COURSE DESCRIPTION

This short course aims at high lightening the economic dimensions of the recovery process during and after conflict.

After a brief introduction on the concept of economic recovery, a review of the political economic approaches used during the II WW through the Marshall Plan and the Economic Recovery Plan will be put in perspective and analyzed in comparison with the current and most recent approaches.

Furthermore, an overview of the economic causes and consequences of conflicts and their implication in the recovery process will be provided seeking response to the dilemma of ‘greed and grievance’ discussion. 

Finally a comparative analysis between macroeconomic approaches leaded by the International financial actors such as World Bank, IMF, and major donors such as USAID, DFID, EC and the implications of such strategies at the micro level, will be carried out.

The course will be ending with a panel discussion on the dilemma of how to move from war economy to peace economy with relevant key guest-speakers.

Governmental and non-governmental organisations around the world as well as the United Nations increasingly see sport as a tool for conflict prevention, peace building and development. The Global Millennium Development Goals affirm sport as a “beacon of hope” for peace building and development efforts throughout the world. 

This course critically examines the potential role and use of sport as a local and global tool for conflict prevention, social transformation, community development and peace building. With a strong developmental and cross-cultural emphasis, the course aims at promoting an educational process which will generate greater awareness and understanding of the opportunities and complexities of using sport as a vehicle for such developmental and peace building efforts.

This course aims at three objectives: (1) exploring basic concepts and elements in peace-building such as nation state, state building, nation building, democracy and market economy from a non-western perspective; and (2) understanding the essence of the peace-building process of Japan, particularly focusing on its nation building process after the Meiji Restoration and its post-war reconstruction process after the defeat of World War II; and (3) discussing the implication of Japan$B!G(Bs peace-building and post-war reconstruction process for contemporary peace-building and post-war reconstruction processes in Cambodia, Timor-Leste and Afghanistan. 

This course is a 40-hour experiential workshop in which participants use easy-to-learn techniques to master the power of heart wisdom through scientifically proven methods. Learn practical peace skills using compassionate language to resolve conflict while enriching your life and the lives of others.   BePeace is the synergy between coherence for “feeling peace” and connection to universal needs through empathy and honesty for “speaking peace.” Feeling peace is the ability to remain peaceful under stress.  Speaking peace is the ability to communicate empathically and honestly. When you feel peace and speak peace, you can BePeace. This training teaches the skills to be a true peacemaker, strengthening both personal peace and mediation abilities while transforming the way we treat conflicts in our lives and in the world. Taught by Rita Marie Johnson, founder of the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica and BePeace.

This is an introductory course on the linkages between environmental issues, and peace and conflict. The first week will be used to introduce and clarify basic concepts of the environment and natural resources, and peace and development nexus.  Among the concepts to be discussed are sustainable development, climate change and global warming, biodiversity loss, and poverty in rural areas, as well as deforestation, payment for environmental services, and community based conservation. After this, the course will introduce the concepts and importance of abundance and scarcity of natural resources in armed conflicts, development and peace. Students will discuss and analyze the role natural resources play in combating extreme poverty and in securing basic livelihood, and how a healthy environment and the sustainable use and management of natural resources is a prerequisite for peace.

This course analyzes the nature and evolution of systems of governance to address climate change at the international, national, and local levels, charting the changing history of climate policy from the issue's initial introduction into political discussion to its recent ascension to become the new "master concept" of environmental governance generally.  The roles of various stakeholders in the negotiation, including transnational institutions, nation states, nongovernmental organizations, private businesses, and municipal governments, will be examined, as will the efficacy of different mechanisms (state-led, market-based, hybrid, etc.) for enacting climate policy.  The potential impact of climate policy on particular environmental issues (e.g., hydroelectric and nuclear power) and social groups (e.g., women, minorities, indigenous peoples) will be discussed as well.  Case studies will examine specific instances of climate policy and negotiation, including recent UNFCCC conferences, Costa Rica's own payment for environmental services (PES) and "Peace with Nature" climate neutrality initiative, and the emerging debate over proposed REDD (Reduced Emissions through Deforestation and Degradation) mechanisms.

