Draft WORKING DOCUMENT
For Day Conference, 21 November 2001, at International Alert

"Contributing Civilian Personnel to Peace Operations: 
Is there a need for a UK Civilian Peace Service?"

ENHANCING UK CAPACITY FOR HANDLING CONFLICT:
THE RATIONALE FOR A UK CIVILIAN PEACE SERVICE

Tim Wallis and Mareike Junge, Peaceworkers UK

Draft version 12/11/01

Acknowledgements
This is a draft document produced as background material for the day conference on 21st November at International Alert. It will be revised for publication and wider distribution, and any comments or corrections to the text should be sent to Peaceworkers UK, 162 Holloway Road, London N7 8DD, email: info@peaceworkers.fsnet.co.uk.

We would like to thank the following for helping with the research and commenting on earlier drafts: Susan Seymour, Rosemary Bechler, Scilla Elworthy, Simon Rynn, Kate Barron, Sian Lowe, Becky Hemmings, Henry Wai, Steve Whiting, Teddy Milne, Peter Cross, Christine Schweitzer, Andrew Rigby. Responsibility for any errors remains, of course, with the principle authors.

Finally, we would like to thank the following funders who enabled this research to be carried out over the past 11 months: Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation, Allen Lane Foundation, W F Southall Trust, Peaceworkers USA. 

ENHANCING UK CAPACITY FOR HANDLING CONFLICT: 
THE RATIONALE FOR A UK CIVILIAN PEACE SERVICE
Tim Wallis and Mareike Junge, Peaceworkers UK

Executive Summary

Meeting the challenge of violent conflict
The need to find better ways to deal with conflicts before they cause enormous harm and destruction is well recognised. Governments around the world are developing policies and strategies for the prevention of violent conflict, but in the end it takes people on the ground to implement these policies. This means having a pool of people with skills and experience across a whole range of areas relevant to the handling of conflicts at an early stage. Such a pool could draw on the many people already experienced in handling conflicts here in the UK, and especially in Northern Ireland. 

Handling conflict: a theoretical framework
Many of the tools and techniques for handling conflict are for use by people directly involved in a particular conflict, but there are useful roles which outside parties can play in support of the local effort. These range from 'peacekeeping' tasks - protecting local people so that they can carry out their own work - to 'peacemaking' tasks - acting as outside intermediaries when communication between local parties is impossible - through to 'peacebuilding' roles of training and supporting local groups who are trying to deal with their own situation. Many of these tasks are highly specialised while others require very little in the way of specialist skills or experience. In between is a whole range of different levels at which useful contributions can be made in this field.

Current international requirements for civilian personnel
Recent developments within the EU, the OSCE and the UN have highlighted the increasing use of civilian personnel for a range of tasks in this field. The EU's current focus is on providing specialists in 'civilian administration', 'civil protection' and 'rule of law', while the OSCE has emphasised areas such as 'democratisation', 'human rights', 'media development' and 'elections'. The UN needs civilian personnel additionally in the areas of 'de-mining', and 'demobilisation'. NGOs are employing people for 'monitoring', 'observing', 'accompaniment', 'mediation', 'facilitation', 'training' and 'capacity-building' tasks. Many of these roles relate more to post-crisis than to pre-crisis situations. If the emphasis is to be on crisis prevention, many more people may be needed to fill additional roles.

Existing capacity: UK recruitment, training and deployment
The UK government currently seconds civilian personnel to EU, OSCE and UN missions through the Foreign Office. NGOs handle their own recruitment but also supply some contract staff to the above bodies. Apart from in a few specialist areas, most vacancies are easily filled. Yet many consider existing 'needs' to be a drop in the ocean compared to what it would take to effectively prevent many of these conflicts in the first place. For meeting this wider need, there is a largely untapped resource of skills and experience throughout the UK, and especially in Northern Ireland. There are a number of academic courses and training opportunities to introduce people to this area of work, but few which provide people with the skills to face the practical realities and challenges that they will experience in these situations.

Enhancing capacity: the 'civilian peace service' model
The aim of a 'civilian peace service' is to enhance capacities for handling conflict, through more coordinated approaches to the recruitment, training and deployment of civilian personnel. The German Civil Peace Service currently trains and deploys around 70 'peace professionals' a year and has a budget of around £6 million, funded entirely by the German government. Other Civil Peace Services operate differently, but with similar aims, in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Sweden. In Norway, Denmark and Ireland the governments have highly effective civilian 'rosters' for emergency deployments to crisis situations, and several countries have training programmes specifically for preparing civilian personnel for peace missions with the UN or OSCE. 

Towards a UK Civilian Peace Service
Examination of the different civilian peace service models in Europe provides a useful starting point for exploring how we could enhance capacities for handling conflict here in the UK. Most UK NGOs working in this field agree that more coordination and cooperation could help to increase the effectiveness of civilian deployments in conflict situations. There is a concern, however, that increasing civilian capacities should not be at the expense of standards and quality control in the field. A comprehensive framework of vocational qualifications could help to open up this field to new people and enable them to contribute at many different levels while at the same time ensuring that minimum standards are maintained. Additional training capacity in the UK could further enable quality standards to improve, while more funding for NGO work in this field could enable much more to be done, especially in pre-crisis situations, where the emphasis is on prevention.

Outstanding Issues and Options

1.	Is there a need to develop a UK Civilian Peace Service along the lines of some of the other European countries?
2.	What should such a service look like? Should it be NGO-based, government-based or some sort of combination of the two?
3.	How should we proceed with this idea? Should an NGO working group or 'consortium' be established to drive the concept forward and offer an NGO-driven concept to the UK government?
4.	Is there a need for such a consortium to try to define this field, develop occupational standards and/or work on other related issues? 
5.	Should some aspects of this idea be developed independently of whether or not a UK CPS is pursued - for instance, the creation of a central database of training and employment opportunities in this field?

ENHANCING UK CAPACITY FOR HANDLING CONFLICT: THE RATIONALE FOR A UK CIVILIAN PEACE SERVICE

1	Introduction: Meeting the Challenge of Violent Conflict	1
1.1	The Deadly Statistics of Conflict	1
1.2	The Importance of Prevention	1
1.3	From Policy Measures to Personnel Requirements	3
1.4	Increasing the pool of available skills and experience	3
2	Handling Conflict: A Theoretical framework	5
2.1	The ABCs of Conflict	5
2.2	The Limits of Outside Intervention	7
2.3	Civilian Peacekeeping: Reducing Levels of Violence	8
2.4	Peacemaking: Contributing to Peaceful Settlements and Relationships	10
2.4.1	The Process of Conflict Resolution	11
2.4.2	The Process of Reconciliation	12
2.5	Peacebuilding: Tackling the Root Causes of Conflict	13
2.5.1	The Economic Dimension Addressing the imbalance of opportunities among different groups	14
2.5.2	The Political Dimension: Addressing the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance	15
2.5.3	The Social Dimension: Addressing the need for an active and organised civil society	16
2.5.4	The Cultural Dimension: Addressing the peaceful conciliation of group interests	17
2.5.5	The Security Dimension:  Addressing the legacy of violence	17
2.6	Working for Peace on Many Levels	18
3	current international requirements for Civilian Personnel	20
3.1	EU Targets for Civilian Crisis Management	20
3.1.1	European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM)	22
3.1.2	European Civilian Peace Corps	22
3.2	The OSCE ‘REACT’ Scheme	23
3.3	UN Requirements for Civilian Personnel	25
3.3.1	United Nations Volunteers	26
3.4	NGO Use of Civilian Personnel in the Field	27
3.4.1	NGO Peacekeeping Activities	28
3.4.2	NGO Peacemaking Activities	28
3.4.3	NGO Peacebuilding Activities	30
3.5	Civilians on the Front Line of Crisis Prevention	30
4	Existing Capacity: UK Recruitment, Training and Deployment	32
4.1	Recruitment of Civilian Personnel by the UK Government	32
4.2	NGO Recruitment of Civilian Personnel	33
4.3	Training and Education in the Peace and Conflict Field	35
4.4	UK Expertise in Handling Conflict: The Untapped Resource	39
5	Enhancing Capacity: The 'Civilian Peace Service' and Other Models	40
5.1	The 'Civilian Peace Service' Concept	40
5.2	The German Civil Peace Service	40
5.3	European Variations on the CPS theme	42
5.3.1	Austrian Peace Service	42
5.3.2	Civil Peace Corps, Italy	43
5.3.3	Civil Peace Service, France	44
5.3.4	Civil Peace Service, Switzerland	45
5.3.5	Civil Peace Teams, The Netherlands	45
5.3.6	Peace Team Forum, Sweden	46
5.4	Civilian Stand-by Rosters	46
5.4.1	NORSTAFF and NORDEM	46
5.4.2	Canadian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights, CANADEM	47
5.4.3	Southern African Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights, SAFDEM	47
5.4.4	Other European Rosters	48
5.5	Civilian Training Programmes	48
5.5.1	Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Stadtschlaining	48
5.5.2	Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy	49
5.5.3	German Federal Foreign Office, Training for International Missions	49
5.5.4	Proposal for a European Training Centre, Finland	50
5.6	Conclusions: Strengths and Weaknesses of Existing Models	51
6	TOWARDS A UK CIVILIAN PEACE SERVICE	53
6.1	Enhancing UK Capacity for Handling Conflict	53
6.2	Cooperation and Coordination in the Field of Peace and  Conflict Work	53
6.3	Establishing Standards and Assessing Competence	55
6.4	Recruitment and Stand-by Arrangements	57
6.5	Training and Education	59
6.6	Channeling of Funds	60
6.7	Where Next?	61
7	Glossary of Terms As Used in this Report	62
8	REFERENCES	66
9	APPENDICES	70

1	
1	Introduction: Meeting the Challenge of Violent Conflict
1.1	The Deadly Statistics of Conflict
When President Bush announced, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, that the 'first war of the 21st century' had begun, he was apparently unaware that at least 25 wars were already underway. The scale of suffering and destruction caused by war and armed conflict is unfathomable, and yet this is just the tip of an iceberg of violence that begins in the home and extends to school playing fields, city streets and neighbourhoods, right through to civil wars and global conflict.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at least 2.3 million people have lost their lives as a result of violent conflict since the end of the Cold War in 1991. Since the end of the Second World War, as many as 22 million people have been killed by armed conflict. The vast majority of these have been civilians and three-quarters of them were from the world's poorest countries. The total numbers of people affected by conflict is much larger: in July 2001, the UN High Commission for Refugees was attempting to look after 21.8 million refugees and internally displaced people. Many millions are made homeless, destitute or unemployed by conflict every year, and the social, political and psychological impact of these conflicts can last for generations, reversing decades of economic progress and impeding future development in some of the world's poorest countries .

"The effect of [violent] conflict upon development is catastrophic," states DFID in its 1998 White Paper on Conflict and Development. Unless such conflicts can be brought under control, the prospects for reaching poverty reduction targets, especially in sub-Saharan Africa are very poor indeed. In addition to the enormous human and economic destruction visited upon those directly affected by conflict are the human and economic consequences to the international community, which in many cases must pick up the pieces afterwards or even try to intervene militarily. 

The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict estimated that military interventions in seven conflicts during the 1990s cost the international community over $200 Billion. The Commission claimed that concerted international efforts to prevent those seven conflicts might have cost the international community less than one-third that amount and could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention the homes and livelihoods of millions.
1.2	 The Importance of Prevention
In order to prevent violent conflict it is essential to have an understanding of the causes of conflicts and how they develop and escalate into major crises. Those hoping to prevent crises must also have at their disposal a whole range of appropriate responses to different sorts of conflicts and different aspects of those conflicts as they go through the various stages of their development. 

In addition to the 25 'major' conflicts currently raging across the globe are at least 70 'low intensity conflicts', many of which could escalate into 'high intensity conflicts' if not contained and defused beforehand. Many of these conflicts have been going on for decades at this 'low level' of violence, for instance in Northern Ireland or the Basque Country. Others are much more likely to ignite into large-scale violence at any time, such as the conflicts currently brewing in parts of Indonesia, the Philippines and in many other parts of the world.

Below the level of 'low intensity conflict' are scores of conflicts classified as 'Serious Political Violence', in which at least 25 people have been killed. And below this level are many more violent or potentially violent conflicts that arise at some level in every society - street fights and gang warfare, demonstrations and strikes, racist attacks... Most of these never escalate beyond a fairly minor level of violence, but if we are to make a serious contribution to the 'global culture of prevention' (see below), we must address the need for handling conflicts even at this comparatively low level of violence. 

A great deal of work has been done in recent years to identify conflict 'indicators' and early warning mechanisms that alert the international community to potential crises. As many have said, however, it is not early warning that is needed, it is early action. The warnings are there, in the form of human rights abuses, ill treatment of minorities, autocratic regimes, inequalities and injustices of every kind…

The Problem Recognised
At the Gothenburg summit in June 2001, EU Heads of State committed themselves to a European 'programme' for the prevention of violent conflict: 

"The international community has a political and moral responsibility to act to avoid the human suffering and the destruction of resources caused by violent conflicts… In line with the fundamental values of the EU, the highest political priority will be given to improving the effectiveness and coherence of its external action in the field of conflict prevention, thereby also enhancing the preventive capabilities of the international community at large. 
"Conflict prevention calls for a co-operative approach to facilitate peaceful solutions to disputes and implies addressing the root-causes of conflicts. It is an important element of all aspects of the external relations of the European Union… The European Union, through this programme, underlines its political commitment to pursue conflict prevention as one of the main objectives of the EU's external relations. It resolves to continue to improve its capacity to prevent violent conflicts and to contribute to a global culture of prevention. "
Achieving such an objective will take considerable effort and resources, even if these are minuscule in comparison to those required if we fail to reduce violent conflict. It will require ingenuity and a breadth of responses that go way beyond the immediate 'knee-jerk' military and humanitarian responses with which we are accustomed to handling such situations. But it is not outside the realm of possibility that governments will support - and pay for - such efforts.

The British government, for instance, has instituted at the Cabinet Office level a coordination of conflict prevention efforts of three departments; DFID, the FCO and the MOD. This includes a joint Conflict Prevention Fund of £110 Million for 2001, with promises of more in future years. These developments suggest more than just a token gesture towards the prevailing language of prevention, but the fine words must now be translated into effective action.
1.3	From Policy Measures to Personnel Requirements
A number of governmental and non-governmental bodies have identified policy measures needed to tackle violent conflict more effectively. But to be effective, these need translating into personnel requirements and job descriptions. Very little work has been done in this area so far, despite the mammoth efforts of organisations like the Conflict Prevention Network (CPN) to define causes of conflict and specific measures to address those causes.

The CPN has, for instance, divided the four 'root causes' of conflict as defined by the European Council in 1998 into 16 'problem areas' and has then broken these down into 131 concrete 'measures' that could be undertaken in different situations to reduce the likelihood of violent conflict. These include things like 'support training for civilian ministry of defence officials', 'support weapons collection programmes', 'support civil education classes for ex-soldiers', 'support human rights training for police', 'send EU human rights observers', 'support mediation training for local NGOs on grass-roots level', 'support voter registration'… 

Other lists and descriptions of tools and measures for the prevention of violent conflict have been produced by the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee, the Field Diplomacy Initiative and Creative Associates International.

But who will do all these things? What do words like 'support' mean, unless it is people who can deliver something concrete on the ground? Of course the ideal is that local people are funded to do them, but in many cases they do not have the capacity. It may also not be safe in many situations for local people to initiate such activities, or even to be seen getting the financial or political support of an outside institution like the EU. The reality is that crisis prevention requires in most cases a certain amount of outside intervention, even if this is only to build up the local capacity or to provide protection so that local people can do the work. 

The logical next step in the development of a crisis prevention agenda is to identify the roles and functions required to carry out the measures needed to prevent violent conflict, and then to find and train and deploy the people who can fulfil those roles and functions in particular situations. 
1.4	 Increasing the pool of available skills and experience
Once conflict prevention measures have been defined more concretely in terms of personnel requirements, people with the appropriate skills and experience need to be found to do the work. This is not a straightforward task, since this is still a relatively new field. The numbers of people currently with the appropriate skills and experience in this field is small in comparison with those in the humanitarian or development fields. Increasing this pool means drawing upon new people who may have little or no international experience.

But there is a pool of people with domestic experience of handling conflict. The question is how much can they contribute to international work? In Northern Ireland there is a particularly rich pool of experience in this field, as a result of 30 years of conflict there. People who have been working on the Northern Ireland conflict are increasingly being asked to share their experience with people caught up in conflicts in other parts of the world. 

There are also people graduating every year from courses in conflict resolution, peace studies, development studies, human rights courses. There are people trained and experienced in community mediation, human rights law, policing issues, work in local government, work with social services, youth services, probation services - all with skills potentially relevant to dealing with the sorts of situations arising in some of the most violent situations in the world - and certainly relevant to the kinds of pre-crisis situations that must be addressed if we are to prevent violent conflict.

1	
2	Handling Conflict: A Theoretical framework
2.1	The ABCs of Conflict
Understanding Conflict
Conflicts come in all shapes and sizes and no two conflicts are the same. Nevertheless a great deal of research over the last 50 years has shown that conflicts of all sorts do follow familiar patterns, and what we have learned about conflict generally can be applied, within reason, to an understanding of specific cases. Although there are clearly huge differences in scale, motivation and execution, there are also important similarities between relatively minor conflicts taking place at home, on the streets, in the workplace or school playing field and major national and international conflicts and war. Many of the same skills and techniques that are used at the local level can be applied at the international level, and most of the principles described below apply to both. 

One of the great pioneers of peace research, Johan Galtung, proposed in the 1960s a way of looking at conflict which identifies three basic 'aspects' of conflict and three corresponding 'strategies' for dealing with them. His 'conflict triangle' (see Figure 2.1 below) has been refined and modified by many other conflict analysts since then, and much of the current thinking on conflict does not refer to this model. Nevertheless, Galtung's original conception remains highly relevant to the task of trying to define different kinds of work required for the handling of conflict and the different kinds of skills and personalities required to do that work, so this is the model followed here.
The problem of terminology
The first problem one encounters when trying to describe the work done in this field or the thinking behind it is the problem of terminology. Almost every term is used in different ways by different authors and there is a great deal of confusion surrounding many of these terms because of this. The glossary section of this report defines how we are using the most important terms in this report and describes some of the variations in the usage of each. Wherever possible we are following the most common usage, but this is not always easy as there are so many inconsistencies and overlappings of meaning. 

Nowhere is this problem more evident than in the use of the three central terms of this chapter: peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding. The term 'peacemaking' has evolved little since its use in Biblical times, whereas 'peacekeeping' is a concept invented in the 1950s, and 'peacebuilding' is a term still evolving and in much more common use today that when it originally formed part of Galtung's 'triad' of conflict strategies. 
The ABC conflict triangle
Galtung suggested that all conflicts have three major aspects, or components. First of all there are the attitudes (A) of the conflicting parties, which tend to become more and more hostile towards each other as the conflict escalates. In order to finally reach some sort of settlement of the conflict, the parties must first change their attitudes and perceptions of each other. This, broadly speaking, he defined as the process of peacemaking.

Attitudes in conflict situations are very much affected by the behaviour (B) of the belligerents. Escalating degrees of violence make it more and more difficult to see the mutual benefit of ending a conflict. Therefore it is essential to find ways of tackling the violence itself in order to de-escalate the situation and enable the peacemaking process to develop. Galtung defined this as the task of peacekeeping.

Finally, there is the matter, or matters, over which the conflict is being waged, or the causes (C) of the conflict. This is the objective reality to which the conflict relates, and without tackling that reality, changes in attitudes and behaviour will not be sustainable. Tackling the actual causes of the conflict is what Galtung defined as peacebuilding.
	
		Figure 2.1: The Conflict Triangle

					        C - causes 
(tackled by peacebuilding)

A - attitudes		    B - behaviour
			(tackled by peacemaking)  	   (tackled by peacekeeping)

							Johan Galtung (1969)

If a conflict contains all three of these aspects, then it follows that all three approaches to peace work are important. Peacekeeping is often a pre-condition to peacebuilding, creating a safe environment in which to do the important long-term work. But peacemaking must also go hand in hand with the other two in order to create and sustain the will to have peace and to reach a political settlement that can begin to de-escalate the situation.
The Different Stages of Conflict
Conflicts generally pass through well-recognised stages, including the very early stages of incipient or 'latent' conflict which may be brewing for years before manifesting into a pre-crisis stage. This is the stage during which attitudes harden and options are closed, until the open conflict, or 'crisis' stage of actual hostilities. Finally there is at least one post-crisis phase, often a precursor to the next conflict and the cycle starting all over again. From the point of view of peace work, these stages correspond to the work of conflict prevention in the pre-crisis phases, crisis management work during the crisis stage, and post-conflict reconstruction work in the post-crisis phase.

These terms are often confused with peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The assumption is made that these strategies are tied to particular phases of a conflict. For instance, peacekeeping can be considered a precursor to peacemaking and peacemaking a precondition of peacebuilding. But if we reserve the latter terms for describing different types of conflict intervention, it can be seen that they may be applied at different stages of a conflict. There can be 'preventative peacemaking' just as there can be 'post-conflict peacekeeping' or 'crisis stage peacebuilding', even if in most cases they will follow on from each other in a fairly chronological pattern.  

