"Conflict incorporates opportunities, changes and possibilities for a new future. It hides the pearls of positive change under a blanket of differences, struggle, fight and pain. It's our task to help you find these pearls."
Sonja Rauschütz, Executive Director
The
Israeli Palestinian Negotiators Program (IPNP) was initiated by
Moty Cristal and
Sonja Rauschütz in close consultation with Harvard Professor Roger Fisher, author of "Getting to Yes" and "Beyond Reason", whom Sonja Rauschütz has been working with closely for several years, and Dr. Landrum Bolling, a dedicated, senior envoy in the Middle East conflict. IPNP is a program for professional
capacity building as well as a
network of Israeli and Palestinian Negotiators fostering
professional exchange between those who are directly and indirectly influencing the formal peace negotiation process. In addition
developing and disseminating common negotiation tools and methodologies, increasing the understanding concerning the power of process design as well as
encouraging a constructive culture of negotiation are explicit aims of IPNP.
The carefully selected
participants are knowledgeable professionals, who are invited and attend in their private capacity. IPNP is an academic forum and not a forum for actual negotiations.
Next to others,
Harvard´s institutions such as the Harvard Negotiation Project or the Kennedy School of Government continue to be Vienna Partners closest
transatlantic alliance partners. By this alliance, not only the immediate parties to the conflict, but also representatives of the international powers that are engaged in brokering peace in the Middle East take part in this program.
(more ...)
Israeli Palestinian Archaeologists
Expert Working Group
The project is a
collaborative organizational effort, headed by three archaeological experts, an Israeli archaeologist based at the
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, the director of the
Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE) based in Ramallah and an archaeologist at the
University of Southern California with extensive research work in the Middle East. The three principal Investigators (PI´s) have previously organized two large conferences on Israeli Palestinian archeology, and offer extensive experience and understanding of issues of cultural heritage, and of the significance of archaeology for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This
expert working group includes carefully selected and well-placed
Israeli, Palestinian, and United States-based archaeologists, who have senior positions in academia, in non-governmental organizations that deal with archaeology, and in the government bodies overseeing archaeological regulations and oversight.
Among the local cooperation partners are the non-profit organization Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE), the 1991 founded
Centre for Architectural Conservation (RIWAQ) on the Palestinian side and the
Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union Colllege in Jerusalem with the
Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University on the Israeli side.
Next to designing a process for this unique expert working group and the operational support for that this initiative takes place in a conflict region with ongoing political changes and geographic instability, Vienna Partners role is two-fold:
- Facilitating a professional dialogue in an outcome-oriented process, so that the members of this expert working group can focus on the content.
- Fostering the understanding of the identified issues and as a consequence further the professional negotiation capacity of dealing with differences constructively and innovative option development.
In addition, two
members of the Israeli Palestinian Negotiating Partners Program, who have undergone a series of negotiation training sessions and learned how to tackle issues side-by-side while meeting their interests, participate in order to help frame the jointly developed guidelines and recommendations for professional Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, dealing with cultural heritage, sites and excavation related issues.
Balkan Negotiating Partners
In 2004 Vienna Partners and
CSSP have started to share best practices and as of 2005 the Vienna Partners team has been invited to complement the activities of the team of
Dr. Schwarz-Schilling in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Integrative Mediation and the methods of interest-based negotiation, also called the
Harvard Concept, bring the general and hierarchical process of conflict resolution down to the local level. In addition it helps to clarify to civil society why certain measures are needed, and
enables communities to actively participate in the local peace process.
Women Waging Peace
Vienna Partners encourage the active role of women at negotiation tables and raising the voices of minorities in peace processes. The integration of highly skilled professionals with
diverse international backgrounds and the
equal participation of women and men are two of our guiding principles.
In 1999, the former US Ambassador to Austria and current director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government,
Swanee Hunt started a global initiative called
Women Waging Peace (WWP). It is a collaborative venture of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the non-profit organization Hunt Alternatives, which recognize the essential role and contribution of women in preventing violent conflict, stopping war, reconstructing ravaged societies, and sustaining peace in fragile areas around the world. Since the beginning in Cambridge, USA in fall 1999 and later on at the Women Waging Peace Policy Day in Vienna in July 2002, Sonja Rauschütz and other members of the Vienna Partners team supported this global initiative, aimed at connecting those working in conflict areas with each other and with policy shapers.
In October 2003 Vienna Partners team facilitated a two-day conference:
Women waging peace - supporting peace by supporting women in AFGHANISTAN - a large meeting of Austrian and Afghan NGOs in Vienna. The conference was a joint initiative of
Guraf, the Society supporting the Rights of Afghan Women and Children, lead by
Zerka Malyar and
IUFE, the Institute for environment - peace - development, represented by
Dr. Petra Gruber. Participating were Afghanistan´s and Austria´s Ministers for Women Affairs.
Beatrix Schmelzle, the Director for Program Development and an active member of the German Chapter of
Women in International Security (WIIS) is together with Sonja Rauschütz and in cooperation with representatives of the
Austrian Ministry of Defense looking for partners in order to establish the
Central European Chapter of Women in International Security. If you are interested in joining us, please contact
Beatrix Schmelzle.
