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Research Report. Summary of Findings: Engaging Citizens and Communities in Building Peace Project

Authors: 
Jason Calder
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
December, 2012

With the generous support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, Future Generations Graduate School conducted a multi-year investigation of the role of communities and citizens in building peace in fragile states and conflict-affected environments, with particular attention to cases where citizens influenced macro-level changes or "peace writ large." This investigation involved research activities, launch of field trials of a new approach to peacebuilding utlilizing the concept of positive deviance, and a means of global extension of this learning through a new M.A.

Carnegie
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Building the Peace Architecture from the Bottom-up: The Experience of Local Peace Committees in Burundi

Authors: 
Rene Claude Niyonkuru
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
November, 2012

Burundi began an official peace process in 1998, following decades of civil war, ethnic violence, a series of coups d’état, authoritarian rule, and the fracturing of the country’s politics and institutions. Complementing this process were civil society and community-based peacebuilding initiatives that helped to restore trust and confidence among community members, encouraging the peaceful resolution of conflict and the search for reconciliation, justice, and social rehabilitation.

Burundi peacebuilding
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Toward Ethnic Conflict Transformation: A Case Study of Citizen Peacebuilding Initiatives on the 2006 Guyana Elections

Authors: 
Roxanne Myers
Authors: 
Jason Calder
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
November, 2011

Guyana’s 2006 elections were the first in recent history un-marred by post-election violence. Ethnic violence between Guyanese of Indian decent—the majority—and those of African decent occurred with the elections of 1992, 1997, and 2001. While many feared violence would return on a much larger scale, the 2006 elections broke the cycle and provided the space for Guyana to gain political stability, consolidate democracy, attract foreign investments, and focus on development. 

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Community-Led Rural Road Construction in Nepal

Authors: 
Nawang Gurung
Date: 
October, 2010

Read a 22 page report on rural road construction in Nepal by community-based development expert, Nawang Gurung. Beginning with the background of road development in Nepal, this report details the causes of rural road construction mushrooming, the process of construction, the impacts, advantages, disadvantages, cost effectiveness, and a plan forward for community-led rural road development in Nepal.

Community Governance
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Seizing the Moment: A Case Study on Conflict and Peacemaking in Somaliland

Authors: 
Rakiya Omar
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
January, 2010

With the collapse of longtime Somali dictator Mohammed Siad Barre’s regime in 1991, the Somali state disintegrated and left in its wake the prototype of a failed state. Since then its people have endured endless factional fighting, foreign invasions and occupations, the rise and fall of transitional governments, drone strikes from the Global War on Terror, and a rising radical Islamic insurgency known as the Shabaab.

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Grounds for democratic hope in Arunachal Pradesh: Emerging civic geographies and the reinvention of gender and tribal identities

Authors: 
Betsy Taylor
Publisher: 
New Delhi: Oxford University Press
Date: 
July, 2009

This article attempts to understand the possibilities for democratization, sustainable prosperity, equity and multiculturalism in Arunachal Pradesh. It grapples with these wider questions through an analysis of ten years of community mobilization in three tribal areas of the state, from 1997 to 2006. The goal is to understand how democratic public space can be nurtured, expanded and deepened.

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Interview with Bill Carmichael

Publisher: 
Alliance Magazine
Date: 
June, 2009

Bill Carmichael, Chairman of the Board of Future Generations, shares his experience in building the capacity of civil society organizations with the Ford Foundation from 1968 - 1989. Caroline Hartnell interviews Bill Carmichael for Alliance magazine's June 2009 issue focused on philanthropy’s role in promoting democracy and civil society.

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Statebuilding and Community Engagement without Reconciliation: A Case Study of Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program

Authors: 
Aziz Hakimi
Authors: 
Jason Calder
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
March, 2009

Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program (NSP) strengthens and links local governance with community reconstruction through 22,000 Community Development Councils (CDCs) in 359 (of 398) districts in all 34 provinces. With assistance from NGO Facilitating Partners and government block grants, CDCs gain governance capacity and funds to implement projects based on local priorities. CDCs can range in size from 10 to 30 members and should be equally divided between men and women (with separate men’s and women’s sub-committees permitted where an integrated CDC is not possible).

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People’s Participation in Conflict Transformation: A Case Study of Jana Andolan II in Nepal

Authors: 
Bandita Sijapati
Authors: 
Social Science Baha
Publisher: 
Future Generations Graduate School
Date: 
February, 2009

A decade-long Maoist insurgency in Nepal killed more than 10,000 people. In 2006, a Seven Party Alliance (SPA) reached a 12-point understanding with the Maoists toward a common goal of ending the rule of King Gyanendra, reinstating parliament, and opening elections to all parties for a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution.

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The Case of Guyana

Authors: 
Calder, Jason
Date: 
July, 2008

Guyana's 2006 general and regional elections were the first in recent history un-marred by post-election violence. The polls of 1992, 1997 and 2001 were each followed by several months of heightened insecurity, injuries and deaths from public violence and ethnically motivated attacks on citizens, and loss of property to arson, provoking fears of a return to the ethnic rioting that killed hundreds in the 1960s. The non-violent response to the 2006 outcome was generally unexpected and some believe it could herald more peaceful coexistence in a country long divided by ethnicity and politics.

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