The relationships between peace, conflict and development are many and profound. An examination of the current global context, which unfortunately but unavoidably characterized by high levels of protracted violent conflict and rising levels of poverty and inequality – two phenomena that are often found together and that intermingle in complex ways. For many countries and regions in conflict and transition from war to peace, the role of economics and development cannot be separated from understanding the causes of conflict and forms of building sustainable peace. Where peace and conflict resolution efforts fail to address economic and social development issues – so often the roots of conflict – the result is the building of ‘straw houses’ rather than the strong institutional foundations rooted in the human security and human development needs of people, which are necessary for securing lasting peace. From the other end of the spectrum, development policies and programmes at all levels have historically generated ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, catalysing and/or exacerbating social conflicts. Designing and implementing the right post-conflict reconstruction and development policies is a requirement for building enduring peace, as such policies will simultaneously serve to address peace and development needs.

This course seeks to provide UPSAM scholars and fellows with a basic introduction to the principles, conceptual underpinnings and creative design of curricula relevant to the teaching of peace and conflict studies programs in universities in their countries and regions.

Participants will initially review a range of paradigms in curriculum theorizing and their implications for the design of curricula. In accord with the values and cultural analyses on which peace studies and peace education are based, emphasis is placed on curriculum development approaches that promote conflict transformation, transformative learning, critical pedagogy, and education for a holistic culture of peace.

The course then clarifies key pedagogical principles and strategies which will complement a critical transformative paradigm of curriculum development and design. Scholars will be assisted in integrating these pedagogical approaches in the design of their curricula for teaching peace and conflict studies at the tertiary level.

Drawing on a number of exemplars of curriculum design in various fields and dimensions of peace and conflict studies and peace education, including disarmament, nonviolence, gender, local/global justice, human rights, intercultural understanding and sustainable futures, participants will have an opportunity to gain insights and practical ideas for effective and creative teaching of peace and conflict studies curricula in their university programs.

The course intends to give students a profound understanding of the political, but also economic and social reasons constituing the reasons and foundation for what today is known as the European Union. Furthermore the students will learn how and why the development of the Union up until today has taken place, students will look into the diversity and similarities of the national political reasons that have taken the Union from six members to twentyseven in a span of less than half a century.

Students will be made to understand the driving political forces behind any future expansion of the Union and its possible international political ramnifications. Finally students will after the course have acquiered a profound knowledge of the political,. economic and social significane of the Union, for its citizens, its neighbours, and globally.

In this course, students will be encouraged to explore from a household and community perspective the causative agents of hunger, starvation, malnutrition, and famine and their subsequent impact on people’s ability to survive and thrive. Students will examine the underlying issues that shape rural and urban food systems in terms of food supply and food entitlement (i.e. access to food and distribution of food). This will include not only looking at the dependence of household and community food supply on agricultural production and population growth etc, but also on the policy and institutional environment that constrain people’s options for dealing with periodic food shortages, and fluctuations in food prices and food entitlements etc. The course will also explore the importance and synergy of rural-urban links in enabling households to achieve sustainable livelihoods and an acceptable level of food security and well-being. Students will be introduced to methodologies to assist the prevention of household and community food insecurity crises, including Emergency Systems, Food Information Systems, Famine Early Warning Systems, as well as Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems. Associated with the examination of emergency systems will be a brief exploration of the nature of food aid and the critical importance of how it is delivered on whether it will alleviate or exacerbate food insecurity.

As well as this theoretical content, students will be exposed to some practical methods for assessing poverty and food security at household and community level. The objective will be to raise students’ awareness of the problems of identifying the poor, marginalized and food insecure within rural and urban communities. Finally, it is important to note that gender issues in dealing with food security will be covered at various points in the course because of the major role women play in household and community food security.  

The renewal of global interest in arms control and disarmament has been palpable since the advent of the administration of US President Obama.  Therefore, a greater general appreciation of this topic and its sub-issues is needed in order to understand how it relates to newly heightened efforts to improve international security worldwide, and what can be and is being done by governments and civil society to make the world less dangerous.  This course is designed to assist the student in reaching a full-spectrum understanding of the broad issues involved by reviewing the components of the arms control and disarmament field as well as by clarifying the methodologies by which work in this field is conducted.  The larger course objective is to give the student a conceptual framework for understanding the topic and assesses the most recent developments in each of the respective fields such as nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, conventional weapons, weapons of mass destruction and certain special subjects such as land mines and cluster munitions.  By doing so, the student will be able to develop an appreciation for the overarching influence of international security requirements on each nation’s approach to dealing with arms control and disarmament issues.  To this end, the course highlights urgent issues and continuing problems; it also engages in a broader, more philosophical discussion of the arms control and disarmament concept as it applies to overall human security.

