Overview

Since 1997, CICR has been serving communities around the world through projects and programs created to reduce conflict and support the creation of individual and institutional capacity enabling both the prevention and resolution of conflicts.

Preventing Conflict

Many third world countries do not have processes for dealing with conflicts, or their traditional methods have been discarded or lost in the modernization process. Introducing conflict and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods into the legal system, the educational system and other institutional sectors can raise awareness among key leaders and decision makers that processes exist to assist in dealing with conflicts as they arise. Over time these processes become a natural part of the prevailing culture.

Post-Conflict Peace-Building

The signing of a peace agreement does not mean a conflict has been fully resolved, nor that the cessation of fighting and violence is guaranteed. The intense emotions of bitterness and hatred generated by armed conflict and civil strife remain among the combatant populations for years to come. A signed peace agreement signals the beginning of a long process of post-conflict reconciliation. Bringing together former parties to a dispute whether in a community, institutional, political or other context, to begin re-establishing civility, working relationships, communities and overall harmony is a complex and demanding task.

CICR’s Experience

CICR’s Third Party Neutral experiential training modules have proven to be culturally sensitive and universal in their application. CICR has undertaken conflict prevention and resolution projects or programs in Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, East Timor, Indonesia, the Sudan, and Taiwan. In addition, people from over 35 countries on all continents have taken training at CICR’s facilities in Ottawa.

CICR has extensive experience working in post-conflict situations and has several trainers and practitioners who are from and/or have worked in war-torn countries. This combined with CICR’s strong expertise in institutional capacity development ensures that any projects undertaken are geared to maximizing the development of local institutional capacity by integrating conflict resolution work into their own structures and programs in a manner that will be sustainable.

The projects and programs have included establishing court-referred mediation procedures, systems and pilot projects (Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)), the training of election monitors (BiH), working directly with the main protagonists in country level disputes (East Timor), reducing tensions at the community level in a post-conflict environment (Rwanda and BiH), providing basic conflict resolving skills to police and other government officials (Sudan), developing the capacity of local institutions and NGOs involved in resolving conflicts (BiH), mapping and assessing the webs of conflict (Indonesia) and linking with Universities engaged in conflict studies research (Taiwan and Ottawa’s Saint Paul University).

In its work in other countries, CICR:

• trains in the local language where possible;
• ensures that the local culture is respected;
• recognizes that introducing conflict resolution skills and processes into a country unfamiliar with them, particularly in a post-conflict environment, takes time. CICR normally expects to work in a country for a minimum of 5 to 10 years, subject to available funding;
• emphasises the development of local institutional capacity in alternative dispute resolution, to ensure sustainability and continuity after CICR withdraws;
• works within existing institutional structures wherever possible;
• focuses on developing local trainers to accelerate in-country ownership of the training processes;
• maintains an ongoing relationship with local partners after project activities are completed to provide some level of additional support and coaching;
• provides skills in its Community Based approach, for the target communities to integrate the use of TPN training with traditional conflict resolution methods; and
• cooperates with other similar organizations working in the same area wherever possible.