African Union Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection. An Evaluation of the EU Strategy for Africa and the G8/Africa Joint Plan.

Global demand for peacekeeping is growing, especially in Africa. The United Nations has traditionally been at the forefront of developing peacekeeping theory and practice, and remains the primary operational agency for peacekeeping in Africa. But increasing emphasis is being placed on the African Union to assume greater responsibility for peacekeeping on the continent. The AU is still comparatively new and is in the process of developing its peace and security architecture. Over the past decade, the international community has been supporting African peacekeeping, both to build AU capacity and to provide direct operational support. In 2005 the international community agreed a collective ¿responsibility to protect¿ vulnerable civilians threatened by gross violations of their human rights. And civilian protection is increasingly included in the mandates of peacekeeping missions. Within the context of contemporary complex, multidimensional peacekeeping (¿peace support¿), civilian protection is not an exclusive operational objective, but is rather one of a number of mandated tasks aimed at establishing more sustainable 4 security as part of a broader peacebuilding goal. The AU has embraced the responsibility to protect principle, adopting a constitutional commitment to protect the rights of vulnerable civilians, including through peacekeeping interventions if necessary. But how capable is the AU in practice to deliver effective peacekeeping to protect civilians? And how appropriate is international support to help realise this ambition

Gender and Nepal's transition from war

"This report explores gender relations and equality and Nepal’s transition from war. Focus areas include: affirmative gender action in the transition, for example regarding politics, employment or development; gender perspectives on specific aspects of the transition, such as security sector reform, access to justice and political participation; gendered experiences, expectations and priorities of marginalised groups, including women, sexual minorities, Dalits (‘low caste’), Janajatis (indigenous communities) and Madhesis (from the southern Tarai plains); and how different identities intersect. A short case study of the period of intense political change that followed the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal provides an illustrative, contemporary example of opportunities and challenges. The report reflects discussions from a gender workshop convened jointly by the Social Science Baha (Nepal) and Conciliation Resources (United Kingdom) in Nepal in August 2016. Workshop participants included 24 women and men, ensuring a broad cross-section of Nepal’s caste or ethnic, gender and regional diversity, and including local-level and national politicians, civil society groups, academics, journalists and independent researchers. This meeting was one of three gender workshops exploring political settlement beyond elites, with other events taking place in Colombia and Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. These meetings have focused on how diverse groups in conflict-affected contexts understand and experience transition processes, in particular access to security and social and political goods.

Marketing as a means to transformative social conflict resolution: lessons from transitioning war economies and the Colombian coffee marketing system

Social conflicts are ubiquitous to the human condition and occur throughout markets, marketing processes, and marketing systems.When unchecked or unmitigated, social conflict can have devastating consequences for consumers, marketers, and societies, especially when conflict escalates to war. In this article, the authors offer a systemic analysis of the Colombian war economy, with its conflicted shadow and coping markets, to show how a growing network of fair-trade coffee actors has played a key role in transitioning the country’s war economy into a peace economy. They particularly draw attention to the sources of conflict in this market and highlight four transition mechanisms — i.e., empowerment, communication, community building and regulation — through which marketers can contribute to peacemaking and thus produce mutually beneficial outcomes for consumers and society. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for marketing theory, practice, and public policy

Reconciliation, reform and resilience Positive peace for Lebanon

Numéro 24 du journal Accord de l'ONG Conciliation Resources1) Positive peace for Lebanon: 2) Reconciling Society 3)Reforing the State 4) Realizing sovereignt

The Politics of Peacekeeping: United Kingdom.

NoMuch of the scholarly literature on peacekeeping focuses on particular peacekeeping operations, or on the political bargaining between peacekeeping participants at both the institutional and national levels. However, there is very little published research on why nations commit forces to peacekeeping operations. As Sandra Whitworth noted in a book review of six books on peacekeeping in the "International Journal," "t"he important political questions thus far have not been asked: who benefits, who pays, and who is excluded?." "This book addresses that need. The authors focus specifically on the political and economic motivations that influence the decision to participate in peacekeeping. They consider how definitions of national interest frame the political debate, and what the reasons are for the military support or opposition for peacekeeping operations. They also explore the role of inter-agency politics, the role of public opinion in peacekeeping decisions, and the influence of pressure from other nations and non-nation actors to commit peacekeeping forces. Each chapter includes several recent cases of national peacekeeping to illustrate how national political debates framed their country's political decisions on the commitment of peacekeeping forces. The countries chosen for analysis are Australia, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, Nigeria, Canada, India, and Austria

Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives Issue 22

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'I Didn’t Know it was That Serious': Students as Partners - Perspectives on Academic Integrity and Awareness Raising Resources

Nursing students are expected to learn to provide safe evidence-based care by deliberately using higher order thinking and clinical reasoning (CR) skills to develop capability to ‘think like a nurse’. This is a challenging task that requires knowledge integration and repetition to articulate actions that are underpinned by reasoning, working towards the end goal of practicing safely in a healthcare environment. Changes in pedagogy require a planned approach, monitoring and support to ensure success. Does the implementation of new active inquiry-based learning interactions and consistent language and thinking scaffolds within a clinical reasoning framework support students’ learning? This was investigated using an action research design that re-framed ‘think like a nurse’ learning within an on-campus tutorial environment in a large first-year Bachelor of Nursing subject. The selection of new learning approaches was based on findings and recommendations from a previous students-as-partners project within Bachelor of Nursing course re-design during 2015-16. Literature – It is well understood that clinical reasoning is complex and a challenge to teach and learn, as each unique practice encounter guides nurses’ actions, reflections and continued learning. It is widely recognised that higher education should encourage students to adopt responsibility for their learning through interaction and engaging activities. Inquiry based learning approaches are credited with having good authenticity with nursing clinical practice; encourage group interaction and self- reflection, and are motivating and enjoyable ways to learn. However there needs to be a structured, facilitative approach engaging learners with a range of information to make sense of a clinical situation. Methods – Researchers observed learning interactions in 32 tutorials with seven tutors and over 600 students across two weeks. Data was generated through researcher field notes and memos were developed. Additionally students and staff completed an online survey regarding satisfaction with experiences. The research was underpinned by a social constructivist theoretical framework. Data analysis was informed by Charmaz’s constructing grounded theory methods. Findings – Two key analytical findings were generated as the learning was reconstructed in the new IBL approach. ‘Driving and reframing’ represented the subtle and overt roles that tutors assumed, reframing from teacher to facilitator of learning, which necessitated a shift in class dynamics and atmosphere. The key finding from student interactions was ‘Opting in and Out’. Students moved in and out of the IBL case based activity, distracted easily and while actively transitioned in and out of learning exchanges, even as an active group member. Survey results identified overall acceptance and strong positivity for continuing use of the IBL and scaffolded CR approach. Conclusions – Introducing a new inquiry based approach to teaching clinical reasoning required careful planning, preparation and an adoption of strategies to support the inclusion and buy in of staff and students. The brief of IBL activities is to offer flexibility, creativity, and discovery oriented learning. This new approach supported learning, embedding clinical reasoning experiences and scaffolds served to support students to develop ‘think like a nurse’ capability

Gender and Nepal's transition from war

"This report explores gender relations and equality and Nepal’s transition from war. Focus areas include: affirmative gender action in the transition, for example regarding politics, employment or development; gender perspectives on specific aspects of the transition, such as security sector reform, access to justice and political participation; gendered experiences, expectations and priorities of marginalised groups, including women, sexual minorities, Dalits (‘low caste’), Janajatis (indigenous communities) and Madhesis (from the southern Tarai plains); and how different identities intersect. A short case study of the period of intense political change that followed the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal provides an illustrative, contemporary example of opportunities and challenges. The report reflects discussions from a gender workshop convened jointly by the Social Science Baha (Nepal) and Conciliation Resources (United Kingdom) in Nepal in August 2016. Workshop participants included 24 women and men, ensuring a broad cross-section of Nepal’s caste or ethnic, gender and regional diversity, and including local-level and national politicians, civil society groups, academics, journalists and independent researchers. This meeting was one of three gender workshops exploring political settlement beyond elites, with other events taking place in Colombia and Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. These meetings have focused on how diverse groups in conflict-affected contexts understand and experience transition processes, in particular access to security and social and political goods.