A PROFILE OF
South Asian Institute for Peace Studies (SAIPS)
Affiliated to Mahandra Sanskirt University, Nepal and Universitat Jaume I,
Spain
Father R. W. Timm
(Patron)
South Asian Members
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Anil Varughase (India)
Bina D'Costa (Bangladesh)
Arif Mohammad (Pakistan)
Ambika Pokhrel (Nepal)
Narayan Kattel (Bhutan)
International Advisory Board
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Dr. Tom Weber (Australia)
Prof. Wolfgang Dietrich (Austria)
Prof. Franz Wimmer (Austria)
Prof. Taranath Sharma (Nepal)
Prof. Vicent Martinez Guzman (Spain)
Prof. Peter Lawler (UK)
Dr. Clarence J. Dias (USA)
Kiran Basnet
Executive Director
Contact Addresses
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SAIPS Secretariat
P.O.Box: 5824; Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel: +977-1-632026 / 632054
Fax: +977-1-242390
E-mail: saips@enet.com.np
Eloisa Nos Aldas
Assistant Director
MA in Peace and Development Studies
Universitat Jaume I
Enmedio 82, 12001 Castellon, Spain
Telephone: +34-964 23 25 51
Fax: +34-964 23 02 12
E-mail:epd@guest.uji.es
South Asian Institute for Peace Studies (SAIPS):
A Proposal for Initiating Core Activities
1. Background
The South Asian Institute for Peace Studies is a non-governmental,
non-profit making, and non-partial volunteer organization committed towards
peace and conflict resolution. We are in the process of affiliating the
SAIPS a renowned University in Nepal as well as universities in the West.
It is being established with the vision of building a peaceful, democratic
society in order to fully realize and respect peace, justice and human
rights. We envisaged a need of an action-oriented movement for peaceful
neighborhood, equitable social system and respectful life in South Asia in
particular and rest of the world in general.
Some experienced human rights activists and peace scholars dedicated for a
long time to the human rights and peace movements of Nepal have initiated
the Institute with an executive committee of seven members. In addition,
the South Asian peace scholars return from the European Universities and
the University of Notre Dame have been in live contact to turn this
Institute to a regional one. The main purpose of the Institute is to
establish a center for peace studies, which will conduct short-term and
long-term courses on peace and conflict resolution to achieve its ultimate
goal of free and prosperous human living toward an "utopian" world. It also
works as a support institution to all activists, groups and local and
regional organizations and helps them in capacity building, training and
service delivery.
2. Rationale
South Asia is one of the critical locations for conflicts, poverty,
corruption and illiteracy in the world. The personal and structural
violence, and unlike conflicts are increasing day by day and have become
obstacles to the institutionalization of democracy and sustainable
development in the region. Democracy is fast turning into an empty ritual.
The culture of peace is under the shadow of such hindrances. South Asia has
become a breeding ground of violence in its increasingly polarized as well.
For example, LTTE of Sri Lanka, Indo-Pakistan conflict on Kasmir,
Shia-sunni conflict in Pakistan (intra-religion), the caste-based crimes in
India and Nepal (inter-religion), nuclear rivalry between India and
Pakistan, set-back on democratic movement in Burma, Bhutanese Refugee in
Nepal, Tibetan freedom revolution and Maoist's people war in Nepal. These
are, but some examples of a symmetrical situation that exists in the South
Asian region. SAIPS perceives the lack of a traditional institute to study
on the emerging issues and make policy recommendation for their peaceful
resolution.
Neither the educational system in South Asia does provide facilities on
peace studies and conflict resolution, nor traditional system do we have
infrastructure to study on the emerging issues and make policy
recommendation for their resolution. We see such facilities for studying
peace studies are available only in the developed countries. Peace
activists and interested scholars, individuals from South Asian countries
can't easily afford to get these facilities in the western universities.
The present situation in South Asia is very strange. The peoples of the
region cannot easily move within and between the neighboring countries. In
many instances, the governments of the region do not grant visa for an
entry into their countries. There is a feeling of insecurity among both the
governments and the people of the region. For the peace and human rights
activists, intellectuals, diplomats, and concerned individuals, there is no
common place to gather at once and share their experience freely to figure
out strategies for the peaceful resolution of the conflicting issues. Nepal
is the only country where people can visit without any difficulty. In a
situation like this, the establishment of the Institute shall fill the
long-felt gap and fulfill the required need in the region. The concerned
individuals and the authorities can hold all kinds of mediation and
negotiations, both confidential and public, within the premises of the
Institute.
3. Goals and Objectives
In general, the South Asian Institute for Peace Studies (SAIPS) shall work
for sustaining peace and conflict resolution in South Asia simultaneously
devoting itself to the issues concerning human rights, democracy and social
development in the region. The Institute shall attempt to promote and
protect the people's right to peace through education, advocacy and
campaign.
More specifically, the Institute shall work to educate people of their
right to peace and train peace activists on concepts and principles of
peace. This will help strengthen peace movement and fostering stronger
cooperation among institutions, activists, NGOs, people's organizations and
other support groups locally and internationally to overcome obstacles in
the path of establishing peace and social justice. The South Asian
Institute for Peace Studies (SAIPS) shall also conduct an action-oriented
research on local, national and regional problems, emphasizing issues and
problems generally neglected and ignored at policy and planning levels.
In striving to achieve its objectives the Institute will:
Facilitate the formal courses on peace studies.
Establish peace library to fulfill the need of peace studies students,
scholars and human rights activists in the region.
Facilitate training, seminar, meetings, researches, publications on peace
and conflict resolutions, human rights, social development and
democratization.
Advocate on peace issues at national, regional and international levels.
Share the South Asian perspective on peace to the world.
4. Core Activities
The South Asian Institute for Peace Studies (SAIPS) will develop its plans
and programs as regular activities, and core activities primarily focusing
the formal course on Peace Studies and the aforesaid objectives. The
project works will be developed within the boundary of core activities. The
area identified for core activities is briefly given below:
(a) SAIPS runs residential courses both short-term and long-term on peace
education, inclusively conflict resolution, human rights, democratization,
development and religion, mainly encompassing the South Asian perspective.
These residential courses will be run by a professional team of professors
assisted by the secretariat of the Institute. A open announcement will be
made to invite application from students all over the world -- we aim to
make this program a cross-cultural one. Students coming from developed
should pay required fee of the program. However, fellowship to 10 students
will be granted to those coming from developing countries.
The students who duly complete a-semester long course will receive a
certificate of advanced training on peace and development studies and
conflict management, particularly on mediation and negotiation. Students
who have been enrolled through universities will receive credits that will
be transferred to their respective universities.
(b) Library Establishment: Another main objective of the Institute is to
establish a peace library -- know as peace center -- within its premises.
Modern technology under the SAIPS will provide an essential link to bolster
and establish peace in the region. The record of information dissemination
from and within South Asia is very poor. There is no such a peace studies
center in the South Asian region where students and peace scholars can
spend considerable amount of time freely to complete their study and
research. The center provides the needed facilities to peace scholars to do
their individual study.
There is an inadequate flow of information among the organizations at work
on peace issues and this in turn means that there can be no success of the
movement while organizations and institutions are working in isolation of
each other. The proposed center will alleviate this problem by encouraging
the sharing of training, methodologies, information, and cooperative action
in the formulation and support for joint policies in the area peace
studies. A library and database will be set up to give students, peace
scholars, organizations and individuals access to information and resources
imperative to the realization of their goals and work. The database is to
consist of a collection of information within the framework of the network
as well as collection of different types of resource materials: books,
magazines, newsletters, videos, audio and can serve as a service and study
center. The availability of the Internet service at the center will further
help concerned individuals to carry on their studies and research.
In addition, the center equally devotes itself to collect data regarding
the contemporary crises of the world, which will be a valuable asset to
assist all the concerning individuals. While doing so, it will give a high
priority to update the status of ongoing conflicts of different kinds in
the South Asian region.
(c) Research and Seminars: The SAIPS shall conduct research on the issues
related to peace and conflict resolution. There are many emerging issues in
South Asian threatening to peace. These emerging issues deserve in-depth
study and research. In addition, the SAIPS shall conduct round-table
discussions, workshops and seminars on the theme of peace.
6. Strategy for Implementation
The governing body of the Institute (basically the general assembly) will
form an independent group of "professionals" to run the residential
academic courses. The group will consist of professors of peace studies and
international relations, advocates, well-renowned human rights activists.
The group shall be fully independent from present governing body of the
Institute. The group will formulate necessary guidelines.
Besides, the central secretariat (composed of Executive Director,
Administrator and Programmer Officer) will be solely responsible to
implement projects and programs, day-to-day operation and administration.
The guiding principles for the secretariat will be the decisions made by
the Executive Committee and General Assembly of the Institute.
For temporary purpose, we have registered the Institute as a
non-governmental organization. After fulfilling certain formalities, we
shall be running this organization as an educational institution. We are in
the process of affiliating the Institute with any University in Nepal. In
addition, we will approach to different renowned universities in the West
for networking and mutual cooperation.
7. Infrastructure
It is highly necessary to build up infrastructure of the Institute for a
long-run sustainability of the projects and programs as perceived above.
For the infrastructure development of the Institute, a piece of land (about
3 ropani) needs to be purchased within the locality of Kathmandu valley.
However, we have dropped the idea of infrastructure build-up for the time
being -- or until we are ourselves capable of affording this need. We will,
instead, run our office -- library use, peace center and classrooms -- on a
rented building.
8. Sustainability
The concern for the sustainability of the Institute is a very crucial
part. At the initial phase, the Institute shall run with the fund granted
by donor agencies and institutions. However, alternative resources for fund
generating will be developed, such as fee from students, membership fee,
rent of seminar hall as well as volunteer contributions from like-minded
individuals and institutions. Further, a "core fund" will be established to
run the secretariat and maintenance of the building. An amount of 10 per
cent from every project being implemented by the Institute will be
deposited in the "core fund".
9. Short and Long-term Impact
The Institute will provide peace education, a needed service of
communication and library use among various human rights organizations in
the South Asian region and will extend access of information and resources
within and outside the region. This increased mode of participation will
further strengthen democratic efforts, sustain peace in the region, help
strengthen peace movement and will serve to promote the active
participation of NGO's and the international community in this process.
National, regional and international peace agencies, policy makers and
scholars can enjoy the benefit of the SAIPS. Students, especially from
peace institutes and law schools, can use it as their resource center.
In the long run, the Institute shall facilitate different programs and
activities to conflict resolution to sustain and maintain peace and justice
in the region. The Institute will produce strong leadership in the field of
peace movement and will be a common place to the activists, intellectuals
and scholars from the South Asian region.
10. Evaluation
There is a great emphasis on increasing the efficiency in the
implementation and productivity of the project by implementing an on-going
assessment system of the projects through technical support of the experts.
The experts, in coordination with the Professional Group and Executive
Director, will evaluate the functioning of the Institute. The evaluation
will also focus on the response made by the beneficiaries at large. The
mid-term evaluation will be carried out every year.