Filmmaking is a multifaceted Art of relatively recent invent. During the last time, there has been a growing interest in making films oriented to instill -through an Art- awareness about crucial contemporary issues that affect humanity.

This course presents the basics of how films can be used as tools for peace education and peace building efforts.

Students will be exposed to critically discuss the making of films, the tips for writing scripts and the different artistic and technical elements that compose the film as an art piece. The course will be essentially the opportunity of a sample of films that can be used in peace education graduate programmes.

This course focuses on the principles and practices that underlie environmental security assessments. Environmental security assessments combine field research and analysis of secondary data in order to identify environmental risks and vulnerabilities that have the potential for adversely affecting human security or promoting instability and conflict. They provide tools that enable policymakers to develop more effective strategies for crisis prevention and mitigation. Environmental security assessments are by their nature interdisciplinary, calling for skills and insights ranging from economics, anthropology, and political science to hydrology, agronomy, and a variety of specializations from environmental science.

The United Nations Protocol on Trafficking in Persons, adopted in November 2000, defines trafficking as: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” This protocol has 105 signatories. In our globalizing world, trafficking in human beings, especially women and children, hasincreased in both magnitude and in reach, becoming a major human rights concern. Trafficking grew enormously. The human trafficking affects vulnerable individuals, particularly women and children, in every region of the world, the criminal nature of human trafficking makes it difficult to know the real extent of the phenomenon.

The course aims at strengthening the capacity of scientists, administrators and students to respond to specific donor demands to achieve complementary funding for projects (Project Funding) and institutions (Core Funding).The course is an instrumental one and systematically develops a logical framework based project matrix, a concept paper and gives an overview about potential funding agencies and options. The course is oriented towards the needs of the participants. They start the course with their own project idea in which external funding is required and finalize with concrete results such as a project planning matrix, project profile and potential donors identified to launch the project.

Ameena Alrasheed Ph.D candidate at Leeds University the UK, worked as Teaching Assistant at the Department of Political Science, Khartoum university, Sudan, TA at Leeds University, Middle Eastern Studies, Trainer and consultant with the UN and international organizations in Kosovo, Iran, Indonesia. Researcher on women’s refugees and immigrants in the Netherland and women and domestic violence in the UK at the National probation centers, West Yorkshire.

Dr. Abdalla is Professor and Vice Rector at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace (UPEACE).  Before arriving at UPEACE, he was a Senior Fellow with the Peace Operations Policy Program, School of Public Policy, at George Mason University, in Virginian, USA.   He was also a Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Virginia.
 
Both his academic and professional careers are multi-disciplinary.  He obtained a law degree in Egypt in 1977 where He practiced law as a prosecuting attorney from 1978 to 1987.  He then emigrated to the U.S. where He obtained a Master's degree in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
 
He has been teaching graduate classes in conflict analysis and resolution, and has conducted training, research and evaluation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding programs in several countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.  He also authored, and co-authored, several research and evaluation teaching manuals including: Doing What You Want With Your Data, A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning and Implementing Evaluation Strategies, and Qualitative Evaluation: The What and Why.

He has been an active figure in promoting effective cross-cultural messages within the Islamic and Arabic-speaking communities in America through workshops, T.V. and radio presentations.  He has also been actively involved in inter-faith dialogues in the United States.  He pioneered the development of the first conflict resolution training manual for the Muslim communities in the United States titled (“…Say Peace”).  He also founded Project LIGHT (Learning Islamic Guidance for Human Tolerance), a community peer-based anti-discrimination project funded by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ).
 

Head of Department International Law and Human Rights

He worked as District Judges Assessor at a civil and criminal regional court in Sweden before joining the Swedish Foreign Ministry. With the Ministry he has held various positions, among those as Director for American Affairs, as Director for Asian Affairs, and for Eastern European Affairs. Postings abroad include several in Central America, North and South America, including as Head of Mission in Montevideo, Uruguay. Furthermore Christer has served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the Swedish Embassies in Rome, Italy and Vienna. During 4, 5 years Christer served as Senior Advisor at the European Union Council Secretariat, Directorate General for International Relations. Most recently Christer served as Ambassador for multilateral co-operation in the Baltic Sea Area, holding in 2006-2007 the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, Committee of Senior Officials, and thereafter served as the representative of the local EU-presidency in Nicaragua.
 

