New EU funded project addresses peacemaking, peace-building

This project on Peacemaking and Peace-Building in Europe & South Asia (Human Resource and Curriculum Development) proposes to develop four Course Modules on peacemaking and peace-building in Europe and South Asia. The Course Modules will be prepared through joint curriculum development, faculty exchanges, and “test run” programs for peacemakers and peace-builders on the ground.

The aim of the project is to enlarge European peace studies in Asia, and South Asian peace studies in Europe. The two regions are far more nearly engaged today than they were twenty years ago, and there is growing interest in cooperative peacemaking and peace-building. For effective cooperation, both regions need a better understanding of each others’ policy formulations. The project will contribute to this end through collaborative curriculum and human resource/faculty development. Course modules will be introduced into teaching programs by the applicant and partner universities, web-linked and disseminated through universities networks.

The project will prepare the course modules through 4 curriculum development workshops, 2 in Year One and 1 per year for the next 2 years; additionally, faculty will spend 1-2 weeks each at partner universities to structure course modules and deliver lectures. In the last 18 months of the project, the course modules will be tested and adapted through 2 student and practitioner workshops, 1 held at a European partner university and 1 at a South Asian partner university, in order to ensure that the modules can be used at the academic level as well as by people working on the ground.

The project will produce 4 course modules: 2 on European approaches to peacemaking and peace-building, and 2 on South Asian approaches. The modules will be made available on CD to interested universities who wish to incorporate them into their teaching programs.

India and the EU have agreed a Strategic Partnership, and the EU is closely involved with Pakistan, as well as the majority of the South Asian countries, but the two regions are still relatively ignorant of each other’s policy formulations on strategic issues, especially in peacemaking and peace-building. As each region is also increasingly involved in peacemaking and peace-building initiatives in areas of overlapping interest, this is going to be a potential growth area for EU-South Asian collaboration. The course modules will help European and South Asian policymakers and practitioners cooperate more effectively in the short term; and in the median to long-term, it will help produce informed next generation policy-makers and practitioners.

The chief obstacle to European-South Asian collaboration is the danger of misinterpretation that each side falls prey to due to lack of continuous interaction. Because there are very few institutions creating the human and knowledge resources that could be deployed when opportunities for collaboration are created, the opportunities often dwindle off. This problem can be remedied through projects such as this one, whose faculty will train students that can input at the policy level, and whose course modules can provide a quick guide for policymakers and practitioners as well as more detailed course work for students.

The objectives of the project are to expand European and South Asian knowledge of each other’s peacemaking and peace-building experience at home and abroad, in order to improve the scope for closer cooperation at the policymaker and practitioner levels. The project Partners will aid this objective by introducing the course modules into teaching programs. Moreover, we hope through Web-linking, production of the course modules and CDs, and the course book, to reach a large number of universities and other higher education institutions in Europe and South Asia, thereby creating a pool of knowledge and skills for policymakers.

Policymakers in both Europe and South Asia – at the federal, national and local levels – are well aware of the need to expand human and knowledge resources to strengthen existing peace processes at home, as well as to explore the potential for joint peace-building abroad. In our experience both EU and South Asian policymakers are open to inputs from projects such as this one: indeed, because the Mandela Centre’s work is focused on contemporary and ongoing peace initiatives, Indian policymakers participate in our workshops and conferences, and often pick up ideas generated there. Similarly, our faculty have engaged with members of the European Commission and Parliament, as well as policymakers from individual member-states, and have found them receptive to our policy inputs.

Partners

• Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
• Dublin City University (DCU)
• Universite Catholique de Louvain.
• Lahore University of Management Studies, Pakistan