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David Nyheim (born 1970) is a Norwegian peace-maker and early warning expert. His work over the last 20 years has focused on dialogue process design and implementation, conflict resolution, conflict early warning, stabilisation, as well as forecasting and strategy.
After several years in the humanitarian and public health fields, he was recruited in 1997 to establish the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER). His tenure as Director involved the establishment of early warning systems in the North Caucasus, West Africa, and Great Lakes region. Concerned with the absence of responses to warnings, he worked with FEWER members to combine warning systems with multi-stakeholder dialogue and planning processes in Chechnya, DR Congo, Guinea-Conakry, and Georgia.
After leaving FEWER in 2003, Nyheim established International Conflict and Security (INCAS) Consulting Ltd. (United Kingdom) together with Anton Ivanov, Samuel Gbaydee Doe, and Tom Porteous. He served as its Chief Executive till 2014, after which he became the Chairman of the INCAS Consulting Ltd. and its affiliated consulting companies. [1] As a consultant, David Nyheim designed and implemented dialogue processes in Indonesia (Christian-Muslim conflicts), Mauritania (government-opposition dialogue on development), Fiji (pre-election stabilisation), and Kyrgyzstan (micro-conflicts and tensions). He worked on several stabilisation initiatives, largely for governments and companies operating in areas affected by criminalised violence. Lessons learnt from his work on preventing petroleum-related violent conflicts were published in "Balancing Petroleum Policy: Toward Value, Sustainability, and Security" by the World Bank in 2019. [2]
Most of Nyheim's forecasting and strategy work has been for governments and multinational corporations. In 2003, he co-authored the Peace and Security Strategy (PASS) for Shell Nigeria that accurately predicted serious instability in the Niger Delta. After several years of focused work on the Niger Delta, which included support to later President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Nyheim returned to the North Caucasus in 2005, where worked with Anton Ivanov and others on a Strategic Reconstruction and Development Assessment for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (United Kingdom). That same year, he developed an integrated aid-reconciliation multi-donor strategy for Myanmar that controversially argued for active engagement with the Myanmar government.
Nyheim is considered a leading thinker and practitioner of modern conflict early warning and response. His studies, "Preventing Violence, War, and State Collapse. The Future of Conflict Early Warning and Response" [3] for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and "Early warning and response to violent conflict: Time for a rethink?" [4] for Saferworld are widely cited.
David Nyheim received his BA in political science from McGill University (Canada) in 1992. From 1992 to 1994, he studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), before joining the European Community Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) in 1994. He received his MSc. in economics from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom) in 1996. During this time he served as the chairperson of the Student's Union of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
Kumar Rupesinghe is an academic and activist involved in social issues, particularly Human Rights, development issues, processes of globalisation, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and conflict transformation in the light of peacekeeping and peacebuilding for a harmonious coexistence among all peoples in the world.
Peace journalism has been developed from research that indicates that often news about conflict has a value bias toward violence. It also includes practical methods for correcting this bias by producing journalism in both the mainstream and alternative media, and working with journalists, media professionals, audiences, and organizations in conflict.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural & structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. This process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing, i.e., before, during, and after any given case of violence.
The Fund for Peace is an American non-profit, non-governmental research and educational institution. Founded in 1957, FFP "works to prevent violent conflict and promote sustainable security."
The Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) was established in 1997 as a non-profit organization in response to the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Focusing on conflict early warning, the brainchild of Kumar Rupesinghe, Howard Adelman, and Sharon Rusu, became a network of 35 organisations worldwide and catalysed the creation of early warning and response networks in the Caucasus, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and west Africa (led by West Africa Network for Peacebuilding.
The Foundation for Tolerance International is a Kyrgyz non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in 1998 to prevent conflict and build peace and justice in Central Asia. It has operated for nine years in a fluid and changing context, but it has remained focused on its original goals of conflict prevention on a range of vertical and horizontal conflicts. FTI’s work is focused on two main directions:
The field of conflict early warning seeks to forecast the outbreak of armed conflict, or, at minimum, to detect the early escalation of violence, with the objective of preventing the outbreak or the further escalation of violence in order to save lives.
The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) is a member-led network of civil society organisations (CSOs) active in the field of conflict prevention and peacebuilding across the world. The network is organised around 15 regional networks of local organisations, each region having its own priorities, character and agenda. Each region is represented in an International Steering Group, which determines joint global priorities and actions. GPPAC was initiated through extensive consultations in 2003-4, and officially launched as part of a global conference in 2005 at the UN headquarters in New York.