Figure 2.2: Stages of Conflict	

					Cease-fire agreed

		Escalation of				       Settlement
		Violence					reached

 PRE-CRISIS PHASE		      CRISIS PHASE		     POST-CRISIS PHASE
(conflict prevention)		(crisis management)	        (post-conflict reconstruction)

2.2	The Limits of Outside Intervention
All the approaches described in the previous section can be undertaken, in theory, by people within a conflict as well as by those who come from outside. Endogenous (or 'partisan') peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding work is done by those who live in the conflict zone and are, however remotely, 'parties' to the conflict. Exogenous (or 'outside party') peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding is carried out by outsiders who are not party to the conflict. Although this cannot be a hard and fast distinction, there are critical differences between the ways insiders and outsiders may approach a conflict and use the handling conflict tools at their disposal.
 
The basic principle underlying all peace and conflict work is that, ultimately, it is up to the people involved in a conflict to resolve or manage it in their own way. Only the actual parties to a conflict can enter into negotiations to resolve their differences or deal with the process of healing past wounds and forgiving those who caused them. 

The most that outsiders can do is to support and empower and enable the parties to do these things. In asymmetric conflicts, where one party does not have to respond to the other unless it so chooses, outsiders can play a crucial - but extremely delicate - role in pushing the more powerful party to address the issues of the less powerful. In symmetric conflicts, outside third parties can also play a vital role in creating an environment in which the parties can reach a settlement with each other. 

There are many roles which outsiders can usefully play in most situations, but there are also many limitations to those roles. Attempts to impose settlements on the conflicting parties and to take over the running of their affairs have almost always proved counter-productive. It is now well-established policy in the development field that local people must have ownership of the development process and must define what it is they want or need from outside parties. This is even more fundamental to peace processes, but NGOs working in this field have yet to agree a set of common principles for how outsiders should relate to local people in conflict situations.

In defining relevant areas of work for outsiders in conflict, utmost attention must be paid to this issue, because there are deep-seated suspicions in many quarters about the value of 'peace-loving do-gooders' and 'war tourists' who arrive in zones of conflict to 'help'. Issues of professionalism and competence are also relevant in this regard, but the primary issue has to do with defining the work that is appropriate for outsiders to play in such situations. This will be explored in the following sections.
2.3	Civilian Peacekeeping: Reducing Levels of Violence
Peacekeeping is aimed at dealing with the violence that is normally associated with serious political conflict. It does not address the need for the parties to see each other as human beings in order to reach some sort of agreement, and it does not address the substantive issues over which the conflict is being fought. Peacekeeping is traditionally thought of as something done by the military, involving foreign troops coming in under the UN flag to keep the combatants apart. But there are many methods that can be used to deter and stop violence, and only the most extreme of these would imply a need to use military force. Below are a set of civilian tools for peacekeeping.
Presence
The fundamental basis of all peacekeeping is the presence of people from outside the situation. These observers may do absolutely nothing except 'be there', but the simple fact of their presence can have a powerful dissuasive effect on the willingness of people to engage in acts of violence. This is such a simple concept it is hard to believe that more is not made of it, but the fact is that many people (not all, certainly, but enough to make it worth trying) will not engage in acts of violence if they know someone is watching them. There are obviously many other factors potentially involved in this phenomenon, but it is possible that in many cases, anybody watching will have this effect - they don't have to be in military uniform, they don't have to have a gun, they don't have to be representing the United Nations or another government, they don't even necessarily have to be foreign, they just have to 'be there'. 

Monitoring
One step up from the mere presence of 'passive' observers is the use of monitors. Monitors are not just there as a presence, but are engaged in 'active' observation - recording, reporting and disseminating information about what is happening, ideally from a neutral, outside, respected position. Monitors are used for many different situations and require specialist skills to know what to look for and how to report it. Monitoring can be a very effective way of deterring violence by holding people accountable for their actions and providing evidence, where necessary, of what may have happened. This may have even more of a deterrent effect on activities of military and paramilitary forces once the International Criminal Court comes into force and individual soldiers and commanders can be charged for war crimes no matter where they may be. There are also emerging possibilities with computer technology and the internet for both passive and active observations to be broadcast instantaneously around the world, thus adding to a new dimension to the fear of 'being seen' to engage in acts of violence.

There are many types of monitors, not all of which would strictly come under the category of peacekeeping. Peacekeeping monitors are basically monitoring the behaviour of potentially violent actors in the situation with the aim of deterring violent activity. Military monitors/observers, monitoring cease-fire agreements, borders, troop movements, demilitarised zones, etc, must be able to identify and distinguish different types of military formations and military hardware. Police monitors must be able to identify different police ranks, understand policing policies and rules of engagement. Public order monitors monitor demonstrations and other large gatherings and must be able to identify different types of aggressive or violent behaviour and what may be happening around a specific incident. 
Accompaniment
The next step up from merely monitoring a situation is to actively intervene in some way to further deter or stop violence. This can also be in a comparatively 'passive' way or in a more 'active' way. Peace Brigades International and other groups who have since adopted this idea, concentrate on the 'passive' approach of accompaniment.  Accompaniment involves being with or alongside potential victims of violence, possibly shadowing them 24 hours a day if necessary, and is a much stronger form of dissuasion than mere presence or monitoring, although clearly it is a logical extension of these. By identifying possible targets of violent attack and signalling an intention to protect them, accompaniment adds a further dimension to the dissuasive effect of 'being seen' to engage in acts of violence. 

'Humanitarian accompaniment' is a form of generalised accompaniment that seeks to protect whole groups of people - returning refugees, people living in 'peace zones', threatened communities, people on marches, demonstrations or strikes. It may also include protective accompaniment to humanitarian relief operations taking place in the midst of hostilities. This is distinct from 'civil protection' discussed in section 2.6 in the sense that the latter has to do with security issues more generally, while accompaniment is about protecting specific groups from specific threats being made against them.

Individual accompaniment, or escorting, involves a highly detailed analysis of both the security situation and the leverage points affecting that security situation. By careful targeting of both the potential victim and the potential aggressor, a dynamic comes into play which can, and has proven to be, highly effective in dissuading further violence. 
Interposition
A more active interventionary strategy would involve actual physical interpositioning between victim and aggressor or between two opposing parties. Although this is the image most people have of what military peacekeepers do, in fact it is extremely rare to find military peacekeepers physically in between two parties shooting at each other. It is a much more common strategy in less dangerous environments, where there are many cases of people effectively interpositioning themselves between police and demonstrators, between warring gangs, or between individuals who may be armed but are outnumbered by those intervening. Successful interpositioning involves a psychological element of 'talking sense' to a potential aggressor. This aspect relates more to the peacemaking strategies discussed below. It remains an open question as to whether highly trained interpositioning teams could successful stop incidents of violence in more dangerous situations than those in which the technique is normally used. 

The Limits of Civilian Peacekeeping
Clearly there are limits to the effectiveness of civilian peacekeeping strategies in situations of extreme violence. In some situations foreign civilians may be especially targeted by armed groups. Such groups may not care whether the outside world sees what they are doing or whether it condemns it. In many battlefield situations there is almost nothing a civilian intervenor can do that will have an effect on the situation. 

In situations where 'spoilers' are intent on destroying a peace process or on escalating a conflict regardless even of their own interests, military peacekeepers are needed to protect and defend possible targets, including military assets which spoiler groups may want to capture. But even the most 'robust' military peacekeeping has its limits when it comes to determined terrorists, sniper fire and artillery attacks, such as were directed regularly against the civilian population of Sarajevo during the Bosnia war. 

Despite its limitations, peacekeeping, including civilian peacekeeping, has played a key role in reducing the level of violence in many conflict situations throughout the world. It is an important tool with huge potential for further development.
2.4	Peacemaking: Contributing to Peaceful Settlements and Relationships
Peacemaking strategies are focused on attitudes and perceptions, with the aim of getting parties together to reach agreement or to be reconciled to each other. Peacemaking has traditionally been a prerogative of diplomats and other public figures who command sufficient authority to inspire respect from all sides of a situation. But there has always been an 'unofficial' side to this work, in which a few committed individuals and NGOs have also played their part. 

There are many tools in the toolbox of the peacemaker. But many of them are reserved for use by the actual parties to the conflict. Conflict resolution, for instance, is a process by which parties reach a peace agreement or settlement of some kind. Only the parties to a conflict can take part in the actual negotiations, since they must be the ones to decide what terms they can or cannot live with. Reconciliation is another process, by which parties to a conflict come to terms with each other and accept each other as neighbours again. No one else can go through that process for you - if you have suffered pain and loss at the hands of another, only you can forgive them, come to terms with the situation, and move beyond it.

But there are a great many roles that outsiders can play in support of these two processes. The simplest of these is to be a listener, and all other peacemaking tools flow from this. 
Listening
As with the technique of merely 'being there', the act of 'just listening' can have surprising effects on people's attitudes in a conflict situation. This is most obvious in the post-conflict phase when people have suffered a great deal and need to tell their stories. Telling stories of personal suffering can be part of a healing process and a step towards accepting the past and moving on - essential for reconciliation and long-term peace. In the earlier stages of a conflict, listening to people's grievances and reasons for engaging in a conflict may help them to articulate what it really is - and is not - about, and to think this through. Often a prerequisite to reaching an agreement is a recognition that what is being fought over is not really as important as other overriding interests that the parties have in common. Listening Projects have therefore been undertaken at all stages of a conflict, and good listening skills are a prerequisite for all the peacemaking tools which follow. 
Monitoring
In addition to pure listening are two kinds of monitors specifically relating to the peacemaking process: media monitors identify and categorise different messages conveyed in the media and their effects on the public in highly volatile situations and political monitors monitor the public statements of politicians and the progress of peace talks etc. Unlike peacekeeping monitors, these monitoring roles are about public discourse and its effect on the escalation and de-escalation of a conflict.
Fact-finding
The next step up from monitoring is fact-finding, a crucial role which outsiders can play in many conflict situations where people are often presented with diametrically opposing accounts of what is happening - or no account at all - and will only trust a neutral third party to investigate and report as objectively as possible on what really happened. Fact-finding missions play a role in the control of rumours that can rapidly escalate a worsening situation. They play a role in negotiations and informal discussions where information is disputed and can be verified by an outside party. And of course they play a role in alerting outsiders to a developing situation that may require more active intervention in some form or other.
2.4.1	The Process of Conflict Resolution
The 'conflict resolution' strand of peacemaking builds on the basic roles above and focuses specifically on the steps needed to reach a political settlement to the conflict. In chapter VI of the UN charter, this is called the 'pacific settlement of disputes', and includes the tools of "negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice." Other official documents make reference to quiet diplomacy, 'good offices' and confidence-building measures. Some of these methods (ie negotiation) are for the parties themselves to do. Others, like arbitration and judicial settlement, involve the imposition of a settlement by an outside body. The rest are basically steps towards a negotiated settlement, and offer a wide variety of roles for outside parties.
Conciliation
Conciliation is the most open-ended of the tools that are aimed at bringing parties together at the negotiating table. As with almost all the terms used in this chapter, 'conciliation' can have a variety of meanings. It is generally used to describe an informal process of meeting with the different parties and discussing the possibilities and options for dialogue that might lead, ultimately, to negotiation. This might include passing of messages, interpreting signals from the other side, listening techniques and fact-finding. 
Facilitation
Facilitation can also mean different things. In the sense we are using it here, it refers to the preparation and chairing of meetings that involve conflicting parties, though not necessarily in a face-to-face setting. Facilitators help each party to articulate its needs and interests and to conduct the process of meetings in a considered manner. But they do not attempt to oversee the actual negotiation process.
Mediation
Mediators bring the parties together in order to reach a negotiated settlement amongst themselves. Mediators may have some kind of 'official' (track-one) status which gives them certain powers over the parties to make threats or promises in the context of the negotiations. Other mediators are non-official (‘track-two’) and must rely solely on the process to help the parties reach an agreement. The mediation process is normally quite formalised, with a number of separate stages that must be gone through in the correct order. These have developed over the years through the experiences of mediating industrial disputes, marriage counselling, community mediation and many other forms of mediation.
Training
The most experienced practitioners in the conflict resolution field can also train others in the techniques described above as well as in the negotiation process itself. Conflict resolution training is a rapidly growing 'industry', with many sectors of society keen to learn the conflict-handling techniques that may help them in a range of situations. 

2.4.2	The Process of Reconciliation
The 'reconciliation' strand of peacemaking addresses the longer-term issues created by conflict or by the history of past conflicts. It may involve setting up truth commissions, war crime tribunals and other mechanisms for the healing and recovery from past enmities and antagonisms. It may also involve long-term community relations work that addresses prejudice, misperceptions and racism, seeking to build mutual understanding and an acceptance of difference. This is a broad area of work. Most of it must be done by the people who live in the situation and can influence their peers. But some aspects of this strand provide suitable ground for outside intervention, especially those areas involving training and capacity-building for local parties carrying out the rest of this work.
Community Relations
Community Relations work involves bringing together groups and individuals from varying communities through sport, cultural activities, integrated schooling projects, employment or other programmes. The aim is to encourage members of different communities to engage with each other at a level which openly challenges perceptions, develops understanding, encourages meaningful dialogue and sustainable relationships. Outsiders may have a role in helping to get much of this work started and in helping to support and sustain it.  
Single Identity Work
A range of tools, such as workshops, courses, seminars and awareness campaigns, are used in working with particular constituencies in conflict situations: women, young people, different ethnic or religious groups, etc. These are designed to prepare the ground for reconciliation by helping people understanding the fluidity of their own identity and ways of coping and dealing with difference and conflict.
Trauma Counselling
Many people who have lived through serious violent conflict acquire the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, requiring medical and/or psychological treatment. But many more acquire less acute symptoms of post-traumatic stress and can be treated with group therapy and counselling techniques that have been developed by a number of groups working in conflict situations such as the Balkans. Trauma work is linked to the reconciliation process in that it helps people to overcome the pain and suffering caused by violence, which is a first step towards healing and forgiveness. Group work in particular helps to address the social psychology of war and hatred.
Prejudice Reduction and Anti-Racism Work
As with the other tools in this strand of peacemaking work, prejudice reduction and anti-racism work covers a multitude of activities that are designed to promote communal harmony and understanding. In terms of roles or functions for outside parties, predominant in this area are the roles of 'trainer' and 'educator'.
2.5	Peacebuilding: Tackling the Root Causes of Conflict
Peacebuilding is defined here as the long-term work of tackling the root causes of conflict, as opposed to dealing with immediate security needs (peacekeeping) or the attempt to bring the parties together to reach a settlement of some kind (peacemaking). Tackling the root causes of conflict presupposes an understanding of what those causes are. 
Root Causes of Conflict
There is no 'one' cause that can be blamed for all conflicts. Nevertheless a great deal of work has gone into the understanding of how the most serious conflicts in the world today arise and spiral into violence. Two separate studies produced in 1998 came to similar conclusions about the fundamental 'root causes' of most violent conflict, summarising many decades of academic research in this field. 

The European Council in November 1998 officially defined the root causes of conflict as: 
1.	Imbalance of political, socio-economic or cultural opportunities among different ethnic groups, including socio-economic inequalities, exclusive government elites, violation of political group rights, destabilisation by refugees and internally displaced people and other demographic pressures.
2.	Lack of democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of governance, including a legitimacy deficit of government and public institutions, insufficient or declining public services, criminality, social and political violence, and biased law application and enforcement by justice and security services.
3.	Absence of opportunities for the peaceful conciliation of group interests and for bridging dividing lines between different identity groups. This includes absence of effective dispute resolution mechanisms, absence of pluralism/diversified debate, distrust among identity groups and weak or harming external engagement.
4.	Lack of an active and organised civil society, including weak civil society organisations, absence of professional and independent media and lack of economic 'peace interests'.

The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD came to similar conclusions in their report, but also mentioned the role of 'security' issues, which we will deal with as a special case of peacebuilding work that must be addressed at the post-crisis stage. 

2.5.1	The Economic Dimension Addressing the imbalance of opportunities among different groups
The socio-economic inequalities that exist, particularly across ethnic divides, can best be addressed through international development, trade and aid policies. This dimension of peacebuilding work thus overlaps very extensively with sustainable development work. A new set of tools is being developed for analysing and evaluating how development policies can help to prevent conflicts rather than to exacerbate them. Conflict Impact Assessment is the generic term for this, although there are a variety of approaches to this. Conflict Policy Advisors can also contribute specific conflict-related expertise in the development of country strategies, development policies, aid and trade policies of states and inter-state institutions like the World Bank, IMF, OECD, or DFID. 
Sustainable Development
This is a large field of work, and the most relevant aspects of it would probably come under the areas of community relations, community development and capacity-building described elsewhere in this chapter. There are many other areas that would address root causes of conflict, including small business development, micro-credit schemes, fair trade programmes, etc. It is only right that these should be seen as belonging to the 'family' of peacebuilding tools available. Not all development projects are either sustainable or peaceful, however, so it is important to develop the two specific tools which follow in order to monitor and assess the role of development projects in the peacebuilding process.
Conflict Impact Assessment
Conflict impact assessment is a relatively new tool increasingly used to assess the potential impact of different types of intervention (be it peacebuilding initiatives, development projects, corporate investments or the implementation of policies) on the dynamics of a conflict. Areas of assessment include the impact of projects and policies on the institutional capacity for managing and resolving conflicts; military and human security; political structures and processes; economic structures and processes and on the impact on social and cultural structures. Conflict impact assessment is carried out by people with in-depth conflict expertise and knowledge about the project to be implemented as well as of the country or region to be affected by it. 
Conflict Policy Advisors
This is another role increasingly used by development bodies such as DFID, in order to keep the prevention of violent conflict on the agenda at every stage of the development process. Conflict policy advisors may be called many other names, but are essentially playing a key role in evaluating the contributions being made to potential conflict situations and monitoring these in terms of their impact on that situation.
Refugee Work
A specific demographic issue relating to conflict is the distribution of refugees and internally-displaced people, often a result of conflict or deliberate 'ethnic cleansing'. The presence of refugees, asylum seekers and ethnic minority populations in general can exacerbate existing conflict as well as spawn new conflict. Addressing this problem is primarily a matter of community relations, but also of civil protection. These are considered in other sections of this chapter.
2.5.2	The Political Dimension: Addressing the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance
The issue of governance and democratic legitimacy is something the European Union has prioritised alongside the development of its 'rapid reaction force'. Four priority areas for civilian crisis management were identified at the EU Council meeting in Feira and these were given 'headline goals' at the Gothenburg summit in June 2001. These are policing, rule of law, civilian administration and civil protection. Other governance issues include democratisation, human rights and elections. 
Civil Administration 
Effective peacebuilding depends upon delivery of basic services to the population. Civil Administration experts take on advisory, training, monitoring or, in extreme situations, executive functions in the areas of general administration (Civil registration, Registration of Property, Elections/ appointments to political bodies, Taxation, Local Administration, Customs Services), social services (Education, Social Services, Health and Medical Services) and infrastructure. (Water Supply, Energy Supply, Telecommunications, Permanent infrastructure, Transport, Waste Management).
Rule of Law
Rule of law work typically aims at enhancing the administration of justice, inter alia, by training of judges, prosecutors and lawyers, as well as police and correctional officers. It involves monitoring the functioning of the legal system and encouraging improvements in the administration of justice by suggesting systemic changes to the legal and judicial systems in the mission area as necessary and appropriate, and by undertaking legal reform and legislative review projects in order to bring domestic laws into line with OSCE commitments and other recognised international standards. 
Human rights
Human rights work typically involves monitoring, investigating and reporting on the human rights situation, analysing relevant laws and practices, intervening with national authorities to address human rights violations and ensure compliance with relevant human rights standards and national laws. It may also involve monitoring the judicial system as a whole, including trials, as well as situations involving minorities, refugees/internally displaced persons (IDPs) and freedom of movement issues. In addition, human rights work can involve promoting public awareness of human rights, and human rights education.
Democratisation
Democratisation work may include strengthening civil society (see below), but in this context involves political party development and promotion of good governance. 

Political party development may involve:
•	Fostering political pluralism 
•	Enhancing the capacity of parties and candidates to function effectively in a democratic political environment 

Promotion of good governance aims at:
Developing skills and improving the understanding of officials and elected candidates in the principles and practice of democratic government at the national and local level, as well as promoting transparency and accountability.  It may also include the development of national commissions or institutions to promote human rights or national reconciliation 
Elections
Election work typically involves organising, implementing and overseeing the full range of elections-related matters, which can include drafting of legislation and election regulations, identification and registration of eligible voters, registration of political parties and candidates, political party development, campaign and finance regulations, voter education, domestic observer training, media monitoring, establishment of polling stations, the supervision and monitoring of balloting and counting, and post-election activities. It may also involve the implementation of election results if so mandated.

2.5.3	The Social Dimension: Addressing the need for an active and organised civil society
The development of an active and organised civil society requires specially trained community workers, capacity-builders and trainers. Where civil society is being severely repressed, human rights monitoring and protection is an essential pre-requisite to other capacity-building work. The distinction made here between, for instance, community development and community relations (discussed in the peacemaking section) is that the latter is focused on the relationships between actual parties to the conflict, whereas the focus of work in this area of peacebuilding is on the development of a strong civil society generally.
Civil Society Capacity-Building
The aim of capacity building is to empower individuals and groups who are trying to promote peace, human rights and social change by peaceful means in the midst of conflict. This may be done through advice, training, support, workshops and any other relevant means. NGOs can help to establish local infrastructures across all levels of society that empower the resources for reconciliation and create or strengthen local capacities for peace. 
Media Development
Media Development work involves initiating, planning, organising and implementing programmes to promote the development of independent, pluralist and professional media. It may also involve media monitoring activities to promote full compliance with international principles and commitments regarding the freedom of the media. 
Community Development
This would normally be handled by local people, but in many situations this may not be possible. Community development projects that might fall under this category include support for diversionary projects that will engage young people and other potentially excluded groups, promotion of self-help and self-empowerment projects, especially for women and other areas not otherwise covered by the capacity-building concept. 

