The Bretton Woods Project
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/project/index.shtml
The Bretton Woods Project was established in 1995 by the Development and Environment Group (DEG), a network of UK-based NGOs, to facilitate monitoring of the social and environmental impacts of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies and projects. The Project coordinates and consults with the UK BWI network, over 40 organizations working in development, environment and human rights. The Bretton Woods Project Steering Group, made up of some members of the DEG, meets on a regular basis to advise and review Project activities. The Project is funded by CS Mott Foundation and The Funding Network and receives in-kind and other support from members of the Development and Environment Group. At present, ActionAid is kindly hosting the Bretton Woods Project. The Bretton Woods Project works as a networker, information-provider, media informant and watchdog to scrutinize and influence the World Bank and IMF.
It works with an extensive network to press for increased transparency and civil society participation in World Bank and IMF policies and interventions. This includes over 7,000 non-governmental organizations, policy-makers, journalists, researchers and parliamentarians worldwide. By encouraging information exchange and debate, it seeks to move the Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and IMF) away from simplistic approaches to development.
Fourth Freedom Forum
The Fourth Freedom Forum name is derived from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Message to Congress in January 1941: The fourth (freedom) is freedom from fear, which translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments, to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor, anywhere in the world.
Fourth Freedom Forum is working to create a more civilized world based on the force of law rather than the law of force. We believe that economic power is greater than military might, and that the effective use of economic incentives and sanctions offers the greatest hope for creating a more secure and peaceful future.
Through scholarly research, public education, dialogue with policy experts, and media communications, the Fourth Freedom Forum explores options for the nonviolent resolution of international conflict and brings these concepts to the forefront of mainstream debate. The Forum sponsors conferences, symposia, research reports, and educational workshops involving US and international policymakers, former government officials, academic scholars, and policy experts. The Forum also sponsors media communications and public education campaigns to encourage citizen awareness of and support for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the prevention of war.
Inclusive Security: Women waging peace
http://www.womenwagingpeace.net/
Women Waging Peace advocates for the full participation of all stakeholders, especially women, in formal and informal peace processes around the world by:
- building a network of women peacemakers;
- making the case that women make vital contributions to conflict prevention, peace negotiations, and post-conflict reconstruction efforts; and
- shaping public policy by generating support from policymakers for women's agency in promoting security.
Since 1999, Waging has connected more than 400 women experts with over 3,000 policy shapers to collaborate on fresh, workable solutions to long-standing conflicts across the globe. Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace Policy Commission was created in 2001 to focus on research and analysis as underpinnings for policy advocacy. The Commission is producing a series of case studies that examine women's activities in conflict prevention, pre-negotiation and negotiation, and post-conflict reconstruction. Launched at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Inclusive Security: Women waging peace is currently an operating programme of Hunt Alternatives Fund, which advances innovative and inclusive approaches to social change at local, national and global levels.
International Alert
http://www.international-alert.org/
International Alert (IA) is an independent, international non-governmental organization that works to help build lasting peace in countries and communities affected or threatened by violent conflict.
IA was created in response to the rise in violent conflict within countries and the subsequent abuse of individual and collective human rights in conflict situations. The core of conflict transformation work is the building of sustainable peace. This involves a process of profound change, transforming situations characterized by fear into environments in which reconciliation, social justice and participative democracy can take root.
IA seeks to strengthen the ability of people in conflict situations to make peace by: facilitating dialogue at different levels and sectors of society in conflict helping to develop and enhance local capacities — through, for example funding or training facilitating peace-oriented development work among grassroots organizations and local peacebuilding initiatives encouraging the international community to address the structural causes of conflict.
IA works with organizations and individuals in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, West Africa, the Caucasus region of the Former Soviet Union, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Philippines and Colombia. Our policy work is conducted at the global level.
International Peace Academy
The International Peace Academy (IPA) is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflicts between and within states through policy research and development.
IPA works closely with the United Nations, regional and other international organizations, governments, and non-governmental organizations, as well as with parties to conflicts in selected cases. Its efforts are enhanced by its ability to draw on a worldwide network of government and business leaders, scholars, diplomats, military officers, and leaders of civil society.
IPA is a non-profit organization governed by an international Board of Directors. The organization is funded by generous donations from governments, major philanthropic foundations, and corporate donors, as well as contributions from individuals and its Board members.
IPA was founded in 1970 by a group of individuals from within and outside of the United Nations who believed that a thoroughly independent institution, free from official constraints, could make a unique contribution to multilateral efforts to prevent and settle armed conflicts around the world. The organization works closely with other research institutions, NGOs, practitioners, and policy-makers to fulfill its mandate by:
- Facilitating strategic thinking, and informing and influencing policy and practice on the prevention and settlement of armed conflicts;
- Forging links between actors in the realm of development, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding in a variety of fora;
- Providing a platform for cutting edge research and disseminating research findings widely across the international community; and
- Enhancing its capacities to respond to evolving requests from its key stakeholders, particularly the UN system.