Manali Jagtap is a multi-award winning designer and a political artist. She lives and works in Malta, India and the UK.
Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah, Ph.D., is a social scientist, internationally recognized mediator, facilitator and trainer, as well as a scholar-practitioner and educator with close to twenty years of experience in the field of conflict analysis and resolution, research and applied practice, peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and transformation. Since 2005, she has been the President and Managing Director of Kommon Denominator Inc, an award- winning woman owned private consulting firm. In that capacity, she has provided technical advice and expertise on strategic initiatives aimed at strengthening global, international, national and local capacities in conflict prevention and mitigation strategies. Global work experience includes field and research experiences in crisis and post-conflict settings, conducting conflict assessments, and research studies in complex settings and countries facing humanitarian crisis. Recent research agenda includes politicized and organized violence, a gendered approach on the potential role of women in the Arab world in war and peace, and the role of UN Special Envoys in Yemen. Alma has also designed interventions on issues pertaining to identity-based conflicts, state and non-state actors, gendered approaches to peace and security, violent responses to conflict, security sector reform, and the social dynamics of conflict.
Karuna Center for Peacebuilding (KCP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Amherst, Massachusetts. The stated mission of KCP is to empower people divided by conflict to develop mutual understanding and to create sustainable peace. The organization was named for the Sanskrit word for compassion. The organizations efforts in facilitating "post-conflict reconciliation" has led to active programs in more than 30 countries. They have co-implemented programs with the United States Agency for International Development, United States Department of State, United States Institute of Peace, and Fund for Peace, among others.
Promoting recovery from conflict is not limited to simply a humanitarian, security or development issue and often involves a combination of all three. Stabilization of fragile states is an approach and a process regarding the fragility and security of said states. Hence, stabilization is an essential concept in relation to fragile and failed states, where basic institutions and services are lacking and where conflict is an influential factor. OECD uses the term from fragility to resilient to describe the process of stabilization.
European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) is the independent civil society platform of European NGOs, NGO networks and think tanks which are committed to peacebuilding, and the prevention of violent conflict.
Violent extremism is a form of extremism that condones and enacts violence with ideological or deliberate intent, such as religious or political violence. Violent extremist views can manifest in connection with a range of issues, including politics, religion and gender relations. No society, religious community, or worldview is immune to violent extremism. Though "radicalization" is a contested term, its general use has come to regard the process by which an individual or group adopts violence as a desirable and legitimate means of action. Extremist thought that does not condone the exercise of violence may be accepted within society, and be promoted by groups working within the boundaries of legally permitted activity. The term "violent extremism" may also occur as a code name for Islamic terrorism.
Samuel Gbaydee Doe is a conflict, peace, and development professional from Liberia. Doe was a cofounder, with Emmanuel Bombande, of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), based in Accra, Ghana. This organization focuses on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention and was founded in 1998 in response to the civil wars taking place in West Africa. The organization is known for their work with several regional partners such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union’s Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).
Saferworld is an international non-governmental organisation with conflict prevention and peacebuilding programmes in over 20 countries and territories in the Horn of Africa, the African Great Lakes region, Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus. It was founded in Bristol, UK in 1989 and now has its main office in London.
The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a leading Regional Peacebuilding organisation founded in 1998 in response to civil wars that plagued West Africa in the 1990s. Over the years, WANEP has succeeded in establishing strong national networks in every Member State of ECOWAS with over 550 member organisations across West Africa. WANEP places special focus on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention, and peacebuilding, working with diverse actors from civil society, governments, intergovernmental bodies, women groups and other partners in a bid to establish a platform for dialogue, experience sharing and learning, thereby complementing efforts at ensuring sustainable peace and development in West Africa and beyond.
International Alert is an independent international peacebuilding organization, operating programs around the world to address conflict. Its mission is to build a more peaceful world by: working with people directly affected by conflict to find peaceful solutions; shaping policies and practices to support peace; and collaborating with those striving for peace. Alert accomplishes these goals through dialogue, training, research and policy analysis, advocacy and outreach activities.
Sustainable Development Goal 16 – peace, justice and strong institutions – is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. It "promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels". The Goal has 12 targets to be achieved by 2030. Progress towards targets will be measured by 23 indicators.