This work may involve:
•	Supporting the development of community-based organisations 
•	Encouraging citizen involvement, including the involvement of women, in the social and political change of the country 
•	Supporting the building of democratic and inter-ethnic institutions 
•	Empowering individuals, including women, to take part in the political process 
•	Facilitating the establishment of local civic groups and networks 
•	Encouraging the development of independent unions 

2.5.4	The Cultural Dimension: Addressing the peaceful conciliation of group interests 
The peaceful conciliation of group interests involves a transformation from a culture of violence and militarism to a culture of peace and nonviolence. This requires the expertise of conflict resolution and conflict transformation trainers and educators, as well as people who can organise bridge-building and confidence-building projects at the local level. It also relates to many other areas already covered, such as democratisation, capacity-building and community relations.
Peace Education
Peace educators work directly with teachers and teaching institutions to train local teachers for the long-term process of educating for peace, incorporating human rights, democratic principles and common security. Peace education aims at increasing the general literacy of a population about the peaceful means of handling conflict.  
Nonviolence Training
There are many varieties of this, but in this context we are talking about training that helps people unlearn violent and aggressive patterns of behaviour and to understand how to apply nonviolent approaches to conflict situations in their personal and social life. Much of this work is done with prisoners, combatants, gangs and others who might otherwise perpetuate a culture of violence through their responses to everyday situations.

2.5.5	The Security Dimension:  Addressing the legacy of violence
The basic tool in terms of providing some basic level of security for people in conflict is encapsulated in the term civil protection. This does overlap with peacekeeping concepts and especially with the role of civilian police. In post-war situations there is the specific problem of dealing with ex-combatants - demobilising and disarming them as well as reintegrating them back into communities and into socially-useful work. There is also the specific issue of de-mining and the question of security sector reform.
Civil Protection
Protection from direct threat of violence is covered in section 2.3 on peacekeeping, but the concept of 'civil protection' is more general and is a fundamental duty of any functioning government. Policing is one form of civil protection, but others include the provision of emergency assistance to affected populations, including refugees and internally displaced people. This includes tasks like search and rescue, the construction of refugee camps and systems of communications as well as other logistical support and planning arrangements.
Demining 
The field of humanitarian demining is a large one, with roles for civilian as well as military personnel. Mine awareness training is one part of the picture, together with demining training of local demining personnel. Actual mine location and mine destruction is often carried out by local personnel or by civilian specialists as well as by military personnel.
Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR)
In DDR programmes, the military play an important role generally in the first stage of the process, which is disarmament or 'weapon control'. Civilian experts are then responsible for the demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants, including the rehabilitation of child soldiers and ex-prisoners. DDR experts include facilitators/ mediators, counsellors, community-relations workers, psychologists, medical experts, educators, etc.
Security Sector Reform
The reform of police, military and paramilitary services involves advice, training, monitoring and other roles to help the services become accountable to democratically elected officials and to international human rights standards. This area of work overlaps with human rights and rule of law work, but is also a field in its own right, involving both the police and military, but also civilian personnel.

The list of areas covered in this chapter is not meant to be exhaustive. Many of the areas listed here include within them a whole range of actual roles and levels of contribution that could be further elaborated. And this is still a developing field - new specialisms will undoubtedly emerge and old ones will be re-defined as needs and situations change.
2.6	 Working for Peace on Many Levels
As well as the many different functional areas of expertise described in this chapter, there are many different levels on which those contributions can be made. The OSCE 'staffing matrix', for instance, distinguishes four levels of responsibility for each of the 12 categories of work it defines. These four levels are 'junior' and 'senior professional' and 'junior' and 'senior' management. UN positions are categorised according to various levels of managerial responsibility, as are most government appointments.

Among NGOs there tends to be a less strict hierarchy of staff positions, but many positions are clearly categorised according to level of skill and responsibility. Whereas the German Civil Peace Service only accepts people for their 'peace expert service' who have a certain level of professional qualification, the Austrian Peace Service takes inexperienced 17-year olds onto their 'peace volunteer service'. Between the 'expert' service and the 'volunteer' service is a developing concept of peace 'apprenticeship' service for those who are not yet qualified for the 'expert' service but have much more to offer than the 'volunteers'. 

One model for categorising jobs according to different levels of skill and responsibility is that used by the National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) system. This defines five levels of job categories which are applicable across the entire spectrum of public and private sector employment in the UK, starting with level 1, which covers very basic, unskilled labour positions, through to level 5, which covers top management positions. 

It is possible, though controversial, to assign each of the roles described in the previous three sections to an appropriate 'level' according to the skills required and degree of responsibility involved. This would result in a matrix such as the one shown below in figure 2.3. The advantage of producing such a matrix is to be able to see clearly how a person with little skills or experience in this field might progress through the field as a result of training and experience gained at each level. 

Along the 'bottom' of this matrix are the most 'basic' roles in this field, such as listening roles, observing, being a 'presence' and basic humanitarian support work. These are roles which require skill and experience to do competently, and there is no suggestion in this report that anyone should be doing any of this work who is not fully competent to do it. But there is a vast difference between the level of skill required to be an effective and competent observer and the level of skill required to be an effective and competent mediator, even though both draw on the same basic skills. In between these extremes is a whole spectrum of roles requiring different levels of skill and responsibility. 

At the 'top' end of the matrix are the most professionalised positions, requiring in addition to relevant skills and experience in handling conflict, a recognised qualification in some other field, such as local government, medicine, psychology, the legal profession, engineering, teaching or whatever. A bit lower down the scale are those positions requiring a high level of competence in the handling conflict field itself, such as mediation, trauma counselling, conflict resolution training, human rights monitoring, etc. 

By identifying where different roles in this field fit within a matrix like this, many more people can be usefully employed in roles appropriate to their own level of skills and experience. Many more people can also enter the field through a variety of entry points, including at the very bottom, where there are easily overlooked but highly important tasks for relatively unskilled and inexperienced people to contribute in this field.

Figure 2.3 Defining Roles Within The Field of Handling Conflict

Peacekeeping          	Peacemaking	Peacebuilding	
Presence
Monitoring
  Military
  Police
  Public Order
Accompaniment
  Humanitarian
  Escorting
Interposition
	Listening
Monitoring
  Media
  Political
Fact-Finding

Conflict Resolution
  Conciliation
  Facilitation
  Mediation
  Training

Reconciliation
  Community Relations
  Single Identity
  Trauma
  Prejudice Reduction	Economic
  Sustainable Development
  Impact Assessment
  Policy Advisors
  Refugee Work
Political
  Civil Admin
  Rule of Law
  Human Rights
  Democratisation
  Elections
Social
  Capacity-Building
  Media Development
  Community Development
Cultural
   Peace Education
   NV Training
Security
  Civil Protection
  Demining
  DDR
  Security Sector Reform	

1	
3	current international requirements for Civilian Personnel 
3.1	EU Targets for Civilian Crisis Management
Background
Since the European Union first began to address the issue of developing a crisis management capability, the discussions have been focused on the establishment of a common military 'rapid reaction force'. However there has been a keen interest, mainly on the part of Finland and Sweden, to address the issue of establishing a civilian crisis management capacity alongside the military one. 

The 1999 European Summit in Helsinki agreed that “a non-military crisis management mechanism will be established to co-ordinate and make more effective the various civilian means and resources, in parallel with the military ones, at the disposal of the Union and the Member States.” Since then, the issue of developing civilian crisis management capabilities has been high on the EU agenda, even though the focus initially was only on developing civilian police capacities. 

In June 2000, the European Summit in Feira identified four priority areas in which the EU would strengthen its capabilities to support field operations led by OSCE, UN or the EU itself: Policing (for which concrete targets were adopted), Rule of Law, Civil Administration and Civil Protection. By the Gothenburg Summit in June 2001, the European Council had agreed concrete targets for Member States to contribute to these three areas, in addition to already defined targets for military and police. The Committee for Civilian Crisis Management (CIVCOM), which was set up in June 2000, is currently working on further defining the specific functions within these expert categories. 
Rule of Law
The necessity of increasing the number of trained and experienced rule of law experts has been highlighted by the OSCE and the EU has therefore put strong emphasis on enhancing its capabilities in this area. The headline goal agreed by the Gothenburg Council is for Member States to be able, by 2003, to deploy up to 200 experts in the field of the rule of law to international missions. This includes international prosecutors, lawyers, judges and correctional officers able to train and monitor local staff, or, in exceptional circumstances to temporarily replace local staff. 

This capability, as agreed by the Council, is to include a ‘rapid response’ group of rule of law specialists, deployable at 30 days notice to provide early planning on rule of law support. As a first step to meeting these targets, Member States have agreed to feed information on their capabilities in this field into a database set up by CIVCOM for this purpose. However, Member States have often been reluctant to make their rule of law officials available to international missions as experts with appropriate qualifications are not in abundance. To address this lack of suitably qualified staff, CIVCOM has been tasked with identifying concrete needs for the selection and training of rule of law officials and provisions have been made for financing common training programmes in this field. 
Civil Administration 
A further element of the EU’s civilian crisis management capabilities will be the establishment of a pool of experts ‘to set up, or ensure the existence of a functional administrative apparatus, while promoting transition to local ownership as early as possible’. Civil Administration experts will take on advisory, training, monitoring or executive functions in the following areas: 

•	General Administration: Civil registration, Registration of Property, Elections/ appointments to political bodies, Taxation, Local Administration, Customs Services.
•	Social Services: Education, Social Services, Health and Medical Services.
•	Infrastructure: Water Supply, Energy Supply, Telecommunications, Permanent infrastructure, Transport, Waste Management.

CIVCOM is currently working on the elaboration of a list with detailed functions and expert categories, the identification of shortcomings in these areas and the development of common training modules and processes. 
Civil Protection
The Gothenburg meeting also agreed headline goals for 2003 in this area, to include:
 
•	the establishment of 2-3 assessment teams of 10 experts each, dispatchable within 3-7 hours. These experts should be on 24-hour call from a group of up to 100 specially selected experts for this purpose. 
•	Civil protection intervention teams of up to 2,000 persons deployable at short notice 
•	Supplementary or more specialised resources from governmental or non-governmental services to be dispatched within a week. 

Operationalising these services will involve European and national level training exercises, as well as the development of arrangements for co-operation with the armed forces for the use of military resources, such as transport capacity, where appropriate. As mentioned above, the CIVCOM was set up to further define these priority areas in terms of concrete job categories and functions, but to this date, not much progress has been made.
Future areas for development
The Gothenburg summit also passed on the task to future EU Presidencies to develop and define 'further areas' of civilian expertise to be pooled in this field. There is no documentation as yet from CIVCOM to indicate what these areas might be, but according to the European Council's own official definition of the 'root causes' of conflict, agreed in November 1998, there are four key areas they should be looking at. 

The first of these four 'root causes of conflict' - imbalance of opportunities among different ethnic groups - is meant to be addressed through the EU's international development, trade and aid policies. The second - lack of democratic legitimacy and effective governance - is being addressed by the three priority areas defined above, although further developments in this area might include prioritising human rights, democratisation or elections. 

That leaves two further areas still to be developed: 'developing opportunities for the peaceful conciliation of group interests' and 'development of an active and organised civil society'. If the EU were to take seriously its own understanding of the causes of conflict, it would prioritise work in these two areas as well as in the areas of governance and development cooperation. 

Developing opportunities for the peaceful conciliation of group interests means providing mediation and conflict resolution training, as well as people with community relations and reconciliation skills who might be deployed as advisors, monitors and trainers. 

Development of an active and organised civil society involves support for independent media, trade unions and human rights organisations as well as training and capacity-building for a whole range of other civil society organisations, including groups promoting peace and reconciliation.

Whether the EU will pursue this logic is another matter. The EU Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts stresses that EU instruments for conflict prevention should be used in a “more targeted and effective manner in order to address root-causes of conflict”. But the new instruments it mentions relate only to human rights and democracy, fact-finding missions, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DD&R) and demining. 
3.1.1	European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM)
One civilian instrument of the EU that has been used very successfully already is the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM). Established in 1991 by the EC to report on political, economic and humanitarian developments in the former Yugoslavia and Albania, it currently consists of 120 monitors working in various countries in the Balkans. The focus of the EU monitors lies on monitoring political and security developments as well as border monitoring, inter-ethnic issues and refugee returns. 

Monitors work in small teams that allow for mobile and quick deployment within their area of responsibility. Their work is a vital contribution to early warning and confidence building measures of the EU and provisions have been made to expand the mission to set up further offices in Yugoslavia and strengthen the monitoring teams in Southeastern Serbia, where, according to the EU, it is the only international civilian presence carrying out regular monitoring.
3.1.2	European Civilian Peace Corps
Building on the experience of the EUMM is the proposal for a European Civil Peace Corps, adopted unanimously by the European Parliament in 1996 and referred to in many EU documents subsequently. The proposal calls for a stand-by ‘brigade’ of suitably trained professionals that could be deployed on the request of inter-governmental bodies to carry out a range of peace-related functions, including mediation and confidence building, humanitarian assistance (including food aid, water and sanitation, and health), reintegration (including disarming and demobilisation of former combatants and the support of displaced persons, refugees and other vulnerable groups), rehabilitation and reconstruction, stabilisation of economic structures (including the establishment of economic linkages), monitoring and improving the human rights situation and empowerment for political participation (including election monitoring and assistance), interim administration to facilitate short-term stability, information and the establishment of educational structures and programmes designed to eliminate prejudices and enemy images and campaigns informing and educating people about the peace-building activities at hand.

This proposal is currently before the European Parliament once again. In the context of recent developments in EU policy and thinking in this area, there is this time a greater likelihood that the Commission will pick up the chalice and incorporate at least some aspects of this proposal into future arrangements for enhancing the EU's conflict prevention and civilian crisis management capacities. 
3.2	 The OSCE ‘REACT’ Scheme
Background
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has taken the lead in strengthening international civilian capacities for handling conflict and has made a vital contribution to securing peace and rebuilding society in conflict areas in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.  In the last few years, the OSCE has dramatically increased the number and size of its field operations and has adapted its instruments accordingly. In 1997, for instance, it established the position of OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and began police monitoring in 1998.

However, the situation in Kosovo highlighted an important shortcoming of the OSCE: It’s inability to rapidly select, recruit and deploy a large number of suitably qualified civilians for its field operations in conflict areas. The severe difficulties the OSCE faced in staffing their Kosovo Verfication Mission (KVM) led to major revisions in the OSCE selection and recruitment procedures. 

REACT Programme
In November 1999, the Heads of State at the OSCE Istanbul Summit adopted the Charter for European Security, which makes provisions for developing “a capability within the participating States and the OSCE to set up Rapid Expert Assistance and Co-operation Teams (REACT) that will be at the disposal of the OSCE…to offer experts quickly to OSCE participating States to provide assistance… in conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.”

The REACT programme involved three components: the development of standards (based on precisely defined qualifications for the work of OSCE missions in the field) for the recruitment and selection of mission staff; pre-selection/deployment training to ensure that those selected for REACT are prepared to immediately begin work when they reach the field; and an online recruitment website to standardise the whole recruitment process across the 55 member states of the OSCE. 

The fields of expertise identified include human rights, rule of law, democratisation, elections, economic and environmental affairs, press and public information, media development, political affairs, administration and support, general staff/monitoring functions, military affairs and civilian police. 

OSCE Field Activities
At the time of writing (October 2001) the OSCE has approximately 1,200 international staff in the field, as well as about 2,700 local staff on 20 different missions.  

With 700 international and 1,400 local staff, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo is currently the largest OSCE field presence. The tasks of the mission focus on independent media development, strengthening the rule of law and supporting democratisation efforts. 

Media experts provide training and technical assistance to local journalists, publishers and other media staff, organise co-operative inter-agency projects and assist with the recruitment of management and staff for public media.  The OSCE also has temporary responsibility for the regulation and licensing of the media in Kosovo. Media specialists work with the media Policy Advisory Board to develop laws and standards for the media.  Other tasks include analysing and monitoring media activity in Kosovo.

Democratisation efforts include the training of civil administrators, civil society/NGOs and political parties. To this end, the Mission has set up an Institute for Civil Administration, to provide training to local government officials in procedures of democratic governance. The Mission has further set up NGO Resource Centres in different parts of Kosovo to provide training and logistical support to NGOs and to encourage the development of a network of community associations and interest groups. In rural areas, OSCE field officers are identifying individuals who can develop local initiatives and establish links with NGOs in other parts of Kosovo.  

The OSCE activities in the field of the rule of law included the establishment of the Kosovo Judicial Institute and the Kosovo Law Centre. Rule of law experts offer training for Kosovo judges and prosecutors in international human rights law and other subjects relevant to the development of the new judiciary.  A recent focus has been to train local trainers in order to ensure that the centre will provide a sustainable teaching ground for Kosovo judicial staff in the future, maintained by local people. 

The focus of the OSCE's Belarus Mission is on monitoring and electoral assistance.  The OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group (AMG) endeavours to build and strengthen pluralistic civil society in Belarus.  Apart from offering international expert advice to various working groups composed of government, opposition and civil society representatives, OSCE mission staff organise seminars, conferences and workshops all over the country to train domestic electoral observers and to inform people about local self-government and regional economic development. In terms of monitoring, the AMG concentrates on human rights. Mission staff have so far analysed over 600 human rights cases and visited some 40 prisoners or detainees. Dozens of court proceedings are being monitored, especially in instances where the charges appear to be politically motivated. The re-registration of political parties, non-governmental organisations and independent media was closely observed, and the situation of endangered independent newspapers is monitored on a regular basis.

Monitoring activities of the OSCE also include border monitoring in Georgia. Since summer 2000, around 40 OSCE Monitors have been encamped in the mountain regions of northern Georgia. Their task is to observe and report on any movement across the border between Georgia and the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. Daily patrols are carried out by the border monitors on foot, and in winter, on skis. In addition, night-time observation and helicopter patrols are conducted on a regular basis. 

Assistance with the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) is one of the main tasks of the OSCE Mission to Croatia. Field officers focus on monitoring and assisting the return of refugees and displaced persons and on addressing related issues such as minority rights, the repossession of property and the work of local administration. 
Conclusions
The OSCE has made an important contribution towards defining this field more clearly and developing clear standards of professionalism within it. Although the OSCE has traditionally focused on monitoring tasks of particular relevance to crisis prevention, since the Kosovo war it has been expanding its mandate more and more into the area of post-crisis reconstruction.  

The UK Foreign Office seems confident that, with the new recruitment procedures in place, it will be able to meet future staffing requirements of the OSCE. However, it remains to be seen whether or not the programme has increased the OSCE capacities for rapidly mobilising a large number of civilians for another mission like the one in pre-war Kosovo. Despite all its problems and ultimate failure to prevent the war, the Kosovo Verification Mission demonstrated that there is indeed a role to play for large numbers of civilians carrying out monitoring and observing functions in a concerted international effort to prevent violent conflict. 
3.3	 UN Requirements for Civilian Personnel
Background
Acknowledging that many of the tasks carried out in modern UN peace support operations are not suitable for military staff, the UN has put an increasing effort into supporting these missions with civilian specialists. However, an analysis of UN peacekeeping missions (the Brahimi Report), commissioned by Kofi Annan and published in August 2000, highlighted the difficulties of the UN in selecting, recruiting and deploying suitably qualified civilian personnel for these missions. At the time this report was written, 50% of civilian field positions were still vacant on missions which had been established six months to one year earlier. 

Of the 53,540 people currently serving on UN missions, 14,635 - or roughly one-quarter - are civilian. Many of these are working in administrative or logistics areas, but civilian experts are increasingly used in very much the same professional areas that have been identified by the OSCE. The Brahimi Report highlights lack of personnel in the areas of electoral assistance, economic reconstruction and rehabilitation, human rights monitoring, press and media, judicial affairs and institution building. The problems of finding suitably qualified staff for their missions is closely linked to the inability of the UN to react rapidly to upcoming crises.  The Personnel Management and Support Service of the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is currently reviewing its selection and recruitment processes including a redrafting of job descriptions for civilian experts to more closely define the particular functions and skill requirements of potential personnel. Another project to address the personnel shortcomings is the development of a training course for civilian personnel and the establishment of a civilian stand-by roster.
Demining
Two areas of responsibility, traditionally handled by the military, are now increasingly being handled with civilian support staff. These are demining and 'disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration' (DDR) of former combatants. In these areas, civilian staff work in close co-operation with the military component of UN missions. 

While Political/Civil Affairs Officers are responsible for strategic planning, monitoring and policy making roles within a demining programme for example, the actual operational demining functions are carried out by Military Officers with support from external specialists but also from local civilian staff. Civilians, and especially women, are increasingly used to carry out the meticulous and time consuming task of searching for mines in a minefield. They obtain basic security and mine-awareness training and receive a small salary. While civilians are tasked with finding mines, military staff or contracted external specialists are responsible for disposing of them. A further function carried out by civilian experts in this field is the development and implementation of mine-awareness programmes aimed at educating the local population. 

