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October 16, 2003
The African Peace and Development Initiative (APADI)
World Learning, 2003-2006
World Learning has been given an earmark of $1M
through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
to be used to build African civil society's capacity to transform violent
communal disputes into peaceful co-existence which is a prerequisite
for sustainable development. The organization's institution of higher
education, School for International Training
(SIT) and Washington, DC-based unit, World
Learning for International Development (WLID), designed this project,
building on SIT's Conflict Transformation
Across Cultures (CONTACT) graduate and professional program. To
distinguish the project from the self-sustaining CONTACT program, the
two divisions of World Learning named it the African Peace and Development
Initiative (APADI). APADI will be implemented as a three-year pilot
activity in Ethiopia, Uganda (in the first year of the project) and
possibly Kenya and Southern Sudan in the second and third years.
APADI offers an integrated approach to building the capacity of local
institutions, with a special focus on individuals and civil society
groups who have demonstrated the commitment and potential to lead community
reconciliation and change. Institutions invited to participate in the
project include peace-building organizations, as well as organizations
which deal with conflict situations in their work on development issues
such as land, water, environment, youth and women's leadership,
human rights, ex-combatants' issues, social service delivery,
and economic empowerment.
World Learning will use a comprehensive and participatory Conflict
Management Capability Assessment Instrument (CMCAI) to measure each
organization's ability to analyze conflicts, plan and design,
implement, monitor, evaluate and report on conflict transformation interventions.
Training workshops will then address specific institutional peace-building
capacity needs in order to make the institutions more effective in transforming
violent conflicts in their communities.
Representatives from institutions participating in the training will
develop and present action plans for improving or expanding their conflict
management and mitigation (CMM) work including procedures for evaluating
and documenting progress. The project's small grant mechanism
will support their actions and the operations of a local training and
technical assistance center that will be created by the project to enable
local trainers to continue strengthening other local leaders and organizations.
To fulfill its commitment to contributing transferable lessons to the
growing body of knowledge about conflict transformation, World Learning
will document and disseminate widely the outcome and best practices
derived from innovative actions taken during the project. As new funding
becomes available, these actions will also be replicated in new project
areas in Africa.
For information, contact Vincent Mugisha, Program Manager, Washington,
D.C. Email: vincent.mugisha@worldlearning.org
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