Peaceworks 20

Private Peacemaking
USIP-Assisted Peacemaking Projects of Nonprofit Organizations

Edited by David Smock

The peacemaking activities described here have been targeted on conflicts in East Timor, the Middle East, Georgia and South Ossetia, the Transcaucasus, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, Algeria, Kosovo, and Bosnia. The forms include Track II diplomacy, training as peacemaking, use of the media for peacemaking, economic development for peacemaking, and interaction programs for young people in conflict situations. Many of these projects have been successful in advancing peace and represent an impressive return on the Institute's financial investments.

These projects have generally been pathbreaking in that new techniques and approaches to peacemaking have been employed. Several have generated valuable experiences with wide application, dramatically demonstrating how effective private organizations can be in promoting peace. Both their successes and the obstacles they have encountered are broadly instructive.

What makes this publication particularly timely is the fact that private peacemaking has assumed much greater importance in the post–Cold War era. The central role of unofficial peacemakers in bringing about the Oslo Accords and peace in Mozambique illustrates how effective some private initiatives can be. But the many failed efforts are equally valuable in pointing up the complexity of all kinds of peacemaking and of private peacemaking in particular.

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