant (and I highly recommend it) but the relevant section on peacebuilding is minutes 8:30 to 10:35.

"Stop talking about peace", Bernard cried out. He quipped that many peace-related events "talk about peace endlessly, all day long, until you're not peaceful anymore". 

Instead, we must focus on water, sanitation, energy and other critical social problems in conflict zones. Peace is an outcome.

In Cyprus later this year, Engineers without Borders is bringing together engineers from Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Macedonia to discuss engineering solutions to the problems in these regions. Bernard also discussed the Abraham Path Initiative and his involvement in it.

Watch the talk. If you're an engineer, this could change the way you see your role in society. 

Check out the most recent news hit on Ashoka Fellow Gary Slutkin, founder of CeaseFire. We recently blogged about him, but also want to share this recent op-ed on Gary in the New York Times: "Upending Twisted Norms."

In the piece, Bob Herbert reminds us of the power of normative violent behavior: “Most inner-city youngsters are not violent, but nearly all are touched by the violence in one way or another. The main problem is the acceptance of murder as normal behavior by so many inner-city young people.” Herbert also alerts us of the cost-effectiveness of running programs like CeaseFire in inner cities. The Cease Fire model is a great example of the benefits of social innovation to long term societal change.