Abbreviation | Search |
---|---|
Formation | 1982 |
Founder | John Marks |
Type | International non-governmental organization |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., United States, and Brussels, Belgium |
CEO | Shamil Idriss |
Website | www |
Search for Common Ground (or Search) is an international non-governmental organization that works to end violent conflict and build healthy, safe, and just societies. It is the largest such organization dedicated to peacebuilding, [1] with offices in over 30 countries and a media reach of roughly 40 million people. [2]
Since its founding in 1982, Search for Common Ground has helped to avert genocide in Burundi, [3] supported post-civil war elections in Liberia and Sierra Leone, [4] shaped gender norms in Nepal with a TV show reaching 25 percent of the population, [5] and mainstreamed sexual assault training for soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [6] In 2018, Search was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. [7]
Search was founded at the height of the Cold War by John Marks, a former diplomat at the United States Department of State. The first major project was fostering cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union to address violence in Lebanon. With Search’s support, a task force proposed a multilateral, regional peace process that led to the end of the Israeli-Jordanian war. [8]
Since 1982, Search for Common Ground has expanded work to over 30 countries and 1,000 staff. Search opened its first office in the Middle East in 1991, Europe in 1994, Africa in 1995, and Asia in 2002.
The Common Ground Approach is the core methodology that Search for Common Ground uses, developed over nearly four decades of frontline experience. [9] The essence of the Approach is to bring people together across divides, understand the needs lurking beneath surface labels, identify shared problems, and solve those problems. Trust grows over time, and change lasts when embedded in markets, norms, and institutions.
Search’s mission is “to transform the way the world deals with conflict, away from adversarial approaches and toward cooperative solutions.” Tactics include dialogue training, joint development projects, public art projects, sports leagues, and social impact entertainment via radio, TV, film, and print. Each year, over 300,000 people attend Search events, [2] while projects directly engage roughly 2,000 religious leaders, 2,500 security officials, 1,500 political leaders, and 2,000 media professionals. [2]
In the late 2000s, many Sri Lankans faced painful losses after a 26-year civil war. Search for Common Ground created an archive of stories from people on all sides of the violence, including handwritten letters, audio recordings, and children’s drawings. The archive led to a touring exhibit that visited over 400 locations and a media campaign that reached two million people. [10]
Inuka! was a program designed to support young people, counter violent extremism, and build resilient communities in Kenya, where violent extremism posed a dire threat. Issues came to a head in Lamu County in 2011, when a surge of al-Shabaab members posing as fishermen led the local government to ban nighttime fishing. Search for Common Ground facilitated discussions to manage tensions and devise a solution: digital ID cards that enabled nighttime fishing to return after seven years of hardship. [10]
In 2013, Search for Common Ground partnered with the Ma’an Network to create The President, a political reality TV show that promoted the democratic engagement of Palestinian youth. The first season aired in Jerusalem, with viewers voting via text message the winner. After two seasons, The President spun off into I am the President, a Tunisian equivalent that launched in 2019 with an audience over one million viewers. [2]
In the 2000s, a senior United Nations official referred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as “the rape capital of the world,” [11] with 54 percent of human rights abuses committed by the military and police. [12] For 20 years, Search for Common Ground has worked with staff drawn from diverse ethnicities to change this dynamic. Search consulted with the military to create mandatory training for new recruits, reaching soldiers across the country. [6]
Singha Durbar (“The Lion’s Palace”) was a 13-episode drama that debuted in Nepal in 2015. The show tells the story of Aasha Singh, the fictional first female Prime Minister of Nepal, played by Nepali star Gauri Malla. Over 25 percent of the Nepali population watched the show, [5] which showcased female leadership, positive gender roles, and democratic values.
In 1994, the Rwandan genocide left 800,000 people dead and raised fears that violence would spread to neighboring Burundi. Search for Common Ground created Studio Ijambo as an independent radio station staffed by a mix of Hutus and Tutsis and promoting reconciliation through news programs and soap operas. In 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry credited Search with averting genocide in the country. [3]
Violent conflict plagued Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s and early 2000s, with children often used as soldiers. In the aftermath, Search for Common Ground established Talking Drum Studios to foster healing, democracy, and peace. An especially popular program was Golden Kids News, which trained children as journalists. One participant was Michael Sambola, who became a famous investigative journalist and produced Gud Mornin Salone, the most popular radio program in Sierra Leone. [10]
Search for Common Ground is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Brussels, Belgium, although over 90 percent of staff are based in other country offices. [2] Search offices reflect the social divides that they seek to bridge, with staff recruited across ethnic, racial, and political lines and 89 percent of staff working in their home country. [2]
John Marks led Search from 1982 to 2014, when Shamil Idriss became president and CEO. Search’s budget and portfolio has expanded steadily across decades, with net assets at $90.5 million in 2020. [2] The organization has received funding from over 65 foundations and non-profit organizations, 14 governments, and 15 multilateral institutions. [13]
Blood diamonds are diamonds mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, an invading army's war efforts, terrorism, or a warlord's activity. The term is used to highlight the negative consequences of the diamond trade in certain areas, or to label an individual diamond as having come from such an area. Diamonds mined during the 20th–21st century civil wars in Angola, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau have been given the label. The term conflict resource refers to analogous situations involving other natural resources. Blood diamonds can also be smuggled by organized crime syndicates so that they could be sold on the black market.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War or the Great War of Africa or the Great African War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year after the First Congo War, and involved some of the same issues.
