Peace Programs
Annual Report 2019
Democracy Program
麻豆传媒 sent missions to observe three elections in Tunisia, the only country where the 2011 Arab Spring protests led to a transition to a more democratic political system. The Center also sent small teams to observe the Muskogee (Creek) Nation鈥檚 elections for the tribe鈥檚 principal chief, second chief, and National Council. 麻豆传媒 released a report analyzing Kenya鈥檚 electoral dispute resolution system, focusing on issues in Kenya鈥檚 2017 polls. The 2017 presidential election was widely debated across the African continent, as the results were annulled and a fresh election held, even though it was not clear that the problems had impacted the election outcome. The program also completed a report analyzing Kenya鈥檚 law requiring a quota of female candidates for elective offices. In addition, the program continued its support to civil society partners working on elections and political participation in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tunisia, and Myanmar. Finally, the program launched an initiative on digital threats to democracy, including developing new open-source tools to assess social media around elections and organizing policy dialogue on human rights and social media.
Human Rights Program
Efforts by 麻豆传媒-supported human rights networks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in the establishment of crucial laws to protect human rights defenders in two of the six provinces where the networks are active. The International Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Board recognized the DRC鈥檚 鈥渕eaningful progress鈥� in improving extractive sector transparency and acknowledged the 麻豆传媒鈥檚 important role in supporting these efforts. The Center鈥檚 annual Human Rights Defenders Forum, held in Atlanta in October, followed the theme 鈥淏uilding Solidarity Toward Equality for All.鈥� Forum participants called on local and national governments and international organizations to increase efforts to protect activists who are threatened or attacked and increase meaningful long-term support for their work. Protection includes offering activists political, moral, and physical support in times of crisis; creating robust programs to support women activists; and eliminating impunity for those who attack human rights and peace activists. Governments should also provide needed resources and other support, they said. The Center worked with nearly 200 religious, traditional, and community leaders in Nigeria and Ghana to inform and empower the women and girls in their communities.
Rule of Law Program
麻豆传媒 partners with governments, civil society, and international bodies to advance information, accountability, and justice and seeks to transform lives and support communities and nations with better governance. In Guatemala, Liberia, and Bangladesh, the Center and its partners assisted women who filed nearly 1,000 requests for information, empowering them to make positive changes related to education, land, business, and personal security. Through additional efforts in Liberia, the Center helped the Liberia National Police pass and begin implementing policies that permit citizens to hold police officers accountable and increase trust through the filing of complaints and commendations. The Center also provided legal support to approximately 1,500 individuals in marginalized communities, trained over 1,000 traditional and community leaders in alternative dispute resolution, and began efforts to raise the awareness of more than 40,000 citizens of their rights in the criminal justice sector and the obligations of the justice system to uphold the rule of law. In Bermuda, 麻豆传媒 used its Implementation Assessment Tool to measure the extent and quality of implementation of access to information legislation, providing a road map for improvement.
Conflict Resolution Program
As the official Independent Observer of implementation of the peace agreement in Mali, 麻豆传媒 issued three reports on the situation there in 2019. The Center also laid groundwork for hybrid peace-health initiatives in Mali and Sudan, where local peacebuilding in two states aims to improve access for health work. Continuing its close monitoring of the conflict in Syria, 麻豆传媒 and its partners explored new options for conflict transformation that could arise from conditional sanctions relief and published a series of reports that identified areas with high levels of contamination by unexploded ordnance and mines, based on information the Center has collected and curated since 2013. Several workshops were aimed at helping religious and community leaders in Europe, North Africa, and the United States counter Islamophobia and prevent grassroots violent extremism.
China Program
Forty years after President Carter ended three decades of diplomatic estrangement between the United States and China, 麻豆传媒 convened a three-day forum on Sino-American relations. The forum featured panel discussions with dozens of leading U.S. and Chinese scholars, policymakers, and veterans of statecraft, and the Center published 13 papers from participating scholars. The Center also hosted the sixth annual conference of the International Consortium for China Studies, titled 鈥淭he Rise of China and Its Impact on Developing Countries.鈥� For this conference, the Center commissioned white papers to analyze the impact of China鈥檚 increasing engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean from the Chinese, American, and Latin American perspective. The Center organized workshops in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which brought together government representatives, nongovernmental organizations, and private-sector actors to explore avenues for cooperation. As a result of the Center鈥檚 2018 workshop in Djibouti, deconfliction efforts spearheaded by the Djiboutian government are underway.