CIC continues its longstanding commitment to prevention strategies with a new project that focuses on the operational elements of preventive action. Focus in the past several years has been predominately on more long-term structural aspects of conflict prevention, such as those strategies that address developmental and institutional concerns and promotion of good governance so, in theory, conflict will not occur. However, since certain conflicts are inevitable, the Operational Conflict Prevention project aims to better understand the political aspects of prevention by analyzing the kinds of decisions and political choice sets which actors in a conflict situation face. These include critical decisions about the role of the police and military, the justice system, power and wealth sharing, as well as wider considerations of a conflict’s history, economy and internal political dimensions. CIC seeks to determine those choices which have the greatest effect on a potential conflict, the motivations behind such choices, and the impact that preventive diplomacy can have on the outcome of these choices—which can ultimately determine a pathway either to war or peace.
Determining these factors will enable CIC to identify how external actors, such as the UN, can positively influence the incentive structures and strategies of these domestic political actors. This research will allow CIC to emphasize the UN’s capacities in comparison to regional organizations and to make recommendations about the creation of more effective and collaborative conflict prevention initiatives between international and regional institutions.
CIC's Global Peace Operations program is assisting the Department of Political Affairs with drafting the forthcoming Secretary General's report on optimizing the use of preventive diplomacy with the UN and in cooperation with other actors. DPA has also asked CIC to assist with design and implementation of a pilot methodology to measure the impact of its preventive diplomacy engagements, including those undertaken in cooperation with other regional and sub-regional actors. Building on the current state-of-the-art in program evaluation, CIC will design and undertake the pilot process to measure the impact of DPA mediation and political intervention activities at critical stages in recent case studies. This will include identification and analysis of available data, and setting up an ongoing monitoring system at the working level for DPA to track its performance.
In past work, CIC has undertaken a study on UN political actors in conflict prevention with the support of the UN’s Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Government of Sweden, and contributed to the UN’s Report of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Armed Conflict. With this project, CIC will work with DPA and the Mediation Support Unit on the development of case studies and workshops.
Project Staff: Jake Sherman,Richard Gowan, Elsina Wainwright
Funder: UK Global Conflict Prevention Pool, Ford Foundation |
