August 6, 2012

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) will draw on its innovative effort to sponsor dialogue between security agencies and civil society in Nepal and Iraq to develop a new “toolkit” to help practitioners in the field run similar programs in Iraq and other transitional or post-conflict countries.

The new effort is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and USIP itself. It will bring together specialists for working meetings this fall to identify the contours of a practical, how-to toolkit, including training and other videos and a justice and security manual laying out methods for conducting such dialogues. Those elements of the toolkit are to be completed and translated into Arabic by next summer, when they could be used for further programming in Iraq and elsewhere.

USIP’s dialogue efforts in Nepal, which began in 2006 and continues today, are meant to help bridge a gulf of mistrust between civilian police and the justice and security sectors, on one hand, and civil society and local communities, on the other. That mistrust, aggravated by many years of political and other conflict in the Himalayan nation, has hampered Nepal’s ability to provide security and justice, and deepened tensions in ways that have hindered economic development and good governance.

A similar dynamic has played out in Iraq and other countries that have suffered from conflicts and experienced jarring political transformations.

Just one example of the impact of justice and security dialogues in Nepal is when USIP established a forum for dialogues to build trust between police and civil society and to address challenges to security and the rule of law in Biratnagar, Nepal. Following two dialogues that examined why youth seemed to be increasingly participating in lawless and violent activities and what young people could do to reverse the trend, participants agreed to a nine-point Birat Youth Declaration and promised to work with the Nepal Police and civil society to strengthen security and the rule of law.

After a year, the impact was dramatic. According to the Nepal Police, in the district of Morang violent demonstrations carried out by youths fell more than 80 percent because of USIP’s involvement.

The future toolkit will also draw on the experience of USIP’s rule of law work to date in Iraq, Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan. USIP specialists say it will help identify and sustain the best elements of justice and security dialogues for use in other settings in the future. Yet, they also caution that justice and security dialogues must be tailored to the specific context of a country and its dynamics: No one size fits all.

Justice and security dialogues are a critical tool to help build a positive and collaborative relationship between the community and the various justice and security stakeholders in transitional or post-conflict countries, says Colette Rausch, director of the Institute’s Rule of Law Center. “The complex challenges of our world can only be resolved when people come together to understand and overcome differences, build trust and work together to solve problems,” she says.