The individual member states of the African Union (AU) coordinate foreign policy through this agency, in addition to conducting their own international relations on a state-by-state basis. The AU represents the interests of African peoples at large in intergovernmental organizations (IGO's); for instance, it is a permanent observer at the United Nations' General Assembly.
Global Witness is an international NGO established in 1993 that works to break the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses worldwide. The organisation has offices in London and Washington, D.C.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and 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. The process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing before, during, and after any given case of violence.
The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is a United Nations intergovernmental advisory body of both the General Assembly and the Security Council that supports peace efforts in conflict affected countries. A key addition to the capacity of the international community in the broad peace agenda, it was established in 2005 with the passage of both A/RES/60/180 and S/RES/1645 Mr. Ivan Šimonović (Croatia) is the incumbent chair of PBC.
The United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) with responsibility for monitoring and assessing global political developments and advising and assisting the UN Secretary General and his envoys in the peaceful prevention and resolution of conflict around the world. The department manages field-based political missions in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, and has been increasing its professional capacities in conflict mediation and preventive diplomacy. DPPA also oversees UN electoral assistance to Member States of the organization. Established in 1992, the department's responsibilities also include providing secretariat support to the UN Security Council and two standing committees created by the General Assembly concerning the Rights of the Palestinian People and Decolonization. DPPA is based at the UN Headquarters in New York City.
The mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces copper, diamonds, tantalum, tin, gold, and more than 63% of global cobalt production. Minerals and petroleum are central to the DRC's economy, making up more than 95% of the value of its exports.
Alan Claude Doss is a British international civil servant who has spent his entire professional life in the service of the United Nations, working on peacekeeping, development and humanitarian assignments in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World", and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion", and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."
Radio for Peacebuilding Africa (RFPA) was a program founded in 2003 by the international non-profit organization Search for Common Ground. Working on the assumption that radio is the most accessible form of mass communication in Africa, RFPA trained journalists in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and acting on commonalities.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1941, adopted unanimously on September 29, 2010, after recalling all previous resolutions on the situation in Sierra Leone, particularly Resolution 1886 (2009), the Council extended the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) until September 15, 2011.
Hamro Team is a Nepalese television soap opera, telecasted in the Nepal on Kantipur Television. Hamro Team story is of the Nepali version of The Team – Hamro Team, has been written by a group of Nepali writers working closely with Search for Common Ground Nepal and is being produced locally with AB Pictures Pvt. Ltd. Hamro Team, 13 episodes, is directed by Bhusan Dahal. It premiered on 9 June 2011 and concluded on 1 September 2011.
The International Peace and Security Institute or IPSI is a division of Creative Learning an international nonprofit organization with 501(c)(3) status headquartered in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2009, IPSI was acquired by Creative Learning in November 2016. The Institute's objective is to train young peacebuilding and International Justice leaders in the skills needed to effectively intervene in violent conflict scenarios in pursuit of sustainable peace.
During the first and second conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), all armed parties to the conflict carried out a policy of genocidal rape, with the primary purpose being the total destruction of communities and families. Such was the violence directed at and carried out towards women that Human Rights Watch (HRW) described it as "a war within a war". HRW has reported that as of March 2013, civil conflict had reignited when the militia, March 23 Movement (M23), resumed hostilities following a ceasefire.
During the Sierra Leone Civil War gender specific violence was widespread. Rape, sexual slavery and forced marriages were commonplace during the conflict. It has been estimated by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that up to 257,000 women were victims of gender related violence during the war. The majority of assaults were carried out by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), The Civil Defence Forces (CDF), and the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) have also been implicated in sexual violence.
During the first and second civil conflicts which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), all sides involved in the war actively recruited or conscripted child soldiers, known locally as Kadogos which is a Swahili term meaning "little ones". In 2011 it was estimated that 30,000 children were still operating with armed groups. The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), released a report in 2013 which stated that between 1 January 2012 and August 2013 up to 1,000 children had been recruited by armed groups, and described the recruitment of child soldiers as "endemic".
Child soldiers in Africa refers to the military use of children under the age of 18 by national armed forces or other armed groups in Africa. Typically, this classification includes children serving in non-combatant roles, as well as those serving in combatant roles. In 2008, it was estimated that 40 percent of child soldiers worldwide were in Africa, and the use of child soldiers in armed conflict was increasing faster than any other continent. Additionally, average age of children recruited as soldiers appears to be decreasing. As of 2017, the UN listed that seven out of fourteen countries recruiting and using child soldiers in state forces or armed groups were in Africa: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan.
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).