After a period of decline, violent conflict has been increasing over the last decade. Today’s conflicts are proving increasingly difficult to resolve due to the proliferation of actors and of forms of violence – such as criminal, local and unconventional warfare – creating complex systems of confrontation resistant to traditional conflict management techniques. The UN needs a strong understanding of these multi-dimensional conflict systems and also of how its tools for addressing violence can be adapted to these contexts to manage, resolve and – centrally – prevent this violence and conflict.
UNU-CPR aims to help the UN and its partners develop and implement
effective, evidence-based policies to prevent violent conflict around the world. Our goal is to combine evidence and analysis to influence policy discussions in New York and other policy centres and – equally or even more importantly – inform prevention and conflict resolution initiatives in the field.
Charles T. Call is an associate professor at the American University School of International Service.
Rachel Gordon is a Researcher and Dyan Mazurana is the Research Director for Gender, Youth, and Community at the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium.
Cedric de Coning is the Senior Advisor for Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), and a Senior Research Fellow in the Peace Operations and Peacebuilding Research Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).