Latest News

New Book and Course: "Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning"


3P Human Security is proud to announce the release of Director Lisa Shirch’s new book titled “Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning: A Strategic, Participatory, Systems-Based Handbook on Human Security.”  Readers will learn a simple conflict assessment framework to identify key concepts; practice designing rigorous research to conduct conflict assessment, and monitoring and evaluation based on collecting and prioritizing data that is valid, accurate and triangulated; identify key components of strategic planning - including conflict assessment, self-assessment, theories of change, and monitoring and evaluation; and prioritize information and make complex decisions to design a comprehensive peacebuilding strategy. For more information about the book, please click here.

"Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning" is also being offered as a 7-day training course at Eastern Mennonite University's Summer Peacebuilding Institute in Harrisonburg, VA from May 27, 2013 to June 4, 2013.  This course is geared toward planners and policy teams at peacebuilding organizations, government agencies, and regional and international organizations. For more information on this course, click here.  To apply for this course or other courses at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, click here.  Shorter workshops, presentations, and tailored trainings on "Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning" are available upon request.  If interested, contact  Lisa Schirch.

Dr. Lisa Schirch is the founding director of 3P Human Security, a partnership for peacebuilding policy at the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP). AfP connects policymakers with global civil society networks, facilitates civil-military dialogue, and provides a conflict prevention and peacebuilding lens on current policy issues.
Schirch is also a Research Professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University and a liaison at the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict. She has worked as a consultant to facilitate national peace processes and write a peacebuilding strategy for the UN Development Program. She teaches local civil society capacity assessment and civil-military guidelines at the US Foreign Service Institute and many military academies.
A former Fulbright Fellow in East and West Africa, Schirch has worked in over 20 countries in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, most recently in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Lebanon.
Schirch has written six books and numerous articles on conflict prevention and strategic peacebuilding.
Schirch holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Waterloo, Canada and a MS and PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.

3P Presents at UNITAR's Seminar on the Prevention of Genocide


3P Program Manager John Filson presented at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research’s (UNITAR) Seminar on the Prevention of Genocide in New York City on January 23, 2013.  The seminar was a collaborative effort between UNITAR and the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect that aimed to give its participants a deeper understanding of the definitions of genocide as well as strategies for the prevention of genocide.  

John spoke about the comparative frameworks of 1) Genocide Prevention focused on Early Warning and preventing outbreaks of mass atrocities, and 2) Conflict Prevention focused on the long-term structural conditions that lead to violent conflict, including episodes of mass violence.

Genocide and mass atrocities do not happen in a vacuum, but always in the context of long-standing dynamics between groups in conflict such as political exclusion, economic exploitation, mutual mistrust and demonizing between groups, and historical grievances. As an analytical framework, Conflict Prevention provides additional tools that compliment Genocide Prevention and Early Warning mechanisms to prevent not only atrocities but also address the long-term conditions that cause them.

The practical benefits of linking Genocide Prevention and Conflict Prevention frameworks is an on-going area of work for the Alliance for Peacebuilding and 3P Human Security. 3P Director Dr. Lisa Schirch is currently conducting research on how these frameworks operate similarly or differently in practice, and how prevention scholars and practitioners can build better synergies between these two important approaches to increase the overall effectiveness of violence prevention in settings of conflict.  

New 3P Publications

3P Director Lisa Schirch recently published two new pieces of note:

The first is a Huffington Post piece titled "On Massacres, Masculinity, Human Rights and Gun Rights." The piece offers reflections on gun violence and its cultural and political roots in the U.S.  

The second piece is on the Local First blog and is titled "Training military forces in local capacity."  This piece explores how military actors interact with civil society in war zones like Afghanistan.  The key lessons identified for military forces are: (1) there are diverse types of civil society organizations in all communities; (2) all civil society organizations require independent space in order to best contribute to human security and peace; and, (3) military forces may have opportunities to support local efforts that contribute to stability.

A complete list of 3P publications can be found here.