Tuesday, September 14, 2004

BEN HOFFMAN ACTIVE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND PROSPERITY PROJECT (IPPP)

Ben Hoffman has been active over the last three months with the IPPP in formulating a new and collaborative approach to conflict prevention.

The approach of the IPPP is to work closely with individuals and organizations in countries predicted to be vulnerable to violence to assess their current vulnerabilities and opportunities through a focused, research-based and collaborative process. This joint process will seek to identify the key impediments to stability and development. It will then define and promote the application of the most effective mix of domestic and international measures that can be taken in the short and longer term to strengthen that country's ability to manage public issues in a peaceful manner and to galvanize its energies more squarely behind national development. By engaging both domestic and international actors in this process, the project is intended to help remove key obstacles to development, thus placing the country more assuredly on a positive track.

Although many international agencies and domestic actors are already active in such countries, they often lack a shared, coherent and collaborative approach, as well as sufficient resources, for addressing leading sources of insecurity and potential instability. Through organizing an in-country process for joint analysis of problems and a review of the existing policies and programs, the project seeks to engender a coherent approach to reversing a country's destabilizing tendencies and building on its strengths. By involving partners in the host country as well as international agencies in the project so as to foster synergies and achieve multiplier effects, the group Ben is working with envisions that the project can act as a catalyst that focuses domestic and international energies on the most effective ways to move beyond a country's unproductive tensions. A well-designed, indigenously formulated strategy for achieving prosperity through peaceful processes might thereby attract additional aid and investment.