Costa Rican. Lawyer by training, he graduated with honors from the Law Faculty of University of Costa Rica and holds an M.A. on International Law and Human Rights from the UN-mandated University for Peace. Since 2004, Mr. Martinez works as an Associate Legal Officer at the Regional Legal Unit of the UNHCR in San Jose, Costa Rica, providing trainings on refugee law to State authorities and UNHCR staff throughout Latin America. He has been invited as visiting professor at the University for Peace (Costa Rica) and guest lecturer for courses on Refugee Law at the University of Panama, the University of Chile, the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights in San José, the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, and the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Environment, Peace and Security, University for Peace. MSc. Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University and Research Center, The Netherlands. BSc. Tropical Forestry, Technological Institute of Costa Rica, Cartago, Costa Rica. He teaches Forestry, Agriculture, the San Jose Environmental Seminar and the Natural Resource Management Field Trip. Prior to this, he worked as a Student Research Assistant in Wageningen University and Research Center, WUR, at the Sociology Department, inside the Environmental Policy Group. Research interests: Payments for Environmental Services, Forest Conservation, Sustainable Rural Development, Community Forest Concessions.

Director of Research and Studies at the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability (FESS). From 1996 to 2003, he was the Director of Research and Studies at the North-South Center of the University of Miami, where he also was editor of the North-South Agenda Papers. At FESS, he has led environmental security assessments in Uganda (2005), the Dominican Republic (2006), the Philippines (2007), and Ethiopia (2009), as well as project activities in Sierra Leone (2006-09). He is co-editor of Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America (North- South Center Press, 1998), winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Book award, and editor of The Challenge of Change in Latin America and the Caribbean (North-South Center Press, 2001). Recently, he has written on problems of environmental security in the developing world, including “Climate Change, Adaptation, and Conflict” (USAID, October 2009) and “Energy Security and Conflict” (USAID, February 2010).

John King is currently a Disarmament Consultant to the UN-mandated University for Peace as well as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Webster University in Geneva.  After military service with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in a variety of posts specializing in NATO and European political military affairs.  He also served in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency as the Deputy Assistant Director for Multilateral Affairs, and then in Geneva as Chief of Staff (Executive Secretary) for the U.S. Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament.  In the latter two roles he had major negotiating responsibility for the Chemical Weapons Convention and later on, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.  He was also served on U.S. delegations to various Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty meetings and review conferences.  Mr. King is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds a Ph.D. degree in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. 

Economist and FESS Senior Fellow who has worked on key projects with FESS since 2000. He has been involved in environmental security analyses of the Philippines, the Mekong River Basin countries, and Ethiopia. He served as the Associate Director for The Croft Institute for International Studies (1999-2005) at the University of Mississippi, where he taught global economic issues, international trade, and microeconomics for both undergraduates and graduate students. His research interests focus on mechanism design in an asymmetric information environment. In the past, he worked on East Asian security and economies, renewable energy, environmental security, and defense procurement issues. He taught economics at the California Institute of Technology, UCLA, Monterey Institute for International Studies (MIIS), the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the University of Mississippi. Outside the academic realm, he served as a senior economist and a chair of the Economics Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (renewable energy system project), a senior staff member at the Caltech Environmental Quality Lab (LA basin air pollution abatement project), and a senior economist at the RAND Corporation (government procurement project, energy issues, and U.S./Japan Relations Center). Dr. Terasawa was born in Nagano, Japan and raised in Tokyo where he attended Keio University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.

Marion Keim Lees is an associate professor in the Institute for Social Development at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, lecturing in Conflict & Diversity Studies at the Honours level, in Sport & Community Development on Masters level and in Conflict, Diversity and Peace, Conflict Transformation as well as Leadership and Social Transformation both Masters level for the Law Faculty as well as for ISD in cooperation with the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre. She is also the International Relations Officer of the Institute which is located in the School of Government and the Coordinator of the Social Transformation and Peace Programme of the university.

Marion Keim Lees has a PhD with the focus on Social and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Heidelberg, Germany (1997), and a LLB from the Law Faculty of the University of the Western Cape focusing on Human Rights Law and Family Law ( 2001). She is an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa (since 2002) and used to be the National Training Coordinator for a bi-national project, the Peace and Development Project, between Germany & South Africa, focusing on conflict resolution, crime prevention, and youth development from 1999-2005.