Disarmament, Demobilisation and Rehabilitation (DDR)
The DDR process consists of a large number of complex and interrelated tasks, including the introduction of DDR considerations into the negotiation of a settlement, the building of political and popular support for weapons collection programmes and other peaceful alternatives to violence, military oversight of disarmament and demobilisation, civilian support to demobilisation and reinsertion into either a new army or civilian life, and above all, the productive reintegration of the former combatants into civil society.

These tasks are carried out by a number of different actors and require close civil-military co-operation as well as co-operation between the United Nations and local organisations.

The military plays an important role in the demilitarisation stage and fulfils tasks like identification of combatants, collection and destruction of arms, establishment of secure weapon stores, etc. 

The responsibilities for civilians on DDR missions, of both UN departments and local organisations, include:

•	building political and popular support for DDR (advocacy of peace and reconciliation, advice and guidance to parties in conflict)
•	supporting the demobilisation process (registration and issue of identification documents, support to families, psycho-social care for soldiers or chronically ill combatants, documentation and monitoring case histories of combatants) 
•	and the implementation of reintegration projects (professional training, job creation, income generation programmes, business and legal advice, children’s programmes, etc). 
3.3.1	United Nations Volunteers
In order to respond to the severe shortage of suitably qualified civilian personnel for peace support operations, the UN is increasingly making use of UN Volunteers (UNV). Of over 4,000 UN Volunteers recruited and deployed on peacekeeping missions since 1992, about 1,500 have been used in the past two years in Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone. The Brahimi Report has called for the expanded use of UNVs to support such operations.

UN Volunteers are from a broad range of educational and professional backgrounds and their work is divided into four main categories: Peace, Humanitarian Assistance, Electoral Assistance and Human Rights. UN Volunteers are normally 'mid-career professionals', with an average age of 37 and 10 years relevant work experience. They are paid a stipend which is comparable to many NGO salaries in the field, although it is well below what UN field staff are paid.

The biggest UNV operation is currently in East Timor, with 820 volunteers serving under an agreement with the DPKO, making up more than 50% of the international staff members of the operation. They have been responsible for preparing the national elections by registering voters, training local election monitors, carrying out monitoring functions on the day of the election and assisting with organising the post-election logistics.  A number of UN Volunteers are also assisting other UN agencies (ie UN Development Programme, UN High Commission of Human Rights, World Food Programme) with humanitarian relief operations.

As part of UNMIK in Kosovo, over 700 UN Volunteers have been assisting with peacebuilding and post-crisis reconstruction work since 1999. They have worked in different areas of the country among divided communities, helping to create the trust required for peace to work in Kosovo. UN Volunteers provide legal assistance and stress counselling, carry out community-relations work and provide administrative support in courts and prisons. 

Other UN Volunteers work as media analysts, human rights observers, field engineers, water specialists, communication experts, socio-economic observers, indigenous rights officers, verifiers of peace agreements and civil protection specialists.  A new UNV project will be launched in Sierra Leone in November 2001, involving 164 UN Volunteers in the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Sierra Leone’s ex-combatants.
3.4	NGO Use of Civilian Personnel in the Field
Supplementing the work of inter-governmental organisations is an increasing number of international organisations that are using civilian personnel in conflict situations. An international directory of conflict prevention lists 475 NGOs working in this field worldwide. But as we have seen in chapter 2, defining the parameters of this field is problematic, and every listing defines these differently: a more recent UK directory lists 226 NGOs in the field of 'conflict, development and peace' based in the UK alone. 

Many of these NGOs work with partner organisations employing only local staff. Others may send people abroad for very short-term consultancy, training or advisory work (see section 4.3 below). Those that do make use of 'ex-patriot' staff in the field are mainly the humanitarian aid agencies and those development organisations working directly with refugees, displaced people, separated children and the injured. 

Nevertheless, more and more NGOs are going into conflict areas in a specifically peacekeeping, peacemaking or peacebuilding capacity. The various activities they engage in include those that are also carried out by inter-governmental organisations and have been mentioned above, i.e. electoral assistance, human rights monitoring, democratisation assistance, media development, rule of law development, demining and DDR. But they also engage in a variety of other activities that are not so commonly engaged in by the inter-governmental bodies described in the above sections of this chapter. Rather than attempt a comprehensive description of all NGO activities in this field, we will provide a sampling of these which cover some of the different areas defined in chapter 2.
3.4.1	NGO Peacekeeping Activities
The US-based organisation Witness for Peace (WfP) has been maintaining an international presence in war zones in various Latin American countries for almost 20 years. The biggest of these projects was their presence in Nicaragua with almost 4,000 US citizens having taken part in over 180 long and short-term monitoring delegations between 1983 and 1990. While they were present in different villages, WfP monitors helped with the harvest, organised vigils in the town square, taught English to school children and engaged in other community activities. While engaging in everyday life, they constantly observed and documented what was going on around them and reported this to the international community through regular newsletters, reports and press releases. Currently, WfP delegations are present in Mexico, Colombia and Cuba. 

Other organisations have been trying to provide an international presence in similar conflict situations. Christian Peacemakers Teams have been active in Haiti, Mexico, Palestine, and Colombia. Most recently, Women in Black have been trying to establish an international presence in Palestine. Many other human rights and solidarity campaigns have organised short-term monitoring and fact-finding delegations. The World Council of Churches has launched an international 'Ecumenical Monitoring Project' for Israel/Palestine, based on the experience of the Ecumenical Monitoring Project for South Africa, which monitoring the South African elections of 1994.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) pioneered the development of international protective accompaniment as a tool for protecting human rights defenders, initially in Central America and Sri Lanka. PBI currently has teams in Colombia, Indonesia and Mexico. These teams operate as observers in the area, accompanying people or organisations under threat, making regular visits to conflict zones, working with civil and military authorities and carrying out public relations and lobbying work to provide international support to local human rights defenders. Other NGOs have followed this approach, particularly to support the return of refugees to El Salvador, Guatemala and Eastern Croatia. 

All of these NGOs are comparatively small-scale, operating in teams of 3-12 people, with a maximum of 3 or 4 teams in any one country. One proposal currently under development is for a 'Nonviolent Peaceforce' that would deploy hundreds, and eventually thousands, of people to situations of conflict where they would provide a presence, engage in monitoring and accompaniment work and take on other civilian peacekeeping tasks to deter further violence. The Nonviolent Peaceforce is aiming to be operational with a first pilot project in 2003, following an extensive period of research and development.
3.4.2	NGO Peacemaking Activities
One of the tools of the Centre for Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights in Osijek, Croatia, has been a Listening Project designed to improve the shattered relationships of mixed Serb-Croat communities in Croatia. For several years now, the Centre has been sending Peace Teams to various communities in Eastern Slavonia suffering from tensions between refugees returning home (mainly Croats) and people who had stayed in the village during the violence (mainly Serbs). Peace Team members conduct interviews with different members of these communities encouraging them to speak about their war experiences, express strong feelings of sorrow or hatred but also to talk about their perceptions of the situation they live in and potentials for reconciliation and building peace. Peace Teams work in multi-ethnic groups to gain the trust of all the communities they work with. They are generally trained facilitators who have been practising the method of posing and answering questions in role plays prior to going into a village. 

On the basis of the results received from the listening project, the peace teams started up concrete community relations programmes in which they tried to include as many community members as possible. Peace Team members encouraged groups of Croatian families to send their children to ‘Serbian’ schools in the village rather than to Croatian schools further away initiating a process of creating more integrated schools. Another group assisted the local community to re-open a once multi-ethnic chess club where Serbian and Croatian teenagers could come together to rebuild relationships based on a common interest for the game. Yet another team trained and supported a multi-ethnic community group that engaged in voluntary social work in families living in poverty, handicapped people or those suffering from trauma, regardless of their ethnic background. 

Other international NGOs have been involved in a range of conflict resolution activities to help conflicting parties reach a negotiated solution to their situation. In Sri Lanka, for instance, International Alert engaged in facilitation and mediation activities to support a negotiated settlement to the conflict and the building of a peace constituency, within and outside the country. 

Activities included facilitating and creating spaces for dialogue; engaging different actors in addressing conflict; research and publications; targeted advocacy and awareness raising; seminars and workshops; training and capacity building.

Conciliation Resources has been supporting local peacemaking efforts in Sierra Leone by providing training to representatives of the Bo Peace and Reconciliation Movement (BPRM), a coalition of eleven organisations ranging from teacher’s unions, lorry drivers union to civil defence forces. These organisations foster dispute resolution through local peace monitors; explore opportunities for reconciliation and reintegration of former fighters and marginalised youths; and develop radio programmes which aim to sensitise the population on issues like peace, justice and human rights. Conciliation Resources provides training in handling conflict skills and organises discussion groups to enhance the organisational and professional capacities of peace monitors and field officers.

In the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict, Conciliation Resources assists in the reconciliation process by raising public awareness about the conflict and peace process. By bringing communities from both sides of the conflict together and providing opportunities for discussion, the organisation seeks to undermine the antagonistic atmosphere among the divided communities and increase the communities’ knowledge and understanding about each other.

The Community of St Egidio, Italy, played a role as facilitator to conflicting parties in several countries. One of their most successful contributions was to the peace process in Mozambique during the first half of the 1990s, where they played an intermediary role between the different groups who had not been able to come to an agreement about the process or location for potential peace talks. Due to years of development work in the country, the Community St Egidio was able to take the initiative, organising and hosting exploratory talks that subsequently turned to formal mediation between the groups and led to the signing of the Mozambique Peace Agreement in 1992. The Community of St. Egidio has been also been contributing to the peace process in Algeria, Guatemala, Lebanon and Bosnia through their facilitation and mediation projects.

3.4.3	NGO Peacebuilding Activities
The vast majority of work done by NGOs in conflict comes under the 'peacebuilding' category, including all the development work which is aimed at redressing fundamental inequalities between different ethnic or minority groups and tackling other root causes of conflict. 

An important peacebuilding tool, increasingly used by international NGOs is capacity building, in order to strengthen local capacities for peace.

The Swedish Life and Peace Institute (LPI) , for example, supports local peacebuilding processes in Somalia by training members of district councils in technical and administrative skills to be able to serve their communities in a better way. The training initially only included administration and management skills but has since come to incorporate topics such as conflict resolution, reconciliation, gender, democratic values and leadership, human rights, development and resource management, small arms and conflict. 

It has grown into a regular Civic Education Programme with target groups now including the wider civil society. Trainings include independent media development for journalists and other media staff, peace education training for teachers, and training in using the arts for conflict resolution for artists and youth groups. A strong focus is on strengthening the role of women as bridge-builders between clans through leadership workshops, conflict resolution training, negotiation, community work, project management, youth work etc.

The Centro de Estudios Internacionales (CEI) in Nicaragua focuses its peacebuilding activities on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former combatants of the former Sandinista and Resistance armies. The goal of the project is to build on personal traits combatants have developed in warfare (dedication, sacrifice, solidarity, discipline, teamwork, organisation) and teach them how to apply these skills and characteristics to engage in peacebuilding activities. Training workshops with former soldiers include listening exercises, analysis of the conflict and the current situation in the country and peace education. Upon completion of the training programme (which may take several years), ex-combatants use their newly developed skills to work as “multipliers” of these projects with other soldiers.

Civil protection activities are generally carried out by development or humanitarian aid agencies. The International Committee of the Red Cross, for example, manages search and rescue missions, provides assistance to refugees by providing food and shelter in refugee camps and Doctors without Borders provides medical assistance to civilians and combatants in ‘hot’ conflict zones.
3.5	Civilians on the Front Line of Crisis Prevention
As we have seen in this chapter, the role of civilians in handling conflict has been steadily increasing and expanding in recent years. The EU, OSCE and UN have all taken steps during 2001 to move further in this direction, and there is a growing recognition of the important roles being played by NGOs in this field. 

It is fair to say, however, that while the talk is everywhere about 'conflict prevention', in fact most of the effort to date has gone into very last-minute attempts at crisis management and even more so into post-crisis reconstruction. These are, of course, needed responses to current situations. But if the emphasis is truly going to shift to crisis prevention at a much earlier stage, there must also be a corresponding shift to the early deployment of civilians to such situations.

Military 'preventative deployments' may be useful in such situations, but it is clear that crisis prevention is overwhelmingly a civilian task. Effective early intervention involves building local capacities for handling conflict, protecting the space for that work to be done, trust and confidence-building between conflict parties and tackling the myriad root causes of conflict before they lead to violence. These are all tasks for civilian specialists across a whole range of areas that were examined in chapter 2 of this report.

1	
4	Existing Capacity: UK Recruitment, Training and Deployment 
4.1	Recruitment of Civilian Personnel by the UK Government
The UK government does not have a centralised recruitment procedure for civilians to be deployed on international peace operations, but each department (EU, OSCE, UN) handles personnel requests individually.
OSCE Department, FCO
In response to the recent agreement of OSCE Member States to establish capacities for setting up Rapid Expert Assistance and Co-operation Teams (REACT), the OSCE Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has revised its recruitment procedure to match the international OSCE guidelines for selection and recruitment of personnel. Candidates who pass the selection process are added to a database of experts from which future mission staff is drawn.

The OSCE Department receives approximately 500 applications per year of which 300 individuals are invited for an interview. Successful candidates have to match one of the 12 professional categories and certain qualification criteria the OSCE has defined for their missions. Approximately 200 individuals pass the interview stage each year and are added to the OSCE database, which currently holds approximately 600 entries.  

Up until this year, pre-mission training for OSCE secondees consisted of a two-day induction course in Vienna prior to deployment. However, in the context of the REACT programme, the UK government has developed a pre-mission training course for all potential OSCE candidates. The 7-day course is run in co-operation with Kings College at the Military Staff College in Shrivenham. It provides basic training to prepare potential secondees for assignments with the OSCE, including classroom lectures about the history of the OSCE, structure and management of peace support missions, human rights theory, as well as outdoor modules for simulation exercises and mines awareness training. The first training course was held in April this year and has been followed by two further courses for approximately 25 participants each. 

Taking part in this training course is the last stage of the FCO selection process and is considered compulsory for being added to the departmental database. The OSCE department hopes eventually to be able to train every candidate on the database but is for now focusing on new recruits. The database can be searched by professional expertise (the OSCE categories), skills (e.g. language, academic background, IT skills, etc), attributes, availability for rapid reaction (2 weeks notice) and other criteria. 

The UK is responsible for 10% of each OSCE mission and according to the OSCE department, is confident of being able to satisfy current and future personnel requirements. The only qualifications that are currently under-represented on the database are experts in the Rule of Law and people with language skills in Russian. 
UN and EU Departments
Recruitment for UN and EU secondments is carried out in a more ad-hoc way. UN Member States are only responsible for the police and military personnel contingent of any UN mission. Other civilian staff for UN peace operations (e.g. in the areas Human Rights, Civil Affairs, and Political Affairs) are recruited directly by UN Headquarters in New York. Therefore, the UN Department of the Foreign Office does not hold a database of civilian personnel but only recruits civilian police (through the International Policing Unit at the Home Office) and military staff. 

A similar situation applies to secondments to EU missions. All electoral staff are recruited through the OSCE department, so the EU Department only deals with secondments to the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in the former Yugoslavia. The mimimum British contingent for this mission consists of only 6 monitors and the EU Department uses internal personnel files for selecting these or, when no internal candidates are available, passes the request on to the OSCE department. There are currently no plans of substantially increasing the EUMM and thus no necessity of revising the current recruitment process. 
Department for International Development
The Department for International Development (DFID) has been providing personnel to UN missions in the past and is currently putting together a register of consultants with conflict analysis and policy expertise. This register is meant for internal use of the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (CHAD) only and holds CVs of conflict analysis consultants at the highest level to be contracted for ad-hoc policy work.
Joined-up Government
In April 2001, the government implemented a new strategy for conflict prevention work. One aspect of this strategy was the pooling of the conflict prevention budgets of three different departments (Ministry of Defence, DFID and FCO) into “pooled budgets” for conflict prevention work. One for sub-Saharan Africa (the Africa Pool), and another for the rest of the world (the Global Pool). The Africa Pool budget will be £50 million per annum for the next three years, the Global Pool budget will be £60 million in 2001/2; £68 million in 2002/3 and £78 million in 2003/4  for programmatic costs.  

The aim of this arrangement is to strengthen the co-ordination of the three separate departments in order to facilitate collective decision making on the UK’s conflict prevention work and make a more effective contribution in this area.

While the priorities for the Africa Pool are still under consideration, progress has been made on defining eight priority areas for the Global Pool, four geographical: 

•	Balkans 
•	Middle and Near East
•	Russia and former Soviet Union
•	Central and Eastern Europe

and four functional: 
•	UN Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding 
•	EU Civil Crisis Management 
•	OSCE 
•	Small Arms.
4.2	 NGO Recruitment of Civilian Personnel
Each year, several thousand British volunteers are sent abroad to provide professional expertise on field missions in conflict areas all over the world. Most of them are employed by NGOs as “development aid workers”. 

With the exception of complex emergency response operations or monitoring missions, the request for personnel usually comes from local partner organisations that wish to run a certain project but cannot find the professional expertise in their own country. Assignments range from short-term consultant visits of three weeks to long-term capacity building projects of several years.  
Ad-hoc recruitment
NGOs increasingly employ local staff to run most of their projects on the ground. In cases where large human resources or the necessary expertise are not available locally, overseas professionals are deployed in an advisory or trainer role to build up local capacities.

Most of the professionals deployed on long-term projects are recruited on an ad-hoc basis in very much the same way as those working in organisations in the UK. Organisations advertise for specific positions in national papers, newsletters, specialist websites or on university noticeboards and candidates are selected based on their CV, application, references and interview performance. 
Recruitment through rosters
Some organisations have their own personnel databases to draw from when staff are required on rather short notice for one-off assignments. The British Red Cross, Doctors without Borders (MSF) and International Health Exchange are some examples of organisations managing their own registers of staff available for assignments on humanitarian relief operations.  Development agencies like Action Against Hunger or Christians Abroad also draw personnel for development projects in conflict areas from their own databases. 

The arrangements for election monitors and observers are very similar. In the UK, four organisations provide staff experienced in electoral and democratisation assistance, each of them managing a database of between 100-300 professionals, available for being deployed as election monitors, but also to work in the areas of rule of law and democratisation. Criteria for selecting people are: familiarity with issues related to electoral assistance or democratisation, political analysis; previous mission experience in any of these fields, language skills and other practical skills. None of the organisations offers training courses for people wishing to obtain experience in these areas, however.
 
The British Executive Services Overseas (BESO) maintains a database of 3,000 senior professionals (most of them retired) in a wide range of areas who are available for short-term capacity building missions abroad. Each year, BESO sends out over 500 experts to provide managerial or training expertise to organisations and small businesses in developing countries that are lacking staff capacities or technical know how to carry out certain projects. Most of their work is in the field of enterprise development, health, education, governance and agriculture. 

The organisation does not advertise for positions but ‘recruits’ new specialists mainly from corporate retirement seminars. Most people who show an interest are included in their database, but only a small proportion get assignments. Due to the senior status of BESO recruits and their substantial professional experience, no pre-mission training is provided, although country and project briefings take place prior to departure.

The databases described above are usually for internal recruitment purposes only. However, there are also a few centralised registers that serve as recruitment agencies for any organisation requiring suitably qualified staff for overseas missions. RedR (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief) is the leading organisation of this kind. Their register currently holds details of 1,200 people, with proven skills and experience in at least one of their 25 categories of field work. These include many engineering specialisms as well as project management, community mobilisation, demining and others relevant to the handling conflict field. Candidates on the roster must go through RedR's selection process, which includes a personal interview as well as participation in one of RedR’s training courses. 

RedR functions as a recruitment and training agency for other UK sending organisations. Since 1980 it has provided staff to almost 100 different British and international organisations to work on humanitarian relief and development projects all over the world, including work in conflict areas. To date, however, the RedR register does not have any separate professional categories in the areas of work described in chapter 2 of this report. 
Informal registers
There are a number of informally compiled directories of experts in certain areas of peace and conflict work from which organisations can draw personnel. The most comprehensive directories are in the field of conflict resolution trainers and mediators, with lists maintained by Mediation UK and a directory of community relations work compiled by the Community Relations Council in Northern Ireland. Many UK trainers and mediators are also listed in a number of international directories produced for this purpose.
Recruitment events
Some organisations, like Peace Brigades International (PBI), use a process of group discussions, games and role-play exercises simulating "real-life" situations in order to identify suitable candidates for their accompaniment projects. PBI runs two such 'orientation weekends' per year for interested applicants who have passed the first stage of the application process (application form and references). 
Volunteer Organisations
A number of voluntary organisations do not recruit candidates for particular vacancies but instead aim to find suitable placements for candidates that have successfully passed the general application process. Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) is the biggest such organisation, annually sending around 2,000 volunteers on projects abroad. Even though conflict work is not part of VSO's mandate and the organisation withdraws their volunteers when the political situation in a 'conflict area' becomes too unstable, volunteers have worked in a number of capacity building roles in pre- and post-conflict areas.
4.3	 Training and Education in the Peace and Conflict Field
The training opportunities in this country preparing people for peace and conflict work can be divided in four categories: Academic training (university degrees); Practical training courses and summer schools; Trainee- and internships (training on the job); and organisation-specific pre-mission training.
Academic training
An increasing number of universities in the UK now offer undergraduate or postgraduate courses related to handling conflict. There are a broad range of general courses in International Relations, International Security Studies, Human Rights, International Politics or Development Studies that give students the opportunity of choosing some options related to peace and conflict work. There are fewer degree courses specialising in specific conflict issues: Peace Studies, Conflict Resolution, Peace and Reconciliation Studies, International Conflict Analysis, Comparative Ethnic Conflict or Post-War Recovery Studies.

