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16-18 December, 2011 – History Education Meeting in Belgrade, Serbia. The Joint History Project's History Education Committee finalised its push to expand this highly successful history book series to cover more recent times. During a two-day meeting in Belgrade, the editors and contributors discussed the publication within a larger circle of participants and received input from a renowned international expert in the field of Southeast European History. The fruitful meeting was the last in a series of three meetings made possible by the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Institute for Sustainable Communities.

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2 – 4 December, Dynamic Teaching Tools Concept Meeting in Thessaloniki – Some of the most accomplished educators and researchers from the region and from the United States gathered in Thessaloniki to create the framework for a new dynamic teaching methodology tool. This talented, multi-faceted group will ultimately publish a manual that will provide teachers with the latest research on teaching methods and ideas on how these methods can be used in their classrooms. While this project builds upon CDRSEE's highly successful Joint History Project, the information and ideas within will not be limited to history classes, but rather will be focused on the art of teaching in a rapidly changing society. The manual will be translated into six different languages. This was the first meeting, with the next scheduled for spring 2012 in Tirana. The project is funded by the European Union, under the IPA Programme.

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1 December, 2011 – CDRSEE and the European Fund for the Balkans (EFB) will kick off a new project in December, organising a series of lively debates about controversial regional issues and broadcasting these debates via major local TV stations throughout the region. The idea of “Similarities Between Differences” is to foster an exchange of ideas and a real debate about the issues that are plaguing these countries, impeding EU accession and reconciliation. This is not your everyday talk show. This series will bring together untainted, well-respected and unbiased individuals from a wide field of social sciences, including anthropology, ethnology, cultural studies, applied ethics and many others. The topics will not be easy or comfortable, but the wider debates that spring from this series can lead to real solutions and a mutual understanding. More information on the EFB is available at www.balkanfund.org.

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Projects - EU Conflict Prevention

Seminar
"EU Conflict Prevention:
Lessons Learned from the W. Balkans"


Athens, 4 - 7 May 2003

A seminar organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs
under the aegis of the Greek Presidency of the EU
and in cooperation with
the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy
and the ADB/ the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in SEE.

Working Group 3
Building Partnerships/Networks on Conflict Prevention. From Helsingborg to Athens

Conclusions reported by Sheila Cannon, Projects Manager, Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE)

In making the conclusions for Working Group 3 - Building Partnerships/Networks on Conflict Prevention, we acknowledge that there is a discrepancy between the perspective of the civil society in conflict prone areas and the governments and inter-governmental institutions. In order to address this discrepancy, there must be a two-way flow of information between civil society and field offices of international organisations, and this is the responsibility of everyone involved.

The Carnegie Commission on preventing Deadly Conflict concludes: "the prevention of deadly conflict is, over the long term, too hard - intellectually, technically, and politically - to be the responsibility of any single institution or government, no matter how powerful. Strengths must be pooled, burdens shared, and labour divided among actors." It is a practical necessity that we all work together in finding solutions and ensuring a lasting peace.

We also emphasise that the conclusions of our group are made in the context of an ongoing process of conflict prevention efforts, as reflected in the title of the working group: from Helsingborg to Athens.

The EU programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, which was endorsed by the Goteborg European Council in June 2001 outlined that the EU must build and sustain mutually reinforcing and effective partnerships for prevention with the UN, the OSCE and other international and regional organisations as well as civil society. A number of practical measures are listed in the programme.

The EU conference in Helsingborg in August 2002 defined an agenda - a common commitment - for common action based on common values. These common values, which are enshrined in international law, including norms on human right and international humanitarian law, are matters of immediate and legitimate concern to all.

As laid down in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe respect for the commitments undertaken within the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe constitutes one of the foundations of international order.

The objectives of the Stability Pact aim at addressing root causes of violent conflicts by pledging co-operation on issues such as

  • democracy, human rights, and the rule of law
  • peaceful and good neighbourly relations
  • preserving multi-ethnic states and protecting minorities
  • economic development.

It is evident that much has been accomplished already. Instruments of conflict prevention already exist as we heard in detail during yesterday's panel presentations. But the challenge that we identified was that although there is adequate information between those making the policy and those doing the fieldwork, in fact maybe an excess of information, there needs to be a more harmonised political will and better and more effective partnerships when it comes to implementation between international institutions, inter-governmental organisations, local authorities, Governments, and NGOs working in the field.

Recommendations/conclusions

Our goal in creating these six specific conclusions is to see how we can add value to the ongoing work and to the existing mechanisms and structures.

  1. Enhance long-term pre-conflict efforts, in particular focus should be put on consolidating peace via inter-ethnic and inter-religious dialogues, education, especially history education, arts & culture, and long term reconciliation initiatives such as "Reconciling for the Future," recently launched by the Stability Pact.

  2. Strengthen the conflict prevention capacity of local authorities and governments in the countries involved in crisis. Joint actions have to support institution building at the national level;

  3. Improve linkages and flows of communication towards more genuine and effective interaction between NGOs and governments, between Inter-governmental Institutions, the business community and the academic community in the implementation of the conflict prevention agenda;

  4. Organise joint assessment missions of donor agencies to areas of potential conflict areas in order to have a unified analysis and response to crises.

  5. Improve the existing structures (rather than creating new ones) for information sharing, consultation, policy dialogue between governments, civil society, and international institutions;

  6. Engage already existing networks in EU Conflict Prevention, such as the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) NGO Working Group on conflict management and prevention which includes 78 NGOs.

One issue raised and not resolved: what lessons can be exported to other regions? We didn't reach a conclusion, but we raised the important point that in other regions the situation is different since the 'carrot' of EU accession does not exist.

 
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