Marion Keim Lees has published nationally and internationally. Her research interests are wide ranging and include: social transformation, community development, multiculturalism, conflict transformation and peace building, crime prevention, youth development and sport sociological issues (including sport as a means for peace building and integration, racism, gender & sport).

Director of the UPEACE Centre for Executive and Professional Education and a faculty member at UPEACE. Prior to this position, he served as Education Programme Manager of the Earth Charter Initiative, an international nonprofit organization. Before his 4-years in the non-profit sector, he worked both in the private sector and also as a high school teacher in Ecuador. He has a Bachelor's degree from Stanford University and his Master's from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Currently Coordinator of the RMSED Programme at the University for Peace, Costa Rica.  She Owns a Msc in Post-war reconstruction, graduated with distinction in 1999, University of York (UK). Bsc in Economics, graduated Cum Laude, 1992, University La Sapienza of Rome (Italy). Technical Diploma in accounting and foreign Languages, gruaduated in 1986, (Italy).
She has been working since 18 years in developing countries and war-torn societies in Africa (Uganda and Egypt), Asia (Indonesia), Middle East (Jordan, WBG, Lebanon, Yemen), Central America (Guatemala, Costa RIca) and the Balkans (BiH, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia) heading and managing emergency, rehabilitation and development projects for the European Commission (several years), SNV-Dutch Cooperation (1999-2001), CARE Nederland (2001-2008), MOVIMONDO (Consortium of Italian NGOs- 1995-1998).  She was also research fellow of the Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama (INCAP); University of York (UK) for research projects in Indonesia/Aceh and Lebanon/Beiruth; and of the University of Rome.
 

It is a Salvadoran filmmaker who became known with the script of “Innocent Voices”, a film directed by the Mexican Director Luis Mandoki and released in 2005.

University instructor in food security and community development and natural resource management consultant working on community development and food security issues for international development organizations such FAO, DANIDA, DFID, GTZ, OXFAM, UNESCO, UNDP etc.

In 1997, he became a founding member of a nonprofit association of development professionals, the International Support Group (ISG) and was on the board of the association from 1999 to 2005 working as treasurer and member of ISG's strategic planning team. In addition to membership of ISG, Reg Noble is also a research associate for the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University (Toronto) and Academic Coordinator for the postgraduate program in food security at Ryerson where he teaches three of the program courses: Food Security Concepts and Principles; Research Methods and Evaluation in Food Security; and Community Development and Food Security. His skills include: Workshop facilitation with community members and their service providers (from government, non-government and private sectors) to assist them forming multi-stakeholder learning groups for community development planning; Design of collaborative processes for policy development with regard to natural resource management (NRM) and food security; Stakeholder analysis; Design of client-led research approaches for community development; among many other fields of experience. Reg Noble has undertaken his work mostly in Africa (where he lived for 17 years in Malawi) dealing with development issues such as decentralization of agricultural planning in Uganda; impact of integrated rural development on rural livelihoods in Ethiopia and ecologically-based smallholder farming development in Malawi. Reg Noble holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, awarded in 1981 from the Chelsea College of Science, University of London, UK.

Rita Marie Johnson came to Costa Rica in 1993 to help strengthen its national model of peace. As a result, a new “peace package” is now being created: a Ministry for Peace that collaborates with a national Academy for Peace, which trains peace teachers in the schools to teach the practice of BePeace in each community. This new government infrastructure, coupled with grassroots peace skills, is inspiring hope around the world as people realize that similar models could be replicated in their countries.
In 2002, Johnson discovered a powerful synergy between coherence for “feeling peace” and connection to universal needs through empathy and honesty for “speaking peace.” Inspired by this combination, she developed the practice of BePeace. She founded the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica as a project of the Rasur Foundation, with the vision of developing masterful peace teachers, called “Rasurs,” to provide BePeace training in every community. In 2009, Rasur Foundation International began supporting other countries to establish their own academies, which include developing “Rasurs” and teaching BePeace.
 

