Past Events

Innovations in Peacebuilding in South and Southeast Asia

The Kathmandu Symposium

November 16th - 18th 2016

 

“Innovations in Peacebuilding” is a two-year research, dialogue, and policy project that explores innovative ways in which international organizations, donors, governments, and local non-governmental organizations conduct activities aimed at conflict prevention and management, peacebuilding and reconciliation.  The project engages local and international peacebuilders and government and regional entities that conduct peacebuilding activities with a view toward enhancing research-to-practice relationships across a wide range of levels. 

The project explores this research question: How do international norms of human rights affect mobilization dynamics in local settings in conflict-affected countries, and what are the implications for peacebuilding practice and effectiveness?  The project methodology includes new empirical research on Nepal and South Africa – two commonly cited peacebuilding successes – together with regional research on South and Southeast Asia, East and Southern Africa, and Latin America in order to generate cross-national findings.

The project – supported by a joint research grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – features partnership between the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, Norway, the Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative (NPI), and the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), South Africa.  During the course of the project, three regional meetings will be organized to share findings and assess policy implications. The first symposium, which focuses on the Asian region, will be held in Kathmandu on 16-18 November 2016.

Goals of the Kathmandu Symposium

To bring together case-study authors, thematic specialists, and policy practitioners from key countries in South and Southeast Asia to:

  • Share and advance knowledge on rights-based peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries in the region, focusing on the interactions between global human rights frameworks and social mobilization at national and sub-national levels in the case-study countries
  • Present in-depth case studies from Nepal, Myanmar and southern Thailand together with contributions from experiences in other Asian countries;
  • Identify and examine the effects of new actors in peacebuilding, particularly those movements and organizations that work within a human rights framework, to assess the effects of such mobilization and advocacy;
  • Explore innovations in peacebuilding practice, especially rights-based approaches that may surmount or minimize dilemmas that associated with friction between “insiders” and “outsiders” in peacebuilding contexts; and
  • To derive findings from research on peacebuilding in the region that offer promise for wider adoption or adaptation to help manage and resolve conflicts.

Additional logistical information can be found here.

 

This event is being organised by the following organisations

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