26-08-2016, 10:42 AM
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The first phase of the International Online Training Program, funded by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is now nearing completion The project was designed to take advantage of the enormous improvement in information access being provided by the Internet and the World Wide Web. While high speed communication has been available to top-level businessmen and diplomats for some time, the web brings this capability to many more people. While it is still a long way from being accessible to everyone, an amazing number of people in even the poorest countries are gaining access to the Net. In Phase I of our project, our goal was to use the Internet to provide access to as much of the conflict knowledge base as possible, especially as it relates to finding better ways of dealing with destructive, intractable conflicts.
Phase I was based upon the following assumptions:
Unconventional, "Grassroots" Diplomats Play a Crucial Role in Peace Building and Conflict Transformation
Although formal negotiations still take place between official diplomats, more and more conflict transformation is occurring between ordinary citizens-religious leaders, conflict resolution professionals, advocates working on behalf of interest groups or political groups, people with humanitarian relief organizations, non-governmental peacemaking teams, other NGOs, commercial interests, scholars, and even tourists. Sometimes these people intend to become involved in peace building or conflict resolution activities; at other times they get drawn into it rather accidentally. Or, they may get drawn into the conflicts themselves and need conflict management or resolution skills to know how to best deal with the unexpected situation. Our system is designed to provide information to these individuals.
2) Part-Time, Do-It-Yourselfers
Professional conflict intervention is expensive, so only a tiny percentage of conflicts can be mediated by conflict professionals. Most interactions are handled, rather, by either the parties themselves, or by informal intermediaries, neither of whom are likely to be skilled in the latest conflict management techniques. In the absence of such training, these "do-it-yourselfers" use common sense approaches, which often lack both scientific knowledge about conflict processes and practical experience of those who have struggled with similar conflicts in the past.
Most of these do-it-yourselfers are also "part-timers" with many other pressing demands on their time. This means that any training program must be extremely efficient or people won't have time to use it. Further, effective training must be precisely focused on the user's immediate problems--part-time do-it-yourselfers don't have time to learn how to deal with somebody else's problems. They usually don't have much money to spend either. Typical training programs are likely to be completely out of reach to most parties.
3) Windows of Opportunity
Effective dissemination programs must also be able to work within a narrow "window of opportunity." There is usually a brief period between the time that someone is presented with a conflict problem and the time when they must commit to a particular course of action. If better options can be provided during this critical window, they are likely to take them. They are also likely to return to this resource in the future as additional conflict problems arise. This, in turn, is likely to lead to long-term improvements in their overall conflict skills.
If such information is not forthcoming, however, the parties can be expected to stick with often destructive, "business-as-usual" practices. In short, information provided outside of this window is likely to be of limited utility. A major focus of the Consortium program has, therefore, been the creation of a program that works within narrow time constraints.
Strategies for Overcoming Dissemination Limits
Overcoming current limits on information dissemination will require either 1) enormous increases in the field's overall funding level, or 2) significant increases in the efficiency of dissemination programs. We believe that the most promising, currently available approach involves using the Internet to increase efficiency and provide large numbers of people with information that is: