As early as 1996 the ASPR began dealing with the South Caucasus and Central Asian region. With the support of the Austrian Federal Government a two-week seminar on conflict transformation and peace-building was held in Georgia for the first time in May 2002. Similar activities are planned for Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia in the years to come.
The several seminars organised for participants representing parliamentary bodies and NGOs from Georgia and Abkhazia have led to a better understanding of conflicts and have opened new dimensions in terms of their management. In cooperation of the United Nations Volunteers (Geneva), Conciliation Resources (London) and the Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict Management (Berlin) and supported by Austrian Government, the seminars carried out are denoted by experts as the Schlaining Process.
As of 2003 ASPR arranged several seminars on conflict management as part of the project Peace Building in the South Caucasus Region. Supported by the Austrian Government, the project is organised hand in hand with the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD).
ASPR is on e of four Western European institutions which support the processes of conceiving and structuring of OSCE Academy Bishkek. The Academy has set the objective to act as a regional centre for research, training/education and dialogue, helping OSCE principles such as the necessity to come up with a comprehensive security policy for the entire Central Asian region to be widely disseminated and strengthened. Since its foundation in December, 2002 ASPR, supported by the Austrian Government, has been commissioning colleagues lecturing within the Academy’s Master’s programme to carry out trainings in crisis management and to contribute to mediation in the crises of the region.
In 2002 the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commissioned ASPR to support peace processes in Sri Lanka. For this purpose the representatives of the Singhalese Government and the opposition, as well as the representatives of governmental as well as non-governmental organisations (prominent religious personalities, leaders of peace organisations and journalists) were invited to Schlaining. What we were aiming at was to help them manage crises emerging between the two parties on the one hand, and to find ways and means to mediate the peace process, arranged and organised under the guidance of Norwegian diplomats, between the Singhalese Government and the Tamil separatists, to the civil society on the other hand. The follow-up seminars arranged in Sri Lanka have contributed greatly to translate the results of the seminars in Schlaining into tangible outcomes. Since the tsunami ASPR has been running a project by the local government of Burgenland to reconstruct and ethnically mixed village in a conflict sensitive way.
Training on Protection of Civilians in Africa
The project resulted from a workshop held in the framework of the EC Project on Training for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management and Stabilisation Missions and supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA). The workshop was held in Accra, Ghana, in May 2009 together with the African Peace Support Training Association (APSTA). At this workshop it was found, the training for the Protection of Civilians (POC) is highly needed and should receive immediate attention.
This coincided with an increasing awareness about the importance of POC world-wide, resulting in the efforts leading to the approval of SC Resolution 1894 (which Austria as a member of the UN Security Council very much supported), and the development of guidelines for POC in African Union Peace Support Operations by the AU.
Consequently, the project aims at the development and implementation of a pilot-course for professionals with civilian, police, and military background involved in the protection of civilians in armed conflicts in Africa.
In order to support a harmonised approach throughout Africa, the project foresees the participation of all relevant African training centres, the Regional Communities and the African Union.
In a first step, representatives of all actors mentioned, together with representatives of UNITAR and ITS/DPKO, are invited to a workshop at the ASPR in September 2010 to find answers to the following key questions: What types of POC tasks need training? Who are the target groups for the training needed? On the basis of these answers, participants of the workshop will work out a plan for a pilot course, indicating the learning objectives and the related content and training methodology as well as the background and requirements of participants. In addition, it should be clarified which African training institutions(s) will plan and implement a pilot course and how an Africa-wide collaboration on the planning, implementation and lessons learned can be secured and recognition and support of follow-up courses can be achieved.
Within the scope of this project, and based on the outcome of the expert workshop, a pilot course will be held in December 2010 in Africa. It is hoped that those African training centres involved in the expert’s workshop in September 2010 will join the implementation of this pilot course and that they will implement similar courses throughout Africa on the basis of a joint evaluation and lessons learnt process in the future. It is also hoped that the implementation of harmonized courses throughout Africa will be supported in the framework of the peace and security partnership within the AU-EU strategy.