Over 40 degree courses related to peace and conflict are offered at various universities in the UK. Bradford University is the leading institution in this field, with over 200 students graduating annually from 11 different Diploma, BA and MA programmes in International Security Studies, Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies. 

However, despite the intention to provide practical as well as theoretical skills, most of these programmes are taught through lectures and academic seminars and are very much focused on giving students a thorough knowledge about handling conflict, rather than practical skills. Only a small number of institutions are trying to give students the opportunity to put theory to practice in specially designed workshops or internships.

Bradford University, for example, offers students the chance to work with Bradford Council's Mediation Service during the academic year and encourages students of its Peace Studies and Spanish degree to spend their third year working in an organisation in Latin America. The Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Lancaster University organises field trips to NGOs working in conflict areas and uses role-plays as a teaching method in mediation and conflict resolution seminars. The school has also announced that a two-week practical course on conflict resolution skills is soon to be included in the general curriculum of the MA Conflict Resolution. 
Training in mediation
A number of training courses in the UK provide students with practical skills for handling conflict.  The most developed area for training is the field of mediation. Over 170 registered community mediation services currently exist throughout the UK, offering training courses in community mediation [which includes neighbourhood, victim/offender and peer mediation in schools], family mediation and commercial mediation.  The courses are open to all interested individuals and are usually free of charge as long as the course participant commits him/herself to taking on mediation assignments on a voluntary basis for at least a year after completing the course.  Courses are held over several evenings or weekends and teach participants listening and negotiation skills, awareness of bias and prejudice, skills in handling conflict constructively and creative and communication skills. 

Mediation UK, the umbrella organisation of all local mediation services, also offers courses directly. A new pilot training scheme on Victim/Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice was started in 2001. Mediation UK has also developed recognised qualifications in mediation: Level 2 Mediation Intermediate Award and Level 3 Mediation - Advanced Award are infrequently provided by community mediation services or colleges. The Level 4 National Vocational Qualification in Community Mediation is a high level qualification awarded by City & Guilds but not yet made much of. The aim of this award is to establish a national standard for accreditation of mediators by Mediation UK. 

Mediation training is offered by a number of other training providers, including the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, various organisations in Northern Ireland and a number of independent Mediation Trainers. 
Other training courses
Training courses in a broad range of other conflict resolution skills prepare participants for dealing more effectively with conflicts in their day to day life and in their work with other people. LEAP Confronting Conflict provides training in nonviolent handling of conflict for young people and for adults who work with young people - including teachers, youth workers, facilitators and group workers and prison officers. Four annual courses of different content and length are offered each year and include modules on communication, working with challenge, understanding roots of anger, issues of power and powerlessness, using drama and theatre for dealing with conflict, gender issues and self esteem. 

A broad range of training courses on handling conflict in one's own community are offered in Northern Ireland. A number of organisations and independent trainers offer training in community relations work, mediation, teaching in integrated schools, parades monitoring and stewarding. Most of these courses are offered at an ad-hoc basis according to demand. 
Pre-mission training for overseas work
The range of training courses that prepare people for working in conflict areas overseas is not as wide as training for conflict work here in the UK. The most developed area here is training for humanitarian relief or development aid workers.  

RedR is the leading training provider in this field (see above), training individuals in the essentials of humanitarian practice, project and human resource management skills, environmental health in emergencies and security and communication issues. RedR has also designed a special "training programme on NGO Security" held in several areas affected by violent conflict. Training courses are open to all individuals interested in working on international humanitarian relief projects. 

One of the few training providers preparing people for peace and conflict work overseas is Responding to Conflict (RTC) in Birmingham. RTC offers two courses annually. The five-day summer school workshop "Strengthening Policy and Practice" is aimed at staff of international agencies engaged in planning and implementing programmes for humanitarian assistance or in developing policies.  The course is aimed at teaching practical methods of analysing conflicts, impact assessment and evaluation, negotiation and mediation and provide people with tools for integrating effective conflict prevention and peace-building into programme planning.

The second course is a 10-week residential training course, "Working with Conflict", and designed for people from local and international agencies working on peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding projects in conflict areas. The course is highly participative and practical, including presentations, role-plays, field exercises, group work and individual study.  The curriculum is designed to help participants study a wide range of approaches to dealing effectively with conflict and to learn and practise skills and techniques. The course covers a wide range of topics related to handling conflict, including listening and facilitation, negotiation, mediation, responses to violence, preventing the escalation of violence and conflict, democratisation and empowerment, human rights, post-war reconstruction, rebuilding relationships and reconciliation, using the media to communicate, impact assessment and capacity building.
 
Other courses that provide people with relevant skills for working on peace missions abroad are scarce. The British section of Peace Brigades International (PBI) offers orientation weekends as a combined training and recruitment event (see above). These weekends are for people who demonstrate a genuine interest in becoming a PBI volunteer and are not open training courses for everybody. The curriculum of the weekend deals with issues such as non-violence, consensus decision-making and conflict resolution. The Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE) in Northern Ireland offers a number of courses in this area as part of their annual summer school. The workshops do not always provide practical skills in handling conflict but rather address issues of concern for people working in conflict such as policy makers, practitioners and researchers. Themes vary every year to respond to trends in current thinking and debate. 

In 2000, the Human Rights Centre at Essex University started to offer training courses for human rights field officers, preparing people specifically for working on EU, OSCE or UN Human Rights observer missions. The training included seminars on monitoring; fact-finding, promotion and implementation of Human Rights; Implementation of confidence building measures; relations with local population, authorities, the media, military and NGOs etc.

However, these courses have not taken place since September 2000 and the Centre currently doesn't have any plans to resume them, mainly for lack of funding. Training for monitoring and observing roles is provided in the form of parades monitoring and stewarding training by various organisations in Northern Ireland even though it is aimed at preparing people for monitoring roles in Northern Ireland rather than abroad. 
Traineeships and internships 
Although common in the corporate world, traineeships or other institutionalised training-on-the-job possibilities are still very rare in the peace and conflict field. A number of organisations offer internships and volunteering opportunities to students and recent graduates, like for example, International Alert, Saferworld, PBI, INCORE and many development agencies. Interns are based in the organisation's office mainly providing administrative and research assistance and obtaining an overview of the work of NGOs in this field. 

More mission-specific traineeships are offered by the Department for International Development (DFID) and the OSCE Department. DFID's Associate Professional Officers Scheme (APOS) annually offers to a recent graduate one traineeship in the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (CHAD).  For the duration of one year, the individual is employed by DFID, receives a salary and rotates through different programmes of the department. Specific tasks of the trainee include appraising project proposals, undertaking assessment missions, monitoring current humanitarian situations and providing advice to other DFID departments. 

The OSCE Department offers six internship possibilities per year to young professionals who are qualified to work for the OSCE but do not yet have any practical field experience. For the duration of 4-6 months, interns work on a field mission carrying out a variety of tasks, from providing administrative assistance to writing reports and briefings to assisting in monitoring projects. 
Organisation-specific pre-mission training
Many organisations have their own training programmes for people that are to be sent on a project abroad.  Christian Aid, Christians Abroad, Oxfam, Save the Children, Action for People in Conflict, the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), Quaker Peace and Social Witness and the British Red Cross are some of the organisations who hold training courses for their staff to prepare them for specific assignments. These training sessions might be short briefings of one or two days to in-depth training courses of several weeks. 
4.4	UK Expertise in Handling Conflict: The Untapped Resource
UK vacancies for both governmental and NGO positions in this field are usually well contested, with many more people interested in doing this kind of work than there are places available. Larger scale missions, however, such as the Kosovo Verification Mission, have generally failed to reach full strength because of a lack of spare capacity or suitable 'stand-by arrangements' for quick deployment in emergencies. While this problem is currently being addressed, the larger question remains as to how far existing organisations are meeting the actual need on the ground? The vast majority of this work, as we have seen, is concentrated at the post-crisis end of the conflict cycle - helping to re-build societies in the aftermath of war and crises. If the same scale of effort were directed at preventing violent conflict at a much earlier stage, the need for qualified civilian personnel in such situations might be many times what it is at the moment.

Within the UK are enormous resources for handling conflict which could be further developed and put at the disposal of the international community. In Northern Ireland alone there are over 150 NGOs active in the areas of community relations, human rights, policing issues, parades monitoring, mediation, trauma work and many other areas relevant to this field. These NGOs are receiving more and more requests to share their skills and experiences with people in other conflict areas of the world. 

There are also over 3,000 trained mediators volunteering with local community mediation schemes and restorative justice programmes across Britain, and many of these have also used, or would like to use, their skills abroad. Anti-racist, inter-faith and refugee support groups also have among their ranks many people with specific skills relevant to the handling of potentially violent conflicts abroad.

Many professions contain people with relevant skills for this work, including doctors, nurses, social workers, community workers, teachers, solicitors and many others who deal with violent or potentially violent conflict every day. Hundreds of school leavers are now trained and experienced as 'peer mediators' and are keen to develop their skills and use them abroad. More and more young people are being attracted to working for VSO and for hundreds of other NGOs working overseas in situations of potential or actual violent conflict. 

A 'Civilian Peace Service' for the UK could tap into this reservoir of interest and experience and channel it into meeting more needs on the ground in situations of potentially violent conflict. With some additional training, many more people in the above professions could also be making a greater contribution to the handling of conflict in their own work environment as well as being more useful overseas.

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5	Enhancing Capacity: The 'Civilian Peace Service' and Other Models
5.1	The 'Civilian Peace Service' Concept
For the purpose of this report, the term “civilian peace service” (CPS) is used as a generic term to describe a scheme by which civilians are recruited, trained and deployed to take on peacekeeping, peacemaking or peacebuilding functions in conflict situations. Several countries are using the term “civil" rather than "civilian" in order to emphasise not merely the non-military nature of such a service, but particularly its relationship to civil society. Despite many differences, all existing CPS schemes have the same overall aim of enhancing national civilian capacities for the handling of violent conflict. 

The concept originated in Berlin at the end of the 1980s. It sparked a national debate in Germany and the formation of a consortium of organisations supporting the idea, which, in 1999, the new German government decided to fund as a new tool of German development policy.  In Austria, a national peace service was established in 1993 and other CPS initiatives were launched in Sweden, France, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands during the 1990s.  

Each country has adopted the concept in different ways to suit the particular needs and situation in the respective country. In Austria, Italy and France, for instance, the concept is closely linked to national conscription and is offered to young men as an alternative to military service (although also open to women and other interested individuals). In the Netherlands and Sweden the focus lies strongly on training individuals in different techniques of handling conflict while the German Civil Peace Service has a very close link to development work and focuses on providing long-term personnel support by deploying 'peace experts' to conflict areas around the world. 

What follows is an overview of the different CPS initiatives throughout Europe. Although not all these initiatives call themselves 'civilian peace services', we have included them if they fit within this generic definition. We also look at national rosters for stand-by deployment of civilian personnel and national civilian training programmes since these are closely related developments, although they do not fit the definition of a civilian peace service. 
5.2	The German Civil Peace Service
In Germany, the Civil Peace Service has so far trained and deployed approximately 120 peace experts on peacebuilding projects in the Balkans, Latin America, Asia and Africa.  Operational since November 1999, it has been incorporated into German development policy and is an entirely government funded programme. 
History and development
The concept for a civil peace service was first proposed in 1991 by the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg and was widely supported by civil society and a number of distinguished personalities. In 1994, the first step towards a nation-wide co-operation was made with the founding of the ‘Forum Civil Peace Service’ (forumCPS), an association of groups and individuals mostly from the peace movement with the aim of establishing a German civilian peace service.  A central motivation behind this movement was the general belief that more emphasis should be put on the prevention of violent conflicts rather than responding to conflicts through military intervention. The aim was to build on the experiences of the various smaller groups and institutions organising peace projects in Germany and abroad and go a step further towards professionalisation by institutionalising the training as well as the project-management.  The initiative found strong public support which led to the formulation of the ‘Berlin Declaration for a Civil Peace Service’ in 1997, signed by over 1000 national and international politicians, academics, peace activists, church leaders and prominent figures. The declaration called for the establishment of a national, government-funded Civil Peace Service, defining it as “a peace expert service with the mandate to engage in national and international conflicts by use of non-violent means of handling conflict. Its aim is to make a contribution to prevent or end the outbreak of violence or to initiate processes of post-conflict reconciliation.” 

The idea was picked up by the German Development Service’s (DED) Managing Director, Mr Willi Erl, who in 1996, initiated the founding of the ‘Consortium of Civil Peace Services’. This was a working group to facilitate co-operation between the peace volunteer services - who had many years of experience in operating peace projects abroad - and the development agencies - whose mandate was increasingly expanding into areas of peace and conflict work. 

The German Land of Northrhine-Westphalia meanwhile began funding a model training programme as a step towards the creation of a civil peace service. When the SPD came to power in 1998, they committed themselves to the establishment of a civil peace service at the Federal level.  The German CPS was established in 1999 with the enthusiastic support of the Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who described CPS as 'one of the most important instruments' of a German development policy increasingly oriented towards conflict prevention.
Structure and Funding
Today, the CPS is a public-private partnership, financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) and co-ordinated and implemented by a coalition of German peace organisations and development services.  The BMZ initially put DM5m (£1.6m) into CPS training and project development in 1999.  With the first placements of peace experts in the field, this budget line more than tripled in the year 2000 to DM17.5m (£5.8m) and in 2001 stands at DM 20m. In addition to this, the BMZ is co-financing (with the Land Northrhine-Westphalia) a 4-month training course preparing 'peace experts' for deployment with one of the implementing partners of the CPS. The Secretariat of the CPS is housed at the DED (German Development Service) and is responsible for channelling CPS funds to the other agencies involved and administering the projects on behalf of the BMZ. The six recognised development agencies in Germany, the forumCPS as well as Action Group Service for Peace (AGDF) are responsible for proposing CPS projects and for recruiting and training the required personnel.
Field Operations
Activities involving the CPS must follow existing development policy criteria, which include the four basic principles of 'subsidiarity', 'minimum intervention', ‘sustainability’ and 'helping others to help themselves'. Co-operation with local partners and acceptance of the project by other parties to the conflict are also requirements of any CPS involvement.  What distinguishes CPS projects from other development work is that they must involve "targeted measures to promote the non-violent handling of conflicts and potential conflicts". Accordingly, projects within the CPS scheme are long-term endeavours and peace experts are sent abroad, at a minimum for years, to work on peacebuilding projects that may involve: 

•	Measures to encourage mutual trust between conflicting parties, including programmes of information and education to overcome prejudice and hostile images (eg peace education);
•	Mediation between different interest groups, ethnic groups and religions;
•	Monitoring of respect for human rights and democracy and promoting positive developments in these areas;
•	Contributions towards reconciliation and reconstruction 
Training
The 4-month training course mentioned above is run by the ‘Working Group Qualification for Civilian Conflict Transformation/Civil Peace Service’ (AGQ)  and is offered twice a year for an average of 16 participants each. It consists of a basic component of about 12 weeks plus two one-week specialisation workshops (covering trauma work, civil society building and mediation), supplemented in some cases by an intensive language course provided by a development agency. The curriculum of the basic component deals with issues such as conflict analysis, teamwork, conflict resolution techniques, dealing with stress, etc. 

The course is funded by the BMZ and made available to the sending organisations for preparation of their CPS workers. However, the course is not a compulsory element of the CPS programme and many of the organisations consider four months of training to be too long - especially in those cases where a recruited candidate already has considerable experience in this field. Most of the development agencies, for example, run their own pre-mission training courses which are specifically designed to prepare the peace expert for the particular position s/he is to take up in the field. 

Independently from the CPS scheme, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs has developed its own training course to prepare civilians for working on OSCE or UN missions. The German Society for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) is currently carrying out a study into the need for further training provisions for civilians working in conflict areas. 

5.3	 European Variations on the CPS theme
Following widespread circulation of the original Berlin-Brandenburg proposal calling for a civilian peace service, a number of other European countries started to explore the idea and several CPS schemes were developed from this model. The following is a brief summary of these. 
5.3.1	Austrian Peace Service
The Austrian Peace Service (OFD) was founded in 1993 as an association of different organisations that were responding to requests for support personnel from local partner organisations in the former Yugoslavia.  It offers voluntary, unpaid positions of between 6-14 months on projects in four different categories: youth and social work; support of higher education; women's solidarity; human rights and peacebuilding. 

The service is recognised by the government as an alternative to military service and most of the participants are young men.  The initiative tries to encourage women and older professionals to apply, but a severe lack of funding does not allow for paying appropriate salaries to their volunteers. This decreases the attractiveness of taking part in the peace service for a lot of otherwise interested parties. While the Austrian Home Office covers the costs for conscientious objectors, the OFD has to seek alternative funding sources for other candidates they wish to deploy, usually through the Ministry for Environment, Youth and Family, private donations or churches. Between eight and twelve volunteers per year are trained and deployed on a CPS project abroad and the focus lies more on providing young people with a learning experience than lending professional expertise to partner organisations on the ground.

Projects are developed by partner organisations in the region who then send their request for peace service volunteers. In the thematic field of “human rights and peacebuilding”, the Austrian Peace Service currently works with three partner organisations within the former Yugoslavia. Areas of work for the peace service volunteers include: PR and administration; publication of a youth magazine, human rights education, organisation or workshops, international networking and assisting with the running of listening projects.

All candidates take part in a four-week training course prior to being deployed on a mission. The training course is free for participants and covers a broad range of areas: conflict analysis, non-violent means of handling conflict, political analysis of the country in question, trauma work, self motivation, project management, public relations, fundraising and a language course. 

The Austrian Peace Service has recently been discussing the possibility of expanding its mandate and developing a more professional "Peace Expert Service" as an addition to the current “peace volunteer service”. The concept for such a service has been developed along the lines of the German CPS and includes a longer training programme focused on conflict transformation, a national law on peace services and projects abroad as well as in Austria itself. However, the current Austrian government has placed serious policy restrictions on alternative service and is not very supportive of further expanding the Austrian CPS at the moment.
5.3.2	Civil Peace Corps, Italy
In Italy, the concept of CPS has also been closely linked to conscription. In 1998, a reform of the law on conscientious objection made it possible to carry out alternative civil service abroad and some organisations have since made use of this provision by sending COs on projects in the former Yugoslavia and other conflict areas.
 
The movement has come to be called “Caschi Bianchi” (White Helmets) with reference to a former UN proposal for establishing a civilian corps of “White Helmets” to work alongside the 'Blue Helmets' on humanitarian relief projects. Several organisations that are part of the Italian peace movement are proposing these Caschi Bianchi as a “Civil Peace Corps” with more tasks than the purely humanitarian ones originally intended. 

Two Italian organisations, Associazione per la Pace and the Centro Studi Defesa Civile, have been promoting and lobbying for the development of such a Civil Peace Corps as a government funded entity. Currently, the Centro Studi Defesa Civile is carrying out an elaborate research study, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence in 1999, to explore the feasibility of this possibility.  The research was supposed to be completed in mid 2001, however at the time of writing no report had yet been published. 

The areas of involvement foreseen for the Civil Peace Corps and currently undertaken by these informal “Caschi Bianchi” projects include tasks like mediation and confidence building, but also interpositioning and non-violent active intervention. 

Each organisation organises its own training. Common elements of these training courses are: self-awareness, team work, aggression control, stress management, conflict and diversity management, information and role-plays about the situation on the ground (including cultural, geographic background, relationship with local people, interaction with military staff, etc.)
5.3.3	Civil Peace Service, France
In France, the Civil Peace Service originated when a decree was passed in 1995 that created a volunteer army (doing away with conscription) and also made provisions for voluntary civilian service abroad. The decree is offers all French citizens between the ages of 18-30 the chance to work for a French organisation on "international solidarity" projects abroad.  During a period of one to six years, the French government fully covers social security costs, while training and living expenses must be covered by the sending organisation. 

Making use of this new regulation, a number of peace and development organisations formed a "Steering Committee Civil Peace Service" to promote the recognition of a national Civil Peace Service under this law. The organisations signed a Charter that defines the conditions for selection, training and deployment for participants of the civil peace service. It states that civil peace service deployment shall have a duration of between 9 and 24 months, divided into two phases: a training phase, supervised by the Steering Committee CPS, followed by the active project phase, which will be supervised by the local partner organisation. The Charter further makes provisions for a two months training course as a compulsory part of the selection process and including the following elements: nonviolent conflict resolution, social and political analysis of conflict situations, risk analysis, specific issues concerning the conflict and the area of deployment. 

The CPS is meant to engage in missions of non-violent intervention in conflict situations, including activities like monitoring, information exchange, interpositioning, mediation and co-operation with local groups. Upon completion of their assignment, CPS volunteers will be kept on a roster which will form the basis of a “civil intervention corps” of volunteers available for future missions of nonviolent intervention.  

