Request for Information
A recent report by Tim Wallis and Mareike Junge of Peaceworkers UK examines the potential utility of establishing a Civilian Peace Service (CPS) in the UK. Entitled Enhancing UK Capacity for Handling Conflict: The Rationale a UK Civilian Peace Service, the report’s executive summary notes that:

The need to find better ways to deal with conflicts before they cause enormous harm and destruction is well recognised. Governments around the world are developing policies and strategies for the prevention of violent conflict, but it takes people on the ground to implement these policies. Local people may lack the necessary skills and resources, and therefore the strengthening of local capacities is key to the success of a prevention strategy. A pool of people in the UK, with skills and experience across a whole range of areas relevant to the handling of conflicts, could potentially make a huge contribution to the prevention of violent conflict, by providing support to local initiatives. Such a pool could draw on the many people already experienced in handling conflicts here in the UK, and especially in Northern Ireland. [emphasis added]

The report emphasizes the importance of conflict prevention and outlines a theoretical framework for handling conflict. It provides a comprehensive inventory of existing European and international CPS models including both stand-by rosters and civilian training programmes. Importantly, the report also assesses existing capacity in this field in the UK, and asks the question ‘where next?’

The Public Order Research Project (PORP) is represented on both the project’s Steering Group and on the Training and Assessment Issues Working Group. Any organization which is currently providing training in this field is asked to contact PORP (see below) so that their details, and those of the courses offered, can be added to the database.

The Training and Assessment Issues Working Group aims to review the current provision of training and assessment in the UK, identify any gaps in meeting the needs of people working in conflict, and come up with recommendations as to how these gaps could be filled. It will also examine how different organisations might best contribute to implementing those recommendations through a CPS. Comments addressing any of these topics are invited and should be forwarded to PORP at any of the addresses below. The working group is due to report by the end of March so that its findings can inform a final proposal for a UK Civilian Peace Service to be presented at a conference on 29 May 2002.

Views are also sought in relation to:

• the potential for any CPS to be deployed in a domestic context;
• the experience of NGOs in providing practical placements for young people/graduates in the field of non-violent intervention. How might the development of a CPS enhance such opportunities?;
• how existing volunteering programmes might be harnessed by any CPS;
• whether a CPS should itself provide core skills training or rather only provide ‘top-up’ training for individuals - who already have some degree of expertise in this field;
• whether training should be demand led or whether supplying a corp of trained individuals would itself stimulate demand and increase the potential for a CPS;
• what a CPS might ultimately look like. The UK government is obliged to meet EU Civilian Crisis Management targets by providing civilian personnel with training in the areas of rule of law, civil protection and civil administration by 2003. One of the models therefore being discussed concentrates solely on these three areas of governmental interest with a view to finding suitable candidates for a register and developing a system by which to provide them with ‘add-on’ skills. Two broad alternative models have been suggested. One is for a CPS as a co-ordinating and careers advisory service bringing together the training courses which already exist, while the other is for a CPS which would itself devise, set and assess standards in the field of non-violent intervention;
• how the project might most effectively be presented to government, including the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Public Order Research Project:
Dominic Bryan - d.bryan@qub.ac.uk (028 90 273232)
Neil Jarman - deputy@conflictresearch.org.uk (028 90742682)
Michael Hamilton - mj.hamilton@ulst.ac.uk (028 90648675)

c/o Dominic Bryan
Institute of Irish Studies
Queen’s University Belfast
8 Fitzwilliam Street, Belfast BT9 6AW