Assistant Professor of Natural Resources and Sustainable Development in the Department of Environment, Peace and Security at UPEACE. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara with an emphasis in Global Studies. Dr. Fletcher has conducted ethnographic research in Chile and Costa Rica concerning the cultural dimensions of ecotourism as a strategy for environmentally-sustainable economic development. In addition, he has worked for many years as a professional ecotourism guide and planner in a variety of locations

Toh Swee-Hin is Distinguished Professor and long-term Consultant, Office of the Vice-Rector, University for Peace.  He graduated with a Ph.D. in International/Intercultural Education & Sociology of Education, and a Master of Education in Educational Administration from the University of Alberta, Canada after undergraduate studies in Chemistry & Education at La Trobe University in Australia.  Prior to his UPEACE appointment, Prof. Toh was the founding Director  of the Multi-Faith Centre, Griffith University, in Australia, which seeks to promote inter-faith dialogue towards a culture of peace. Born in Malaysia, he has  taught in universities in Canada and Australia and served as visiting professor in the interrelated fields of education for a culture of peace, human rights, justice, multiculturalism, sustainability and interfaith dialogue in North and South contexts.  He has contributed to several international networks and organizations including UNESCO, the International Institute on Peace Education, World Council for Curriculum & Instruction, Asia- Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding, and the Parliament of the World’s Religions and Religions for Peace. In 2000, he was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.

Tony Karbo is a Program Officer at the University for Peace Africa Program based in Addis Ababa. He is a graduate from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Prior to joining the UPEACE Africa Program, Tony worked as a Senior Lecturer with the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance (IPLG) at Africa University in Zimbabwe. He is a Certified Mediator and Conflict Resolution, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding trainer. He has worked extensively in Africa with numerous organizations working in conflict zones conducting and facilitating training in conflict resolution and peacebuilding and monitoring and evaluating election processes and programs.
 

Director for Academic Development, and Head, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies

Doctor of Education (candidate), Universidad De La Salle, Costa Rica; PhD, MA, Peace and Development Studies, University of Limerick, Eire. BA in Politics, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Disciplines: quantum theory, terrorism and insurgency studies.

Resident Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Peace Education

Virginia Cawagas is a resident Associate Professor in the Dept. of Gender and Peace Education. Previous to this appointment she was Visiting Professor of UPEACE and a Senior Fellow since 2004; Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Education & Professional Studies, Griffith University (2004-2009), and the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta (1995-2010). From 2003-2005, she was a visiting professor and academic consultant of the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), a centre established by the Agreement of UNESCO and the Government of the  Republic of Korea, to promote education for international understanding (EIU) towards a culture of peace  in the Asia-Pacific region. She edited the first APCEIU teachers’ resource book for Asian and Pacific countries for integrating EIU toward a culture of peace in social studies. She has been editor of the International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction, since 1998. Prof. Cawagas has an Ed.D. in peace and development education (meritissimus) and has extensive teaching experience in the field of peace education, human rights education, and multicultural education in both formal and nonformal modes. She teaches, lectures, and conducts workshops in these fields for students, teachers, academics, school administrators, community leaders, soldiers, and civil servants in the Philippines, Australia, Canada, China, Jamaica, Japan, South Pacific, South Korea, Thailand, Uganda and the US.

He graduated from the International Christian University in Tokyo in 1994, and obtained his MS in Conflict Analysis and Resolution in 1996 from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University (USA). He also received a Ph.D. in International Conflict Analysis from the Graduate School of Politics and International Relations, the University of Kent at Canterbury, in 2003. He participated in various post-conflict elections as an international election observer (Cambodia in 1998, 2001, 2003; and East Timor in 2001, 2002, 2007). He has worked as a research fellow at the Research Institute for Peace and Security (Tokyo), the Nansei Shoto Industrial Advancement Center (Okinawa), the Secretary-General at the Okinawa Peace Assistance Center (Okinawa), and a Research Fellow at the Hiroshima University, Partnership for Peacebuilding and Social Capacity (Hiroshima) before being appointed as an Associate Professor at the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University, Japan in 2004. His major research interest includes conflict resolution and international peace operations. Since 2001, he has involved in a number of trainings/workshops for peacebuilders as chief facilitator, in which he delivered sessions on post-war reconstruction of Japan focusing on the cases of Okinawa and Hiroshima. His publications include The United Nations Peacekeeping and the Nexus between Conflict Settlement and Conflict Resolution—A Comparative Case Study of UN Peacekeeping in Cyprus and Cambodia (Akashishoten, 2004); Conflict and Human Security: In Search of New Approaches of Peacebuilding, co-edited with Hideaki Shinoda (Kokusaishoin, 2005); Civil-Military Relationship in State Building: The Theory and Practice of Reviving Failed States, co-edited with Chiyuki Aoi (Kokusaishoin, 2008) and numerous Japanese and English articles.