The first 3-week training course took place in spring 2000 for 12 individuals, and a second course took place in summer 2001. One of the participants from this more recent course has just taken up an assignment in Mitrovice with newly founded Balkan Peace Team France. A further peace worker is supposed to be leaving for the field in February 2002, subject to funding, which has not yet been secured. 
5.3.4	Civil Peace Service, Switzerland
In Switzerland, the "Coalition Civil Peace Service" was set up to promote the development of a national civilian peace service.  The group elaborated a concept for a Swiss CPS, which forms the basis of a national referendum to take place on 2 December 2001. 

The concept builds upon the German CPS and foresees the creation of a “voluntary civil peace service that will contribute, domestically as well as abroad, to the reduction and prevention of violence. To this aim, it will develop methods for the identification and prevention of conflict potentials, the protection of basic needs, for the peaceful solution of violent conflicts and for the reconstruction of society.” The CPS is envisaged as a government funded service for men and women of all ages with operational responsibility lying with NGOs. A distinguishing element of the Swiss concept is the goal to increase the general literacy about alternatives to violence by giving each Swiss citizen the right to a free basic training course in methods of non-violent handling of conflict. 

Meanwhile, the Swiss government has decided to strengthen civilian capacities for responding to conflicts and has started to develop an “Expert Pool for Peace”. This register of qualified experts in peace and conflict work is meant to contain 500-600 carefully selected and trained professionals. A training course has been developed for candidates to be included in this roster, the first of which will start in November 2001. 
5.3.5	Civil Peace Teams, The Netherlands 
The Dutch initiative for a civilian peace service originated with the founding of the "Burger Vredesteams Netherlands" (BVTN) in 1995, following an "Agenda for Peace Operations", published by the National Council of Peace Organisations. This looked at the role NGOs could play in international peace operations. After initial plans for training and deploying peace workers on conflict projects, it was decided to focus solely on training. 

As a result of this, a curriculum for a one-year training course was developed in 1998 and funding sought from the Ministry of Education to run a first pilot course. However, instead of the Ministry of Education, it was the Ministry of Defence that showed interest in the course and agreed to fund a shorter one-month course. This proposal was taken up and the curriculum adapted accordingly. Its purpose is to prepare women and men over 23 years old and from a broad range of professional backgrounds to “become a peace worker, i.e. a professional who in case of conflicts can act non-violently in a preventive, de-escalating and mediatory way between parties.” In December 2000 the first course took place with 15 participants and a further course is to follow in November 2001. The courses consist of 3 weeks in the classroom and a one-week practical internship (with community mediation services, local police and schools). Elements of the classroom curriculum include diagnosis and analysis of conflict, how to cope with emotions, cultural differences and non-violent means of handling conflict.

The BVTN is currently in the process of developing a further follow-up course that will build on the skills learned in the basic training course.

5.3.6	Peace Team Forum, Sweden
The Swedish Peace Team Forum is a network of around 50 NGOs working in the field of peace, development or human rights. Although they are not using the term ‘civil peace service’, nor are they members of the EN.CPS, the goals this network is pursuing are quite similar to the above mentioned initiatives. As part of the Swedish Action Plan for Preventing Violent Conflict, the Swedish government has provided funds to the Peace Team Forum to carry out a survey into the work of existing organisations in the field of conflict management, peace-building and the prevention of violence. One aim of this survey was to encourage participating organisations to jointly elaborate recommendations on how to enhance their capacity to work with conflict transformation and peacebuilding. In a further attempt to increase co-ordination and co-operation between these organisations and to enhance capacity in the field of conflict prevention, the Swedish government has allocated $100,000 for 2000 and 2001 to the Christian Council of Sweden and Peace Team Forum for educational and training projects related to handling conflict peacefully. 
5.4	 Civilian Stand-by Rosters
In addition to the civilian peace services described above, a number of countries have developed stand-by ‘rosters’ in recent years to strengthen the ability to respond quickly to humanitarian emergencies or other crises. These rosters are databases of pre-selected candidates that are available, usually at short notice, to carry out various professional functions in the areas of humanitarian relief and civilian crisis management. 

The development of these rosters originated after the Gulf war in 1991 when UNHCR found itself confronted with a flow of approximately 2 million Iraqi refugees fleeing into Turkey and Iran and insufficient emergency personnel to cope with such numbers. The Norwegian Refugee Council responded to this crisis by sending a delegation of over 100 personnel to assist UNHCR. The project proved so successful that UNHCR asked Norway to set up a stand-by roster of personnel for similar emergencies that might arise in the future.
5.4.1	NORSTAFF and NORDEM
As a result, NORSTAFF was established - a register consisting today of 400 experts in around 25 professional categories, who are available for deployment within 72 hours. The Norwegian Refugee Council fulfils employer responsibilities for personnel on assignment although costs involved are covered by the requesting agencies. Experts on the NORSTAFF register are usually requested by various UN agencies to carry out humanitarian aid or emergency relief work.

In 1993, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated the establishment of a second roster to focus on the particular personnel needs identified by the OSCE.  The Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights (NORDEM) is a co-operative venture of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights and the Norwegian Refugee Council, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It consists of two components: a resource base and a stand-by force.  The resource base consists of approximately 120 experts in twelve professional areas, identified in co-operation with the OSCE and including elections, democratic organisations, constitutional guarantees, independent judiciary, media, local administration and human rights education. 

The NORDEM stand-by force became operational in 1995 to respond to expressed needs abroad for rapid deployment of election observers and supervisors, human rights monitors, democratisation officers and investigators of human rights violations.  The stand-by force currently consists of about 300 carefully pre-selected candidates available on short notice for projects of up to 6 months duration. The main "employer" of NORDEM personnel is the OSCE.

A very important element of the NORDEM model is its emphasis on training.  A pre-requisite for joining the roster is the completion of the Nordem Basic Training Course.  This ensures that all members of the roster are meeting a certain standard of preparation and is a distinguishing feature of the NORDEM model.  So far, almost every person on the register has been on at least one mission. In 2000, 148 individuals took part in 43 assignments in 21 different countries.
5.4.2	Canadian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights, CANADEM
Other countries have since been establishing similar rosters. In Canada, the CANADEM roster seeks to provide expertise across a broad spectrum of professional categories to cater for needs expressed by different UN agencies, the OSCE and NGOs in the fields of humanitarian relief and handling conflict work. The roster, entirely funded by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, currently holds details of around 2,000 individuals. People are included in the register based on information they provide on their application form. Further screening only takes place when names are actually put forward to the Canadian government or other sending organisations. CANADEM puts forward around 100 names per month of which an average of 25 get selected for overseas missions. They do not provide any training but do put people in touch with existing courses available in Canada.
5.4.3	Southern African Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights, SAFDEM
With the managerial assistance of CANADEM and NORDEM and financial support from the Canadian International Development Agency, a number of NGOs from southern Africa initiated the development of an African resource bank (SAFDEM). The organisation was established in September 2000 and is housed at the Legal Resources Foundation, a Zimbabwean NGO, with further offices in South Africa, Namibia and Zambia. The geographical region covered by SAFDEM includes Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The purpose of SAFDEM is to support international peace missions by providing civilian personnel in a broad range of areas, with particular focus on human rights monitoring, investigation of human rights abuse and election observation. Eligible candidates have to be between the ages of 30 and 65 years with a minimum of three years of experience in either humanitarian or international fields. Further requirements are the ability to work in a team; knowledge of English, French, Portuguese or any local languages; clean driver's license record and the ability to take a leave of absence from work.  

Over the past year, SAFDEM has placed 11 professionals on missions in the Congo and Kenya, to work as election observers and human rights investigators. 
5.4.4	Other European Rosters
The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been maintaining a register of pre-selected professionals in this field since mid-1999. The pre-condition for being added to the database is completion of a two-week training course, preparing participants for assignments with the OSCE or UN. So far, the register holds approximately 350 candidates in the categories of rule of law, human rights, democratisation, electoral assistance, economic and environmental affairs, public relations, media, political analysis and monitoring, and administration. 

Denmark and Ireland also maintain government-funded rapid response registers. 

The Danish International Humanitarian Service (IHB), established in 1995, is responsible for recruiting civilians to support international field operations in conflict areas. The database comprises over 350 experts in democratisation, conflict prevention, emergency relief and crisis management. In 1999, a total of 298 persons were posted to international efforts via the IHB. These included election observers and election specialists as well as experts posted to several OSCE missions and UN efforts.  All individuals included in the register receive a 3-day basic training course, covering human rights, democratisation, intercultural communication, election assistance, security awareness and conflict resolution.

The Irish Rapid Response Register mainly focuses on providing staff for emergency relief operations but also for peace and conflict related work, such as electoral assistance and human rights monitoring. The Irish register contains a number of professionals from Northern Ireland with substantial experience in community relations, conflict resolution and other peace related areas. The register has approximately 100 active members and is administered by the governmental Agency for Personnel Service Overseas (APSO). It recruits personnel on behalf of the Irish government as well as for other Irish organisations, mainly development agencies. Up to now, personnel from the register have not been deployed directly to UN or OSCE missions but APSO is currently investigating ways of expanding their services to provide personnel for international and inter-governmental organisations.
5.5	 Civilian Training Programmes
Realising that academic programmes developed during the 1980s and early 90s in the fields of conflict resolution, peace studies or human rights did not provide students with adequate practical skills or "mission readiness" for work in the field, some countries have focused on developing training courses with exactly this aim. 
5.5.1	Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR), Stadtschlaining
The Austrian government was the first to recognise this need, and initiated and financed the development of the International Civilian Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Training (IPT) at the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR). The IPT course aims to prepare individuals for taking part in international field operations in conflict areas. Upon completion of the course, participants then form a pool of trained civilian experts available for assignment on international peace missions by OSCE, UN or other bodies. 

With the financial support of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ASPR has run three 4-week courses per year since its launch in 1993, with approximately 30 participants per course. Each course has two components. An initial two-week foundation course provides a general introduction to issues related to international peacekeeping operations: structure, nature and function of peacekeeping missions, the role of different organisations on such missions, concepts of human rights, conflict transformation and conflict analysis, activities and strategies of the UN and OSCE, etc. This course is followed by a two-week ‘function-oriented’ specialisation course that provides in-depth training in a choice of areas: electoral assistance, empowerment for political participation or human rights protection and promotion. 

In October 2000, a second course was started at the ASPR, providing ‘Mission Preparation Training’ (MPT) for OSCE field operations. The programme offers a two-week ‘OSCE Basis Course’, providing between 25-30 participants with general skills and knowledge required in OSCE missions. This basis course can be complemented with further specialisation courses of two weeks each, focusing on OSCE priority areas: human rights and rule of law, democratisation and political affairs or project management.

Both the IPT and MPT courses are offered in English several times per year and are open to non-Austrian citizens. Participants come from all over the world and from a variety of ages and professional backgrounds. Upon completion of the course, each candidate can agree to be added to a register of course graduates, from which international agencies can recruit mission staff. 
5.5.2	Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy
Since spring 1995, the University Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, Italy, has offered a three-week training course entitled "Civilian personnel of peacekeeping/humanitarian operations and election monitoring missions". The course is held once a year, in English, and is open to approximately 40 participants from any nationality. The programme has been designed with the aim of professionalising the work of civilian personnel on international missions in the fields of humanitarian and refugee assistance, peace and democracy building , election observation and human rights monitoring. 

The course is divided into four main sections. The first provides general background knowledge regarding the mandate and organisation of peace support missions, civilian peacekeeping and civilian-military co-operation in the field. The second section provides practical seminars on human rights observation, election monitoring, humanitarian assistance as well as technical skills. The third part covers practical issues of field work such as the selection, recruitment and legal status of civilian peacekeepers, code of conduct, safety issues, stress management and gender issues. The final section provides training in conflict resolution as well as mediation, facilitation and negotiation techniques. 

The course is held under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UNHCR and the European Commission. 
5.5.3	German Federal Foreign Office, Training for International Missions
Following the results of a feasibility study into training programmes and recruitment databases available in Germany for preparing and selecting civilians for field operations in conflict areas, the German Foreign Office decided to develop a specialised programme providing basic training for potential field workers in this area. The overall objective of the programme, which commenced in 1999, was to create a register of experts in a variety of areas relevant for UN or OSCE field operations: democratisation, police monitoring, electoral assistance and human rights observing and investigations. Participants are added to a database upon completion of the course, from which candidates are drawn to be seconded to international missions. 

The programme consists of basic foundation courses which can be complemented by specialised, mission-specific courses, all with the aim of conveying the knowledge and skills required for a typical field operation under the UN or OSCE. Important elements of the training are safety issues, conflict management and conflict resolution mechanisms, and information on the OSCE/UN structures, mandate and functions. The content of the courses, which are between 1-2 weeks of length, is co-ordinated with the OSCE and UN to ensure it meets the requirements of these organisations. 

Since 1999, 23 courses have taken place for a total of 250 participants.  Courses are held in English and approximately a third of them are open to non-German citizens. Costs are covered by the Federal Foreign Office with a minimal participation fee of the participants. 

With the aim of enhancing public-private dialogue and co-operation, the Civilian Personnel Project Group was established in September 1999. The Group consists of a broad range of NGOs and government departments seeking to identify ways of co-operation and advising the Foreign Office on issues regarding course content and further development of the curriculum. Nevertheless there is almost no cooperation between this programme of the Foreign Office and the German CPS programme described in section 5.3.
5.5.4	Proposal for a European Training Centre, Finland
In spring 2001, the Finnish Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) completed a survey aimed at exploring the current training arrangements for civilian personnel in various EU Member States. 

The survey highlights important gaps in the current training arrangements in Europe. It points out the limited capacities of pre-mission training in EU Member States, which only allows for the training of approximately 400 persons annually. It further notes that existing training programmes, although open to international participants, are geographically concentrated and thus only catered for individuals coming from countries in the proximity of the training centres. 

A third critique regards lack of a common management culture within the EU Member States, resulting in slow deployment and different levels of preparedness of international mission members. This problem was not being adequately addressed by existing training programmes.

Based on the conclusions of the survey, which was published in March 2001, the group has offered a set of recommendations for improvement. It has developed a proposal for an EU-funded ‘European Crisis Management Training Centre for Civilian Personnel’ which would complement existing training programmes and fill the gaps that currently exist. 
5.6	 Conclusions: Strengths and Weaknesses of Existing Models
The Finnish survey described above concluded that the shortage of qualified civilian personnel in this field could best be met by providing further training opportunities in Europe. The courses at Stadtschlaining and Pisa provide very good models for the kind of practical pre-mission training that is needed. Appropriate training is essential to the aim of increasing both the quantity of people available for this work and the quality of skills they have to offer, but it does not directly enhance capacities for responding rapidly to upcoming emergencies or for enabling more suitably trained personnel to be actually deployed in the field. 
 
The Norwegian roster system seems to be the most efficient tool for increasing a country’s rapid response capacity and for identifying people with the appropriate experience. However, rosters require a high level of maintenance in order to make sure that the information is constantly up-to-date and relevant. And they do not in themselves help to increase either the quantity of people available or the quality of skills they have to offer. Neither do they help increase the numbers being deployed in the field, since they are merely responding to existing requests. 

The CPS model seeks to combine several of these elements by enabling more people to be recruited, trained and deployed. The German model is the most developed of all the initiatives and has been able to increase capacities by making considerable funds available to NGOs involved in this work. The coalition between development agencies and the peace volunteer services has helped to enhance cooperation and coordination in this field generally, and has helped to facilitate a close partnership with the government. However, the lack of a centralised training programme for all CPS participants and of common qualification standards is a weakness of the German CPS that has been recognised by many of the participating organisations. 
 
A further shortcoming is that the CPS programme is focused primarily on long-term post-conflict peacebuilding projects and its mandate does not include the capacity to respond quickly to emerging crises. It is the German Foreign Ministry instead that is focusing on developing capacities in this area by means of their OSCE training and roster development. These programmes have been developed totally independently from each other and there is a clear lack of coherence and co-operation between the two. 

These experiences suggest that the most effective model for enhancing the quality and quantity of civilian capacities in this area would involve a combination of these different approaches. Training is an essential element to ensure that people are suitably qualified for working in conflict areas. The development of one centralised roster and a careful selection and recruitment system is required to make rapid deployment of appropriate staff possible. And the availability of further funds makes it possible for deploying more people in the field through existing NGOs working in these areas.

development of civilian capacities in europe – overview
	Training for field staff	Requirements for participation	Government funding
	NGO involvement	Central stand-by force	Number of people available	Deployment of personnel	
Germany
a) CPS
b) Foreign Office 	a) Up to 4 months
b) 2 weeks	a) minimum age 30, several years professional ex-perience, languages
b) Completion of training course	a) Yes, through Ministry of Development (£6m p.a.)
b) Yes	a) Yes, network of churches, development  agencies, etc.  
b) Advisory group of NGOs and government departments	a) No
b) No, but student database	a) N/A
b) 350	a) Yes (currently 70)
b) OSCE/UN Secondments only 	
Norway
Nordem and Norstaff
	5 days	Completion of training course	Yes, through Foreign Office (£100,000 p.a.)	Yes, rosters are managed by two NGOs 	 Yes	400	Yes (through other NGOs and own projects)	
France
CPS
	
3 weeks	
Completion of training course	
No	
Yes, 'Steering Committee CPS'	
No	
N/A	
Yes (currently 1)	
Austria
a) CPS
b) Training Centre Stadt-schlaining	
a) 3 weeks
b) 4 weeks	
a) Completion of training course
b) Open to all
	
a) Yes, through Home Office (no fixed budget)
b)  Yes, through Foreign Office	
a) Yes, network of NGOs
b) Academic institution	
a) No
b) No, but student database	
a) N/A
b) N/A	
a) Yes (Currently 15)
b) No	
Switzerland
a) CPS proposal
b) Government expert pool	
a) Envisaged
b) No	
a) Envisaged to be open to all 
b) “Expert” status (senior professional)  
	
a) envisaged as fully govern-ment  funded 
b) Yes, Foreign Office	
a) Yes, NGO coalition
b) No	
a) No
b) 	
a) N/A
b) 	
a) Envisaged
b) Yes, in the future	
Netherlands
Civil Peace Teams	
3 weeks
	
Open to all interested individuals	
Yes, through MoD	
Yes, CPS run by NGO	
No	
N/A	
No	
Italy 
a) White Helmets
b) Training Centre Pisa	
a) Yes, according to need
b) 2 weeks	
a) different for each organisation
b) Open to all 	
a) Yes, feasi-bility study financed by MoD
b) No	
a) Yes, various independent NGOs involved in lobbying
b) Academic institution	
a) Envisaged
b) No, but student  database	
a) N/A
b) N/A	
a) Yes (through individual organisations) 
b) No	
Sweden
Peace Team Forum	Curriculum has been developed	N/A	Yes, through Foreign Office (£75,000 p.a. in 2001 and 2002)	Yes, network of approx. 50 NGOs including Red Cross, Council of Churches, etc.	No	N/A	Previously – monitors sent to South Africa	
Ireland
Rapid Response Register (APSO)	
Yes, varies	
Professional experience	
Yes, through Foreign Office (£11m p.a.)	
No	
Yes	
100	
No, recruitment only	
Denmark
Foreign Office	
3 days	
Professional experience	
Yes 	
No	
Government use only 	
350	
Yes	
UK 
FCO
	
1 week for OSCE secondees 	
Professional experience, academic background, languages	
Yes	
No	
OSCE only	
600	
Secondments only	

1	
6	TOWARDS A UK CIVILIAN PEACE SERVICE
6.1	Enhancing UK Capacity for Handling Conflict
The civilian peace service model that is taking root across Europe offers us a useful starting point for exploring how to further enhance UK capacity for handling conflict. Although this model has many variations, the basic concept involves a greater coordination of recruitment, training and deployment of civilian personnel working in the handling conflict 'field', based on a broad partnership of NGOs and governments. 

Neither UK-based NGOs nor government departments responsible for civilian deployments are calling for increased numbers of civilian personnel at present. But preparing for future demand, especially for an increasing emphasis on early interventions to prevent eruption of violent conflict, means developing additional capacity and increasing the pool of available personnel. Even if the pool of available personnel is not made use of in the immediate term, such a pool could contribute to changing perceptions about how conflicts could be handled in the future, paradoxically increasing demand through the process of increasing capacity.

A UK Civilian Peace Service could help to build that capacity for handling conflict by:
•	encouraging increased cooperation and coordination among the organisations involved in this work,
•	increasing the pool of people with specific skills in the handling of conflict,
•	increasing the availability of people with appropriate skills and experience for both short-term crisis work and longer-term conflict prevention work,
•	helping to channel additional funds into existing training and deploying NGOs, 
•	setting standards and criteria for assessing competence in the field,
•	helping to establish recognised career paths in this field,
•	helping to match up supply and demand in this field and making more people aware of training and employment opportunities that exist,
•	providing new opportunities for becoming involved in this work,
•	promoting an ethos of prevention and early warning to deal with conflicts before they spiral out of control,
•	raising public awareness about all the work being done in this field.

In order to create such a service, a number of conditions would need to be met. The first of these is to establish a minimum level of credibility and viability of the idea among both NGOs and government departments working in this field. These and other constituencies will need to be convinced of both the need for, and the value of, such a service. They will also need to agree among themselves about the details of such a service, so that there is a strong base of support for it when taking the idea to the public, the media, and especially to the government. If it is to be set up on anything like the scale of other peace services, it will be heavily dependent on government sources of funding and support. Ultimately it is therefore government ministers who must be convinced of the value in setting up such a service. 

