Nineteen years after the beginning of the Congo wars, armed conflict still affects millions in the east of the country. This essay by CRG director Jason Stearns and our senior fellow Christoph Vogel accompanies a map of armed groups, compiled by researchers across North and South Kivu, in which we catalogue over seventy groups. This is far from a static picture, and we highlight key shifts that have emerged over the past two years: a decline of regional involvement, a fragmentation of armed groups, and a modest drop in the political manipulation of armed groups.
On 4 November 2015 CIC Associate Director and Senior Fellow Sarah Hearn presented the Preliminary Findings of the Independent Review of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States to the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding in Paris
President Xi Jinping first presented China’s vision for a “Silk Road Economic Belt” during a 2013 speech in Kazakhstan. The idea was to “forge closer economic ties, deepen cooperation, and expand development in the Euro-Asia region”. In early 2015, the contours of Beijing’s strategy began to emerge as China’s leadership laid out plans for this “Silk Road Economic Belt” through Central Asia, and a “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” through Southeast and South Asia. China referred to both collectively as “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR).
As Heads of Government gather in the New York for the UN’s 70th general assembly, the world is facing a 1940s moment. After a pause for relative unity at the end of the cold war, great power tensions are rising again. Concerns over inequality and migration have spurred the rise of left and right wing parties (and candidates for existing parties) across the developed world. More people have been forcibly displaced from their homes than at any time since the end of World War II.
Last week had no shortage of shocking images to illustrate our collective paralysis in the face of the Mediterranean refugee crisis. A three year old boy dead on a beach, waves lapping around his shoes. Thousands of forcibly displaced people marching through the heart of Europe watched by silent onlookers. Borders going back up in Schengen under the guise of traffic control and migrant searches.
This synthesis report is based on a series of ‘reality check’ roundtables that explored the challenges of delivering the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2016.
A number of European countries are considering playing a greater military role in UN peacekeeping. However, they have many concerns about the UN's systems for managing missions, which differ markedly from NATO and EU standards. In this paper, based on in-depth interviews with Irish officers and policy-makers and UN officials, Edward Burke and Jonathan Marley give detailed insights into their experiences and lessons.
The post-2015 agenda has a clear vision for children: the protection, survival and development of all children to their full potential. Four resonant and ambitious ‘core promises’ to children can be drawn from the child-focused goals and targets.
This publication examines the main cooperation fields between China and the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the post-NATO period. In doing so, this study looks at the initiation of various bilateral joint projects as a distinctive turning point in China-US relations. It argues that existence of such bilateral projects and cooperation in this region does not only produce added value for the countries in question but also have the potential to enhance the mutual relations between China and US. This study also reveals the main common priorities and practices between China and the US and concludes that they have a partial convergence in their attitude towards the infrastructure projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the past 20 months, the Congo Research Group has documented the vast and eclectic business portfolio of Joseph Kabila, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his family. This report presents our conclusions, based almost entirely on legal documents.
You can find the whole report and examine the underlying documents here
The Pathfinders group is convened by the governments of Brazil, Sierra Leone, and Switzerland, with support from the Center on International Cooperation.
The Global Peace Operations Review is a website providing analysis and data on the spectrum of issues surrounding global peace and security, including civilian-led peacemaking and peacebuilding as well as uniformed peacekeeping by the United Nations, regional organizations and ad-hoc coalitions. The site’s objective is to contribute to the effectiveness of all peace operations.
We seek to provide the most comprehensive overview of multilateral contributions to conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peacebuilding. In doing so, we seek to integrate thematic and cross-cutting issues including, but not limited to, the women, peace and security agenda and countering violent extremism.
The India-U.S. relationship is presently stronger than at anytime in their history. The twin summits – less than six months apart – in September 2014 and January 2015 between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have repaired, revived and revitalized the strategic partnership. Yet there remain several hurdles to deepening the relationship, notably, geopolitical differences over Iran, Russia, Syria and India’s membership of various nuclear and missile export control regimes. Perhaps the most formidable of these in terms of immediacy and proximity is the resolution of the Iranian nuclear challenge.
