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Multilateral Action to Prevent Crisis and Build Peace, Justice, and Inclusion.

The Center on International Cooperation (CIC) is a non-profit research center housed at New York University. For over two decades, CIC has been a leader in applied policy that links politics, security, justice, development, and humanitarian issues.

Our Impact

CIC programs work towards the prevention of new crises and promotion of peace, justice, and inclusion through thematic and regional/country-based programs.

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Congo Research Group

The Congo Research Group (CRG) was founded in 2015 to promote rigorous, independent research into the violence that affects millions of Congolese. Today, CRG’s bilingual research aims to explain the complicated interplay among politics, violence, and political economy in the Congo to a wide audience.
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Crisis Prevention & Peacebuilding

The Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding program supports efforts to strengthen the humanitarian-development-peacebuilding nexus for countries in crises as well as prevention initiatives, which focus on three critical areas of work—operationalizing prevention at the United Nations, data-driven approaches to peace, and the Good Peacebuilding Financing initiative.
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Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies

Co-founded in 2017 and hosted by CIC, the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies initiative is a high-ambition, multi-stakeholder partnership that brings together 43 United Nations member states and over 100 partners, from international organizations and civil society, to the private sector, committed to accelerating the delivery of SDG16+ (the Sustainable Development Goal targets for peace, justice, and inclusion). 
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Promoting and Defending Multilateralism

The Promoting and Defending Multilateralism program was born out of the awareness that collective action is crucial to address twenty-first century challenges, from conflict and economic instability to global health and climate threats. It aims to provide deeper understanding, independent perspectives, and expert analysis to assist stakeholders and decision-makers seeking to strengthen the United Nations and other key multilateral institutions.
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A Look at the Data

Data-driven insights is an integral part of our programs. Our data tools support peer organizations, researchers, policymakers, and other institutions in their work.

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Our Insights

  • Aid strategies in ‘politically estranged’ settings report
    Featured Publication: Report April 3, 2023 Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding

    Aid strategies in ‘politically estranged’ settings: How donors can stay and deliver in fragile and conflict-affected states

    NYU Center on International Cooperation and Chatham House publish a new study, which draws together diverse experiences of situations where relations between donors and national authorities are estranged, as well as examples from other relevant fragile settings, to show how donors and multilateral organizations can design and deliver some forms of development assistance to meet urgent needs, prevent further social and economic disruption and increase resilience, without legitimizing unlawful regimes or fueling further conflict, human rights abuses or large-scale corruption.

  • Publication: Analysis May 17, 2023 CIC Perspectives

    Managing Opportunities, Challenges, and Expectations for the New Agenda for Peace

    Ahead of the policy brief expected from the UN Secretariat in June 2023, this piece provides a historical glance at past UN reforms, identifies the primary challenges and opportunities the UN and its member states face as they undergo this process, and looks forward to the key priorities that can be taken up from a realistic and practical perspective. Highlighted is how the New Agenda for Peace “provides a rare opportunity for the United Nations to examine and reflect upon the totality of the peace and security work of the Organization to uncover and better understand the synergies and contradictions of the existing processes and structures.”

  • Publication: Policy Brief April 24, 2023

    Does the Present Interpretation of the UN Principles Cause Harm in Syria and Yemen?

    This policy brief takes a comparative examination of how the United Nations has adopted a paradoxical interpretation of its guiding principles to address the complex humanitarian crises in Syria and Yemen. It offers approaches that could change the course of international humanitarian operations and protect them from further politicization, weaponization, and diversion.

  • Publication: Report February 24, 2023 Inequality & Exclusion

    An Age of Crises: Prospects for inequality and division

    The double shock of the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by an uptick in income and social inequalities. Looking across six areas—food and fuel shortages, inflation, debt distress, extreme climate-related events, and political unrest—there are very few countries that escape the reach of at least one crisis. New research from the Pathfinders team shows that in those countries for which complete data exists across six crises (90 in total), eight countries are at risk for being impacted by all crises at the same time. 72 out of these 90 countries (or 80 percent) are at high or moderate risk of suffering from at least three crises at the same time.

  • Publication: Report January 4, 2023 Humanitarian Crises

    The World’s Humanitarian, Economic, and Political Engagement with Afghanistan

    The August 2021 fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its replacement by the Taliban ended a two decade chapter of economic and social development. On top of an already weak economy reeling from COVID-19 and a multi-year drought, the overnight cutoff of most Western aid, freezing of foreign reserve funds, and effective severing of Afghanistan’s links with the global financial system plunged Afghanistan into multiple and overlapping humanitarian, economic, financial, and political crises of almost incomprehensible proportions.

  • Publication: Policy Brief September 14, 2022 Humanitarian Crises

    Colombia’s Support for Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees

    This policy brief explores the commendable policy efforts made by successive Colombia administrations to pursue economic and social integration of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the face of crisis and calls for the international community to increase its financial support for Colombia’s response to the Venezuelan migration situation.

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