The rest of this chapter is an examination of some of the areas which a UK civilian peace service might address. In each area we look at some of the issues and options that remain to be decided by the organisations that may choose to take this forward. 
6.2	Cooperation and Coordination in the Field of Peace and 
Conflict Work
In other parts of Europe, civilian peace services have come into being as a result of unprecedented NGO collaboration. The Peace Team Forum in Sweden, for instance, consists of 50 NGOs which include churches, peace and human rights organisations, the Swedish Red Cross and a number of development agencies. In Germany, the Civil Peace Service Forum includes a similar number of NGOs coming from a wide range of areas not normally working together, including churches, political parties, solidarity groups and research institutes as well as the more traditional peace and human rights constituencies. A separate Civil Peace Service 'consortium' in Germany brings together all the main development agencies with the peace volunteer services. 

Building this broad base of support has been crucial to securing both public and government backing for civilian peace services in these countries, and has also been a positive development in its own right. The CPS consortium in Germany, for instance, has led to discussions about the legal position of German volunteers and to possible changes in the law to bring different sectors into line with one another. Discussions between development and peace organisations have also led to a cross-fertilisation of thinking, particularly in relation to the ethics of intervention and lessons learned in the field. 

Cooperation and coordination in this broad field could be equally vital to securing some sort of peace service for the UK. It could also prove just as fruitful in its own right, since there is a certain amount of cross-over between some areas but little between all of them. The network for Conflict, Development and Peace (CODEP), for instance, brings many of the development and conflict transformation NGOs together, but has little interaction with NGOs focusing on human rights, democratisation, policing or demilitarisation issues. The Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) also brings together many of the academic departments and NGOs concerned with conflict prevention, but does not cover many of the wider issues discussed in this report. The Non-Military Security network, convened by Conscience, also brings together a number of policy-oriented and campaign-oriented organisations, but does not include the more operationally-oriented organisations actually working in conflict. The Committee for Conflict Transformation Support (CCTS) is another network of organisations and individual practitioners working in conflict situations, but does not include the wider constituency described here.
An NGO Consortium for the Peace and Conflict Field
An NGO Consortium as proposed in this report would bring together a wide range of organisations involved in employment, training or research within a (still undefined) broad field of 'peace and conflict work' (working within the UK or internationally). The main purposes of such a consortium would be to:

1.	Define and delimit the boundaries and contents of the 'field'.
2.	Coordinate and publicise employment and training opportunities in this field.
3.	Develop standards and assessment criteria for different roles and different levels of competency within the field (see section 6.4 below).
4.	Liaise with government departments and international bodies about needs in the field and possibilities for collaboration.

A wider network is also needed to support the proposal for a civilian peace service among the public and in lobbying the government. This could include churches and other religious groups, peace groups, human rights organisations, solidarity and anti-globalisation campaigns and others not meeting the above criteria for membership of a consortium based on actual experience in the field. 
NGO/Government Partnership
Another area of cooperation to be explored is that between NGOs and sections of government, including the military. Other Civil Peace Services have been ambivalent about this relationship. In Germany, for instance, where the CPS is actually housed within a government department and fully funded by it, there is nonetheless a strong commitment to maintaining the peace service's political independence from the government. In some European countries there are suspicions and hesitations on the part of peace services about any relationship with government at all, despite the fact that most are government-funded. This is partly due to the legacy of conscription and its link to the CPS idea in those countries.

Building an NGO/government partnership in this area is critical to its success, however, even in those countries which shun such a relationship. In the UK, most of the development and humanitarian organisations have a relationship, however 'comfortable' or not, with DFID. Some human rights and democratisation organisations would be more naturally at home with the FCO. Training organisations and academic departments are linked to the DES. And many organisations working on conflict issues within the UK relate more to the Home Office - or in the case of Northern Ireland, to the NIO and the NI Assembly. Indeed, one of the problems associated with trying to bring together such a wide range of NGOs is precisely to whom in the government does such a consortium seek to relate?

The government's Conflict Prevention Fund is meant to represent 'joined up government' in bringing together the efforts of three departments in this area. It falls to the Cabinet Office to coordinate this, and it is therefore to the Cabinet Office that a consortium covering this area might relate. The Conflict Prevention Fund covers only the international departments (DFID, FCO and MOD), which means that DES and Home Office concerns in this area are still left out, but one can only hope that some 'even more' joined up government might prevail within the Cabinet Office to bring these departments into the picture as well. Clearly any relationship to government on this issue must be at the highest level, since only at this level are the different concerns of the different departments brought together.
Outstanding Issues and Options
The first step in establishing an NGO consortium in this field is determining just how broadly to define what the 'field' is and therefore who should or should not be a part of the consortium. Should it include all possible areas of development work, or humanitarian aid work? Should the field be defined quite strictly in order to give the consortium a certain amount of 'authority' in setting standards for the field or otherwise 'representing' the field in relation to the government, or should the field be defined loosely in order to avoid unnecessary wrangling over who should or should not be in it? Should such a consortium include government representatives or should it be exclusively NGOs relating through the consortium to government? And should a consortium be linked from the start to the idea of establishing a civilian peace service or should that come later - if and when consortium members come to some agreement about what is wanted?
6.3	 Establishing Standards and Assessing Competence
As in any other field, people working on conflicts are expected to know what they are doing and to follow certain standards when they do it. This particular field is still very new and largely undefined, however. Few standards exist for anyone to follow and few organisations, including governments and UN agencies, are accountable in any real sense to the people they are 'serving' on the ground. Volunteer organisations, campaigning groups and individuals have turned up in conflict zones, especially in the Balkans, to offer their services or to 'solve' the conflict, with little or no relevant experience or skills in this field. This has fueled the suspicions of those who regard civilian peace services as another form of 'amateur do-gooders parachuting into situations about which they know nothing'. 

In order to counter this widely-held concern, it is critical to the credibility and viability of a UK civilian peace service that standards are developed and that people working in this field are able to meet those standards. In the humanitarian field, a huge international effort has gone into the development of standards and a code of conduct agreed by those organisations working in that field. The allied field of peace and conflict work demands no less than that, since the stakes are just as high. People working in this field who do not know what they are doing can easily cause more harm than good. Mary B. Anderson's 'Do No Harm' approach has had a major impact on the way humanitarian and development aid is now delivered. She has now turned her attention to the peace and conflict field. Others have called for a 'Hippocratic oath' for those working in this field. 

The need to address these issues is great, and far from being a barrier to a civilian peace service, providing a means to address them could be one of the major contributions of such a service. Enhancing capacity in this field cannot be at the expense of quality control. But neither should quality control be allowed to further restrict entry into the field. What is needed is a means by which to address both quality standards and increasing capacity.

The German CPS requires a minimum age of 23, a professional qualification and several years experience to ensure a certain level of maturity and experience of the participants. They must also have a professional qualification relevant to the work they will be doing, and meet other selection criteria of the agency deploying them. These criteria would be similar to those for other professional posts in the development and humanitarian field. This is one way of addressing the issue.

Training is another approach. Many CPS and other schemes (for instance, the Norwegian stand-by force) require some sort of training as a pre-requisite to involvement on the scheme. But attendance on a training course is no guarantee of competence, and most organisations rely on other measures to determine a candidate's suitability for the work. Some rosters, such as CANADEM, rely on the number of year's experience a person has, together with personal references, to determine how suitable they might be for a particular post. Others, like RedR, run training courses and also have their own system of assessment to identify what level of skills a person may have in a particular area. 

PBI uses its training sessions primarily as an assessment process. Rather than training people (in one week or less) how to do the job expected of them in the field, PBI trainings effectively assess whether people do or do not already have what it takes to do the job. This is done largely by role-playing the kinds of situations a PBI field worker will encounter and seeing how the candidate responds. It is a highly effective, though time-consuming, process and many other organisations use similar assessment processes to recruit staff in very different contexts. 
National (and Scottish) Vocational Qualifications (S/NVQs)
Such assessment processes are fairly arbitrary, however, if they are not based on previously agreed standards of some kind. This is where the NVQ system comes into the picture. NVQs are based on agreed occupational standards and provide a means of assessing a person's competence against those standards. The advantages of the NVQ system in this context are that the system:

•	offers people the opportunity to demonstrate, and get recognition for, the skills they already have
•	is modular and emphasises transferability of skills
•	is infinitely expandable - providing 'ladders' for moving forward both horizontally and vertically as new skills are developed
•	encourages self-development and constant improvement of skills
•	focuses on observable activities in real-life or simulated situations, rather than on exam performance or written work
•	also requires evidence of relevant knowledge and understanding, usually through oral questioning
•	allows candidate to decide what level of competency they think they are at and tests them at that level
•	does not produce 'failures' but defines the level at which a person is competent
•	supplements indicators of experience (CV) and expertise (academic qualifications) with an indication of actual work-related skills, which cannot be gleaned from CVs or degrees

On the negative side, NVQs can be quite formalised and rigid in their application. They tend to emphasise uniformity rather than flexibility and differences of approach. And they are very time-consuming and therefore costly in terms of staff time and/or assessor fees. Once standards have been agreed, someone must do the actual assessing and interpreting of the standards. Ideally those people are those with proven competence in the field, but in a field so new and comparatively small, finding suitable assessors could be a serious problem. Poor assessors will produce poor results, no matter what the standards are.
A Modified Assessment Process- 'Abbreviated NVQ'
Achieving an NVQ qualification is a laborious and time-consuming business - and potentially very costly. Candidates must collect a portfolio of evidence to support their claim to competency and must follow an exacting process of documentation. The assessors - including internal verifiers and for a certain sample, external verifiers -  need to spend a large amount of time both observing the candidate and reading through submitted material. Normally the assessors are paid handsomely for this.

In order to circumvent some of the difficulties of using the NVQ system, an 'abbreviated' process could be used that does not involve the putting together of a portfolio or evidence of extended practice. Instead the focus would be on a one-off assessment session that uses the same assessment criteria and standards as the NVQ would use. Assessors would 'certify' competency according to these criteria, based on a comparatively short session and minimal preparation from the candidate. 

Subsequent to the 'abbreviated' assessment process and the 'certification' of competency at a certain level for the purposes of the CPS register, individuals could be encouraged to proceed with the preparation of a portfolio to submit at a later date for receipt of an NVQ qualification, awarded through a recognised awarding body (like City and Guilds). 
Outstanding Issues and Options
Some NVQs and NVQ units already exist in this field, for instance the Level 4 NVQ in Mediation and Level 2 NVQs in Spectator Sport Management (relevant to monitoring) and in Community Development (relevant to many areas of community relations and capacity building). Other NVQs or related qualifications are in development. Should this process continue organically as needs are identified, or should an attempt be made to build a comprehensive set of NVQs that define this whole field and provide a matrix of different levels and areas of work that people can slot themselves into? Is this the right approach or should NVQs be abandoned in favour of some other system of addressing quality control and a means of involving more people in this work? Should a UK civilian peace service attempt to focus on this and provide both the standards and the team of assessors as its main contribution to this field? 
6.4	 Recruitment and Stand-by Arrangements
Making more people more readily available for working on conflicts is at the core of the civilian peace service concept. In countries like Germany, these people are made available by going on a training course that uniquely qualifies them for this work. In countries like Norway, people are put on a 'roster' to indicate their availability, and any training they may have had is just part of the information provided by the roster. With both these examples, a person's availability is no guarantee of a position. All recruitment decisions are in the end made by the employing organisations who are looking for staff, whether this is a UN agency or an NGO. What the roster provides is a means of 'pre-selection' to make the life of employing organisations that bit easier, especially in emergency situations when staff are needed in a hurry.
Rosters
National stand-by rosters like those held by NORDEM and NORSTAFF in Norway are primarily for these emergency situations, but rosters can also aid the recruitment process for longer-term staff, by giving employers a better idea of the pool of expertise that is out there to be tapped. Especially in an emerging field like this one, there is a need to have a sense of what may be possible in the way of providing human resources to meet a particular situation, before even deciding what is needed in that situation.

UN Volunteers, for instance, maintains an international database of somewhere around 35,000 people who are prepared to offer their skills and experience to the work of the UN. Many of those people will never be called upon to do so. Others may hear from UNV many years later that their particular skills and expertise are now required. In the meantime, UNV have a large reservoir of talent which they can turn to when trying to decide what may be possible in a given situation.
Existing UK Rosters
A number of rosters relevant to this area of work already exist in the UK, held by NGOs as well as government departments. Both DFID and the FCO maintain databases of potential candidates for official UK government secondment. NGOs such as RedR, LGIB, ERIS and the Red Cross maintain their own databases of suitably qualified people who can be called upon for specific missions. Most NGOs have their own lists of advisors, consultants, trainers and other contract staff who can be deployed as required. So is there a need for yet another roster?

One of the advantages of a single, centralised roster in a field such as this is simply avoiding of wasted resources and duplication. Different departments of the Foreign Office, for instance, have been holding their own separate lists of people suitable for various secondment positions. These may well contain the same information about the same people. In Canada it has been found effective not only to have a single unified roster, but also for that roster to be held by an independent NGO rather than by a government department.

If there were a more centralised roster, it could, for instance, act also as a national 'recruitment agency', providing interested people with an up-to-date register of training and employment opportunities in this field as well as providing employers with a list of potential recruits. 
Outstanding Issues and Options
The first question is whether a new roster is needed or whether existing rosters cannot be amalgamated or coordinated in some other way. Another important question would be whether, or to what extent, any such roster should be vetted or linked to an agreed assessment process as discussed above. If it is in the end up to the deploying agency to make a decision on hiring someone from the roster, is it not more inclusive to put more or less anyone on the roster, so long as there is a clear and accurate record there of their experience in the field and level of skills according to some agreed criteria?
6.5	Training and Education
A number of University departments in the UK offer a good academic grounding in this field. Various training institutions provide people working in this field with practical skills needed. But apart from the one-week course now being run for OSCE secondees from the UK, there is little in the way of 'pre-mission training' for people working in this field. And while some areas of this field - such as mediation, election monitoring and human rights - are well-covered by existing training courses, many areas - such as accompaniment, other types of monitoring, conflict impact assessment, DDR, etc - are not.
Pre-mission training provision
The ASPR course for "civilian peacekeepers and peacebuilders" at Stadschlaining in Austria has been the model for similar developments in Italy, Germany and Finland. Much could be learned from this model in terms of a generic training programme for people working in this field, but more areas could also be added to those covered by this course. 

These courses are conducted in English and are open to UK participants, so it could be argued that UK training needs are already met by these programmes offered elsewhere. There are also distance learning and on-line courses offered by UNITAR that cover some of these areas. But some of the advantages of enhancing training capacity within the UK would be:

•	Ability to adapt courses to specific UK needs and approaches
•	Increasing the numbers of people taking these courses rather than merely competing for limited places on existing courses
•	Making the training more accessible to UK participants through reduced travel costs, possibility of commuting to courses from home, etc
•	Ability to link training curricula to nationally-agreed standards and assessment procedures (see section 6.4)
•	Possibility of attracting high calibre of foreign participation, linked to availability of English language tuition and local expertise.  

The German Foreign Ministry training, initially run by the Ministry itself, is now being contracted out to a training institution, much as the Austrian and Italian programmes are. A consolidated UK training programme in this field could perhaps be run by one of the existing University departments that focus on this area - or by one of the training institutions like Responding to Conflict, RedR or LEAP Confronting Conflict. 

A UK training programme for civilian personnel could also be linked to the proposed UN Military Staff College to be hosted in the UK, thus providing a training opportunity not just for the UK but also for foreign nationals, much as the other training programmes mentioned above.
A programme for 'life-long learning'
The rationale for enhancing UK training provision in this field is not limited to the specific needs of those about to be deployed in conflict situations overseas. It could be of benefit to the whole of society if there were better understanding generally of the range of tools available for handling conflict peacefully and of how to use at least some of them. Increasing overall 'literacy' in this field could provide a more fertile environment for encouraging the few who will go on to develop expertise within this field. It could also increase overall appreciation for the work that is done in this field and the need for more of it.

The Swiss proposal for a Civil Peace Service includes not just a component for training of people to be deployed in conflict situations, but also a significant component for the training and awareness raising of the whole population of Switzerland. A more coordinated approach to training in the UK could, for instance, build on the 'handling conflict' strand in the Citizenship curriculum, which is soon to be mandatory in all secondary schools in England and Wales. NVQs and other qualifications in this field could push the development of courses in colleges, universities and institutes of further education, helping to create a recognised 'field' as well as a career path for those interested in it.
Outstanding issues and options
The key question with regard to training is not whether more training is needed but who will do it? Can existing training providers and academic departments fill existing gaps in this area? Do they need more financial and political support from the government in order to do that? Is there a need to develop new training programmes or a national training centre? These are questions which must decided by the training organisations, relevant government departments and NGOs with training needs that are not being met.
6.6	 Channeling of Funds 
The German Civil Peace Service provides a unique means of channeling £6 million a year of government money to NGOs working in conflict areas. This is all 'new' money on top of its existing support for development projects in those areas and is designed to increase efforts to handle conflict which might not otherwise take place. Other European governments are funding NGO training and research projects in this field.

Funding in the area of peace and conflict work is generally very patchy. Governments and other institutions are sometimes sceptical of the quality of work in this field and of its effectiveness. NGOs are often competing for what little funding there is and are therefore likely to pass up opportunities for closer cooperation as well as to exaggerate and oversell their own work. Enhancing both the quality and quantity of work done in the field depends upon a more stable funding environment that is conducive to better cooperation, transparency and sharing of insights and resources.
Conflict Prevention Fund
Currently DFID funds much of the peacebuilding work done by UK-based NGOs, especially in the economic arena, but also in capacity-building and civilian peacekeeping. The Foreign Office funds much of the human rights, governance and democratisation work of NGOs, and some other governmental bodies, like the British Council, have funded work in areas such as media development and community relations. In general, however, government funding in this area has been piecemeal and very limited. Much of the work in this field has depended instead on funding from charitable trusts and private donations, but these too are unreliable and impermanent sources of funding.

The government's new Conflict Prevention Fund provides an excellent opportunity for more coordinated and coherent funding of work in this field. A UK Civilian Peace Service could, for instance, become a means of channelling money from this fund to UK-based NGOs seeking to expand their existing work in conflict areas through the training and deployment of additional personnel, as in Germany. Or a consortium of NGOs, as proposed in section 6.3, could simply be a vehicle for joint approaches to this fund on behalf of NGOs seeking to fund existing work. 
EU Funding
A large amount of funding is potentially available from the EU for member states and NGOs working in this field. The European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), with a budget of 90 million ecus, was this year expanded to include 'conflict prevention' within its remit. The Rapid Reaction Facility, launched in March 2001, has a budget of 20 million ecus for funding civilian crisis management work of NGOs where funding through normal EU channels would take too long to be of any use in a crisis situation. Of this, 2 million ecus are earmarked for the support of training in this field.
Outstanding Issues and Options
To what extent should a Civilian Peace Service be dependent upon government funding? Should other government departments be approached, for instance the Department for Education and Skills, to fund an expansion of the training, or the Home Office, to fund training and deployments in a range of other areas in addition to the police now being seconded to overseas missions? As a 'recruitment agency' supplying qualified personnel to both inter-governmental and non-governmental agencies requiring such personnel, could it be expected to 'charge' for such a service? Training is itself a potentially profitable industry. Should a peace service seek to pay for itself through training fees or is this merely setting itself up in competition with existing training providers? Is the German model a good one to follow for funding NGOs in this field, or does it encourage too much of a funding-led work programme, instead of a needs-based one?
6.7	 Where Next?
In this report we have described the need for enhancing capacities in the field of handling conflict. We have tried to define the parameters of that field and have looked at the work that is going on in the field. We have explored the civilian peace model in Germany and in other European countries as well as various training and roster models. And we have looked at the existing capacity here in the UK and possible means of enhancing that through some form of UK civilian peace service.

What remains now is to see what interest and uptake there is to this idea on the part of NGOs active in this field, training institutions and relevant government departments. If there is sufficient commitment to explore this further, steps will need to be taken to address the many remaining issues and options highlighted in this report. From there, a 'final' proposal could be drawn up with the full backing and support of those bodies involved, and presented to the government and to the country.

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7	Glossary of Terms As Used in this Report

Civilian Peace Service
"A scheme for recruiting, training and deploying civilians for a range of tasks in conflict situations" 
We use this term in a generic sense, whether or not a particular scheme falling within this definition describes itself as such or not. Many European countries now use the term 'civil' in preference to 'civilian' to denote a scheme which is not only non-military but also non-state (ie. involving 'civil society'). Not all CPS schemes currently organise deployments although it is their intention to do so eventually. Schemes focusing solely on one aspect (ie training or recruitment or deployment) are not here considered as CPS schemes although they are closely related. 

Civilian Personnel
Used in this report to refer to non-military and non-police personnel deployed by government or non-governmental bodies in field operations taking place in conflict situations. Civilian police are normally included within the term 'civilian personnel', but since police deployments are handled very differently to other civilian deployments, it becoming more usual to refer to 'military, police and civilian' as three distinct categories of personnel.

Community Relations
"All activities designed to increase contact and understanding between groups in conflict." These may be religious, ethnic, national or other kinds of groups or communities. The term is used in Northern Ireland to cover a very wide range of activities. Here we use it in the slightly more narrow sense described above.

Conflict
"Perceived incompatibility of interests or values between individuals or groups." Conflict between groups is normally called 'social conflict', and when related to political issues, it is called 'political conflict'. Conflict may or may not be violent. It is violent conflict that poses a threat to society. Conflict itself may be quite healthy when waged nonviolently through political processes, as there can be no social change without conflict of some kind.