Peace, Conflict and Development (IDRC)
IDRC is a Canadian public corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies.
IDRC's Peacebuilding and Reconstruction programme initiative was founded in 1996, and was one of the first research-oriented responses to the challenges of peacebuilding. The programme has established a body of work in key areas of the field, notably in governance/democratization, security sector reform, political economy questions and critical perspectives on the peacebuilding endeavour. The programme has supported research for specific peacebuilding processes and on the nature of peacebuilding itself. Most importantly, the programme builds southern and civil society capacity to engage in peacebuilding processes that are frequently northern-led and defined, concluded and decided by official elites and armed combatants.
PCD's research programming is used to contribute to the transformation of unjust and violent power relations in society, where research makes heard audible voices at the margins in order to address root causes of violence and prevent the resurgence of armed conflict, and where basic human rights are protected, impunity is halted, and accountability between leaders and the led, the powerful and the weak, is established and enhanced.
Peace Women Project
http://www.peacewomen.org/wpsindex.html
Peace Women Project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom monitors and works toward rapid and full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1,325 on women, peace and security. WILPF's PeaceWomen Project serves as one actor in the greater women, peace and security community.
TRANSCEND: A philosophy of peace and one way of enacting it
TRANSCEND is a network for peace and development made up of cooperating individuals concerned with peace by peaceful means, development by developmental means and environment by environmental means. Their mission statement is to bring about a more peaceful world by using action, education/training, dissemination and research to handle conflicts creatively and nonviolently.
TRANSCEND was founded August 1993 by Johan Galtung and Fumiko Nishimura, Otto Scharmer and Katrin Käufer as a conflict mediation organization, based on Galtung's experience with 20 conflicts over 35 years. Dietrich Fischer joined, and the real start was 19 June 1995 when Fischer and Galtung from Switzerland invited 11 others. TRANSCEND is a 'virtual' organization.
TRANSCEND is based on four pillars/modes of activity: action, education/training, dissemination, research. Take Peace Museums: Action is to stimulate or build a peace museum. Education/training would have participants who want to know more about peace museums or work in them. Dissemination would inform about existing and future peace museums. Research would explore artifacts to exhibit in a peace museum and the causes and consequences of peace museums.
Activity has focused on peaceful conflict transformation, using the TRANSCEND method based on extensive dialogues with all parties, one at the time, to stimulate their creativity about possible outcomes and processes leading to those outcomes. The 45 conflicts mediated can be seen on the website. TRANSCEND's focus in on therapy/transformation/solution rather than on diagnosis/prognosis.
Transnational Institute
The Transnational Institute was founded in 1974 as a worldwide fellowship of committed scholar-activists. It was one of the first research institutes established to be transnational in name, composition, orientation and focus.
In the spirit of public scholarship, and aligned to no political party, TNI seeks to create and promote international cooperation in analysing and finding possible solutions to such global problems as militarism and conflict, poverty and marginalization, social injustice and environmental degradation.
Since 1972 when it was founded, hundreds of progressive scholars and activists have been involved in TNI projects. This extensive international network is mobilized to find the most appropriate people to design and participate in study groups, international conferences, and the production and dissemination of research results. This generally takes the form of specifically targeted working and policy papers, as well as easy-to-read books, often translated into a number of languages.
TNI is constituted as a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands. TNI receives part of its institutional funding from the Samuel Rubin Foundation (New York) and otherwise is supported on a project by project basis by a range of funders, including church agencies, peace and environmental organizations, European foreign and development cooperation ministries, the European Commission and private foundations in the US and Europe.
World Policy Institute
http://www.worldpolicy.org/wpi/index.html
Since joining New School University in 1991, the World Policy Institute has sought to adapt its traditional mission of policy research and advocacy on critical world problems to the New School.
The Institute seeks to offer innovative policy proposals for public debate with the goal of developing an internationalist consensus on the measures needed for the management of a world market economy, the development of a workable system of collective security, and the creation of an active transnational civil society.
It aims to promote greater public understanding of the relationship between domestic and international policy and to train journalists, policymakers, business and civic leaders to be capable of understanding emerging world problems and of reconciling the often competing demands of globalization and national policy.
It seeks to nurture a new generation of writers and public intellectuals committed to internationalist thinking and to provide students in the New School community with an opportunity to gain practical experience in policy research and advocacy on global issues.
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