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The Conflict
Georgia
is one of fifteen successor states of the Soviet Union.
Now an independent country, it has been struggling to
build a democratic society in the face of two civil wars
and two ethno-political wars. In 1992-1993, there was
armed conflict between the Georgians and the Abkhaz who
seek independence from Georgia. This war resulted in thousands
of deaths, tens of thousands of refugees, and ruined economies.
To date a resolution has not been found. Russian forces
guard the border between the two sides while a settlement
is negotiated.
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Evaluation of
Citizen Peacebuilding Initiatives
The goal of the evaluation research is
to go beyond assumptions about the impact of citizen
peacebuilding by providing solid evidence about what does
and does not work, in order to guide more effective
initiatives in conflict zones. The research activities involve
participant-observation, in-depth and focus group
interviewing, and surveys. We also use Action Evaluation
methodology within the project. This method has been
crucial to our successes. It has helped us chart our
goals and plans as we go along, kept us on track, pushed
us to keep our promises to each other, and signaled us to
switch gears when necessary. Action Evaluation is more
than an effective process to articulate goals and gather data
systematizing what is normally done in the design and
implementation of conflict resolution processes. The
methodology enables participants to recognize the motivations,
values and interests necessary to negotiate consensus on
shared goals so as to promote reflexive evaluation among key
stakeholders as they move forward. For more information
about the methodology see The Action Evaluation Research
Institute
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Project
Publications
Conference, June 1-4, 2000
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Civil
Society Development
This project facilitates a
constructive dialogue and interaction between Georgian and
Abkhaz representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It promotes skills
and structures in the nongovernmental sectors, conducive to developing
safe, civil and stable society. Our assumption is that NGOs
are crucial to an effective process of
reconciliation at the community level, and are far
more effective in promoting and maintaining genuine
peace than reliance on coercive, police-oriented approaches. NGOs can
be mini-models of self-governance and peaceful negotiation for common
interests.
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Coordination of Multiple Initiatives
A few times a year this project initiates
meetings with all other international and indigenous
organizations and individuals working on peace initiatives in
the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. In addition we schedule
periodic virtual meetings by phone and through the
internet. The purpose of the meetings is to discuss the
general context of the conflict and to explore how we can be
supportive of each
other's work and encourage complementarity of our
multiple efforts by establishing shared goals. At these meetings
we update each other on project developments and coordinate
plans; develop ways to combine our resources to
fund indigenous peacebuilding and democracy building acitivities; share
analyses of productive and unproductive activities in the peace
process; discuss options for how to continue this kind
of coordination--whether as simple information sharing, resource sharing,
joint strategy development, joint projects, or as a consortium; generate
research together on the efficacy of our coordinating actions.
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