Conflict Management
Here used synonymously with 'handling conflict', to describe the whole field of conflict work as opposed to any particular aspect of it. We use the latter term in preference, because some writers use the term 'conflict management' to describe only the attempt to 'control' or 'regulate' the worst excesses of conflict as opposed to 'conflict resolution' which seeks to actually 'resolve' a conflict. (We use the term 'conflict regulation' for this.) Others use 'conflict management' to describe all efforts to deal with conflicts once they have reached a certain stage of development as opposed to 'conflict prevention' which attempts to deal with conflicts at an earlier stage. (We use the term 'crisis management' for this.)

Conflict Prevention - see Crisis Prevention

Conflict Resolution
"All efforts to help conflicting parties to reach a settlement that resolves their differences." 
We are using the term to describe one 'strand' of peacemaking activity (the other being the reconciliation strand). Included within this strand would be conciliation, facilitation and mediation as well as related activities. 'Conflict resolution' is also sometimes used to refer to the results of this activity, as in the 'resolution' of the conflict. However, we use it here to describe the process of working towards this result, without implying that such a result is achieved or even possible (see conflict transformation).

Conflict Transformation
Used by some authors in preference to conflict resolution in order to emphasise the fact that conflicts are rarely 'resolved' as such, but merely 'transformed' from being waged through violence to being waged through peaceful political processes. Others use the term synonymously with conflict management to describe the whole field of dealing with conflict situations, and still others use the term to describe a particular approach to conflict work which seeks to create peaceful relationships and build a culture of nonviolence in situations where hate and violence prevail.

Crisis Management
"All activities undertaken in the 'crisis' phase of a conflict aimed at resolving or de-escalating the crisis." 
'Crisis management' is used in a variety of senses, but here refers to all peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding activities which occur during a 'crisis' period. This is distinguished from conflict prevention which involves all the above activities taking place prior to a situation of 'crisis', and post-crisis reconstruction, which is all the above activities taking place after the crisis has subsided.

Crisis Prevention
"All activities undertaken with the aim of averting (further) escalation of violent conflict." This term is used in preference to conflict prevention because it is violence rather than conflict as such that we are seeking to prevent. Most prevention work is needed at an early 'pre-crisis' stage, when it is easiest to deal constructively with a conflict situation. But prevention is also relevant throughout a conflict, as a means of averting further escalation. Especially in the 'post-crisis' phase of a conflict, prevention work is needed to avoid a recurrence of the violence.

Handling Conflict
"All efforts to deal constructively with conflicts at any stage." 
We are using this as the overall generic term to describe the whole field of working on conflict, as opposed to merely working in conflict. This is distinguished from the field of humanitarian relief, which does not involve dealing with the conflict as such but only with meeting the human needs of those caught up in the conflict.

Mediation
“A formalised process in which an outside, impartial, neutral party works with disputants to assist them in reaching a satisfactory negotiated agreement.”
There are different types of, and approaches to, mediation. But there are basic principles to which they would all adhere for it to be defined as 'mediation'. Mediation is normally distinguished from arbitration, which involves a third party imposing a binding settlement on the parties rather than assisting them to reach their own agreement. However some cultural approaches rather blur this distinction.

Monitoring
"Any activity involving observation and reporting of incidents by an outside party." Sometimes referred to as 'observing' or 'verifying'. There are many types of monitoring which require different types of expertise, but all follow a similar pattern and play a similar role in drawing issues to the attention of a wider audience. These include election monitoring, police monitoring, court monitoring, media monitoring, monitoring of cease-fires, border monitoring, monitoring of peace processes, etc. When such roles are undertaken by parties in a conflict they are defined here as 'stewarding' rather than 'monitoring'.

Outside Party
"Someone who intervenes in a conflict situation in which they are not directly involved." More usually called 'third parties', we prefer the term 'outside' party since many conflicts already involve more than two parties. An outside party is, but may be involved directly in support of one or more of the parties. An outside party may also play a partisan role in situations of asymmetric conflict in order to help create a balance, but in most cases outside parties are neutral in relation to the outcome of the conflict, impartial in their treatment of the parties involved and nonpartisan in terms of their involvement in the conflict.

Peacebuilding
"All activities undertaken to address the root causes of conflict." These activities can take place at any stage of a conflict, and not only in a 'post-crisis' phase as implied in much of the UN literature. Peacebuilding is sometimes used in a generic sense to include all activities in what we are calling here the 'handling conflict' field. Here is distinguished from peacekeeping and peacemaking activities, but includes a vast field of activities, including much of what would be considered the 'development' field.

Peace enforcement 
"Military action taken in order to try to force combatants to stop fighting or otherwise abide by UN resolutions", as authorised under Chapter VII of the UN charter. Recent UN and NATO operations have blurred the traditional distinction between peacekeeping and peace enforcement, and have also sometimes been labeled 'peacemaking'. Peace enforcement, however, as used here involves the aggressive use of military force, whereas peacemaking is a purely non-military activity and peacekeeping may involve the use of military force only in self-defense or for the limited objective of deterring further violence.

Peacekeeping
"All activities undertaken to try to prevent, curtail or stop political violence." In this report, these activities include a whole range of civilian peacekeeping roles, including monitoring, observing, accompaniment, civil protection and civil intervention. Others restrict the use of this term to military forms of peacekeeping, involving armed troops from other countries intervening in a conflict situation under the auspices of the UN.

Peacemaking
"All activities undertaken with the aim of bringing parties to a conflict together to understand each other and resolve their differences." Peacemaking is sometimes used synonymously with 'conflict resolution', but here also includes reconciliation work aimed a restoring relationships with or without an actual peace 'agreement'. Reconciliation work can take place at any stage of a conflict, while conflict resolution is usually confined to the 'crisis' phase. Some use the term 'peacemaking' to describe military operations designed to force the parties to accept a ceasefire. We use the term 'peace enforcement' for this, and restrict the term peacemaking for purely non-military methods.

Peace Support Operations
Current name used for UN 'peacekeeping' operations, denoting a more complex operation involving peacemaking and peacebuilding work as well as peacekeeping.

Political violence
"Any violent activity motivated by political or strategic interests." This would include both purposeful, calculated 'instrumental' violence as well as inchoate, unplanned 'expressive' violence (as in spontaneous rioting in response to political events). By 'political' is meant anything relating to the public realm, including ethnic, racial, national, ideological or other issues.

Post-Crisis Reconstruction
"All activities undertaken in the aftermath of a violent conflict with the aim of re-building society and re-establishing normality." More commonly known as 'post-conflict' reconstruction, but we use the former term here because the conflict is usually not 'over' yet when a peace agreement or settlement of some kind has been reached - it is merely in a new phase. 

Post-Conflict Reconstruction - see post-crisis reconstruction

Presence
"A peacekeeping technique that involves the presence of an outside party as a means of deterring possible violence." 
Presence is often equated with 'observing', but observing can also be equated with monitoring. We use 'monitoring' to describe a more active process of watching and recording events, while 'presense' is a more passive process of merely 'being there'.

Reconciliation
"A process of mutual acceptance and the development of mutual respect between previously hostile groups." 
Reconciliation is used here to describe one 'strand' of peacemaking work, involving community relations work, trauma counselling and a range of other activities that help people deal with the past, heal the wounds, forgive, accept and move on.

Root Causes of Conflict
"Basic structural inequalities and incompatibilities of interest between individuals and groups."
Boutros-Ghali described these as 'economic despair, social injustice and political oppression'. The EU defines them as 'imbalance of political, socio-economic or cultural opportunities among different identity groups, lack of democratic legitimacy and effectiveness of governance, absence of effective mechanisms for the peaceful conciliation of group interests and the lack of a vibrant civil society.

Violent Conflict
"Conflict involving the use of physical, and usually deadly, violence by at least one of the parties against another."
There are various ways of categorising violent conflict, from small-scale feuds and gang warfare up to inter-state and world wars. Once the level of violence in any conflict reaches a certain undefinable threshold, it fuels further violence creating a 'vicious circle' which is defined here as a crisis. Violent conflict is much easier to prevent before this threshold has been reached than to contain once it has been crossed. 

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8	REFERENCES

Berliner Erklaerung fuer einen Zivilen Friedensdienst, Berlin, 22 February 1997. 
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit (BMZ) 1999: Civil Peace Services: A New Element of Development Co-operation. BMZ, Bonn.
Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997.
Centro Studi Difesa Civile 1998/1999: Civilian Defence and the White Helmets project (unarmed civilian peacekeepers). CEMISS (Italian Military Centre for Strategic Studies) unpublished research study, Research nr. 36/N.
Collier, Paul and Hoeffler, Anke 2001: Greed and Grievance in Civil War, World Bank, Washington DC.
Conflict Prevention Network (CPN) 1999: Peace-Building and Conflict Prevention in Developing Countries: A Practical Guide. Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin. 
Crisis Management Initiative 2001(a): Improving the Civilian Crisis Management Capability of the European Union. CMI Working Paper on the Training of Civilian Personnel. CMI, Helsinki. 
Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) 2001(b): European Crisis Management Training Centre for Civilian Personnel. CMI, Helsinki.
BVTN (eds) 1998: Curriculum Training Course. Civil Peace Team Worker.  Civil Peace Teams the Netherlands (BVTN), Utrecht.
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2000:  Denmark’s Development Assistance 1999. Copenhagen. http://www.um.dk/danida/english/dac_99/index.asp
Development Assistance Committee 1997: DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development. OECD, Paris. 
DFID 2000: Conflict reduction and humanitarian assistance. Policy Statement. Department for International Development, London.
Eguren, Luis Enrique; and Mahoney, Liam 1997: Unarmed Bodyguards. International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights. Kumarian Press, West Hartford/CT.
Encarnacion, T.; McCartney, C. & Rosas, C. 1990: The impact of concerned parties on the resolution of disputes. In Lindgren, Wallensteen and Nordquist (eds.) 1991:  Peace process in the Third World. Univ., Uppsala. 
European Council Conclusions, November 1998
EU Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy 1999: A European Civil Peace Corps: Proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the establishment of a European Civil Peace Corps. EU Document A4-0047/99, Brussels.
EU Program for the Prevention of Violent Conflict, Annex to the ‘Presidency Report to the Gothenburg European Council’. No. 9537/1/01 REV 1, 15/16 June 2001. http://www.eu2001.se/static/eng/pdf/violent.PDF
European Centre for Conflict Prevention 1999: People Building Peace. 35 Inspiring Stories from Around the World. European Centre for Conflict Prevention, Utrecht.
Evers, Tilman (ed) 2000: Ziviler Friedensdienst. Fachleute für den Frieden. Ideen –Erfahrungen – Ziele. Opladen, Leske und Budrich.
Forum Syd 2001: Swedish NGO involvement in conflict transformation and peace-building. A survey of the Peace Team Forum. Leaflet. Forum Syd, Stockholm.
Galtung, Johan 1996: Peace by Peaceful Means, Sage, London.
Gesellschaft für eine Schweitz Ohne Armee (GSOA) 1999: Proposal for a Civil Peace Service. GSOA, Zurich.
Gourlay, Catriona 2001: Redressing the imbalance: Progress in civilian crisis management. In ‘European Security Review, Issue 6. ISIS Europe, Brussels.
Gurr, Ted Robert, et al 2000: Peace and Conflict 2001: A Global Survey of Armed Conflictgs, Self-Determination Movements and Democracy. Centre for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland.
Harnessing Institutional Capacities in Support of the DDR of Former Combatants. Prepared by the Executive Committee for Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA) DDR Working Group for Final Submission to ECHA, 19 July 2000. http://www.undp.org/erd/ddr/documents/echa_paper.pdf
International Crisis Group (ICG) 2001: EU Crisis Response Capability: Institutions and Processes for Conflict Prevention and Management. ICG, Brussels.
International Development Committee/ House of Commons: Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Sixth Report. Vol. II Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, Session 1998-99, London, HMSO, HC 55-II.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (eds) 2001: World Disasters Report 2001. http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2001/chapter8.asp 
Leonhardt, Manuela 2000: Conflict Impact Assessment of EU Development Cooperation with ACP Countries. International Alert/Saferworld, London.
Mathews, Dylan 2001: War Prevention Works. 50 stories of people resolving conflict. Oxford Research Group, Oxford.
McLean, Andrew and Lilly, Damien (eds) 2000: Preventing violent conflict: Opportunities for the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies of the European Union in 2001. European Platform for Conflict Prevention/Saferworld/International Alert, London.
Miall, Hugh; Ramsbotham, Oliver & Woodhouse, Tom 1999: Contemporary Conflict Resolution. The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Mitchell, C.R (1981): The Structure of International Conflict. The Macmillan Press, London.
Northern Ireland Community Relations Council (CRC) 1997: A Skills Guide for Community Relations Work in Northern Ireland. CRC, Belfast.
Northern Irleand Community Relations Council 1998: Dealing with Difference. A Directory of Peace, Reconciliation and Community Relations Projects in Northern Ireland. Second Edition, CRC, Belfast.
OSCE 1999(a): Charter for European Security. OSCE, Istanbul. http://www.osce.org/docs/english/1990-1999/summits/istachart99e.htm
OSCE 1999(b): Handbook, Third Edition (printed 2000). OSCE, Vienna.
OSCE 2000: Selection for OSCE Field Staff. Guidelines for the Recruitment and Selection of Candidates for Secondment to OSCE Field Activities. OSCE, Vienna.
PIOOM 2001: "Trends in Violent Conflict" in Prevention and Management of Violent Conflict, European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation, 1998.
Port Van Eeden, Janne (2001): Fourth Quarterly Report on the Civil Peace Teams The Netherlands (BVTN). Utrecht.
Presidency Report to the Feira European Council  on European Security and Defence Policy, Brussels, 15 June 2000.
Presidency Report to the Göteborg European Council on European Security and Defense Policy. No. 9526/1/01, 11 June 2001.
Presidency Report to the Helsinki European Council on European Security and Defence Policy. 10 and 11 December 1999. 
Reychler, Luc & Paffenholz, Thania 2001: Peacebuilding: A Field Guide. Lynne Rienner, London.
Schmid, Alex P.2000: Thesaurus and Glossary of early warning and conflict prevention terms. Forum on Early Warning and Early Response, London.
Schweitzer, Christine et al, 2001: Global Nonviolent Peace Force: Feasibility Study, Nonviolent Peaceforce, St Paul, Minnesota.
SIPRI (ed) 2000: Yearbook 2000. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Stockholm.
SIPRI (ed) 2001: Yearbook 2001. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Stockholm.
Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2001: Preventing Violent Conflict. Swedish Policy for the 21st Century. Stockholm, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Sphere Project 2000, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, Oxfam Publishing, Oxford.
ZFD Sekretariat beim DED 2001: Dokumentation: Ein Jahr Ziviler Friedensdienst – Stand und Perspektiven. Workshop paper, DED, Bonn-Roettgen.

Interviews
Aldred, Ken: Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College, June 2001.
Armstrong, Kathleen: CODEP (UK), August 2001.
Billinghurst, Tony: Mediation UK, September 2001.
Brown, Christine: Lancaster University (UK), July 2001
Bryan, Dominic: Queens University Belfast (Northern Ireland), May 2001
Caldwell, Christine: European Union Monitoring Mission Desk, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK), October 2001.
Carl, Andy: Conciliation Resources (UK)
Carmichael, Helen: LEAP Confronting Conflict (UK), February 2001.
Clements, Kevin: International Alert, June 2001.
Dellar, Mary/Laura Londen/Henning Alejandro and Stephen Liebermann: Personnel Management & Support Service, UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations (USA), October 2001
Elworthy, Scilla: Oxford Research Group (UK)
Fisher, Simon: Responding to Conflict (UK)
Fricke, Eckehard: EIRENE (Germany), April 2001.
Gourlay, Catriona: ISIS-Europe, May 2001.
Gulcher, Ernst: Green Group, European Parliament (Belgium), April and October 2001.
Inglestam, Margaretta, Peace Team Forum (Sweden), March 2001
Jarman, Neill: Democratic Dialogue (Northern Ireland), May 2001
Jeremy, Dominic: UN Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK), October 2001.
Kenny, Karen: International Human Rights Trust (Ireland), September 2001.
Kramer, Gudrun: Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution  (ASPR) (Austria), September 2001.
Lambert, Bobby: Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief (UK), March 2001.
LaRose-Edwards, Paul: CANADEM, March and October 2001
Meyer, Peter: European Commission, DG Relex (Belgium), April 2001.
Meyers, Barrie: OSCE (Austria), May and September 2001.
Morgan, Claire: Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department, DFID (UK), October 2001.
Nietzsche, Veronica: Austrian Peace Service (Austria), October 2001.
O’Reilly, Derek: Agency for Personnel Service Overseas (APSO) (Ireland),  October 2001.
Rehnig, M. and Ingo Marenbach: German Foreign Office (Germany). April and October 2001.
Rogers, Paul: Bradford University Peace Studies Deparment (UK)
Rossi, Alessandro: Centro Studi Difesa Civile/Associazone per la Pace (Italy), October 2001.
Tempel, Helga: Forum of Civil Peace Services (forumZFD) (Germany) , February 2001.
Thorp, Simon: British Executive Services Overseas (UK), May 2001.
Truger, Arno, Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution  (ASPR) Austria 
Upton, Mike: OSCE Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (UK), March 2001.
Vardøen, Aase: Norwegian Refugee Council (Norway), March and September 2001.
Wickens, Arnie: Community Service Volunteers (UK), August 2001.

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9	APPENDICES
Following is a list of contents contained in Appendices 2 and 3. The full appendices are available as a separate document on request and can be downloaded from the web at: www.peaceworkers.fsnet.co.uk/report/appendices.htm

I  UK-based Organisations working on the ground in situations of conflict
These are listed by category for convenience only - many organisations work in a range of areas and would not necessarily categorise themselves in this way.

1.	Development 
Action Against Hunger UK
Action Aid
Agency for Co-operation and research in Development (ACORD)
British Executive Services Overseas (BESO)
CAFOD
Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR)
Christian Aid
Christians Abroad
Education for Development (ED)
Oxfam GB
Save the Children Fund (SCF)
SCIAF 
Skillshare International
Tearfund
World Vision UK

2. Humanitarian Aid 
Action for People in Conflict
British Red Cross
CARE International UK
Medecins Sans Frontières - UK (MSF)
Medical Foundation
MERLIN
People in Aid
Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief (RedR)

3. Human Rights
Alliances for Africa
Amnesty International - British Section
Article 19
European Dialogue 
International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS)
International Human Rights Trust
Justice Africa
Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP)
Minority Rights Group (MRG)
Peace Brigades International
Tapol
The Law Society - International Directorate

4. Conflict Transformation 
Committee for Conflict Transformation Support (CCTS)
Conciliation Resources
CREATE 
International Alert (IA)
Kacoke Madit (KM)
Quaker Peace & Social Witness
Responding to Conflict
War Resisters International (WRI)
Women in Black

5. Media, Democratisation and Elections
Centre for Democracy & Development (CDD)
Electoral Reform International Services (ERIS)
European Centre for War, Peace and the News Media
Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Local Government International Bureau
London Information Network on Conflicts and State-Building (LINKS)
SOLACE International
The Britain-Russia Centre
Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD)

6. Landmines and other security issues
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)
Landmine Action
Mines Advisory Group (MAG)

7. Voluntary work overseas
Christian International Peace Service (CHIPS)
Community Service Volunteers
International Voluntary Service (IVS)
United Nations Association International Service (UNAIS)
Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO)

II NGOS WORKING ON THE GROUND IN SITUATIONS OF CONFLICT IN THE UK
Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ)
Community Relations Council – Northern Ireland (CRC)
Community Relations Training and Learning Consortium (CRTLC)
Corrymeela Community
LEAP Confronting Conflict
MEDACT
Mediation Network for Northern Ireland
Mediation UK
Refugee Council
Scottish Centre for Nonviolence
The Guardian Angels
Turning the Tide

III  Research and Policy Organisations IN THE PEACE AND CONFLICT FIELD
1. NGOs
BASIC
Democratic Dialogue
Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER)
Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity (INCORE) 
Oxford Research Group (ORG)
Saferworld
VERTIC

2. Academic Research Centres
Center for the Study of Conflict (CSC), University of Ulster
Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Bradford
Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College
Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Coventry University 
Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews
Conflict Analysis and Development Unit, London School of Economics
LSE Centre for Global Governance, London School of Economics
Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development Unit, University of York
Richardson Institute of Peace and Conflict Research, Lancaster University
The Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton
The Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism (RISCT), University of Leeds

IV Training organisations 
Alternatives to Violence Project
Centre for Conflict Resolution, Bradford University
Centre for Effective Dispute & Resolution [CEDR]
Committee on the Administration of Justice
Community Development Centre North Belfast
Guardian Angels
INCORE
Interface Project
LEap confronting Conflict
Mediation UK
MERLIN [Medical Emergency Relief International]
National Coalition Building Institute [NCBI]
PBI Britain
Peace and Reconciliation Group Derry
RedR
Responding to Conflict
Ulster Peoples College

V universities offering relevant academic degrees 
The University of Bradford
Coventry University
University of Derby
Edge Hill College of Higher Education
The University of Essex
Univesity of Kent
Kings College London
Lancaster University
University of Leicester
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
University of Leeds
University of Nottingham
University of Oxford
Queens University
The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of Sussex
University of Ulster / Londonderry
The University of West England, Bristol
York University