Ethiopia programme
All three of LPI’s strategic priorities are in evidence throughout the programme, despite the relatively small operating space in the country. For LPI, CSOs, universities, student unions or clubs, academia, and faith-based bodies are all part of civil society. The Ethiopia programme will focus on a hybrid approach suited to the context, but that also reflects LPI’s capacity to develop its mode of operations and to be adaptable in its analysis.
Theories of change
- Academia has a significant role in providing an
independent and balanced analysis of the context in which it exists. - Higher education institutions – through their faculty staff and student clubs and groups – play a major role in shaping the future leaders and citizens and can thereby inculcate new thinking, disciplines and methodologies.
- Universities and CSOs house a lot of knowledge and experience of the context from various angles and, when cross-fertilised with conflict transformation, could provide a powerful base for new ideas for resolving conflict issues in the country.
- If the conflict transformation capacity of academia and CSOs is enhanced, then they will be better placed to conduct the abovementioned three statements.
- For Sustained Dialogue, by approaching the transformation of relationships both emotionally and analytically through dialogue, individuals can transform their relationships and productively collaborate to transform their community together.
Implementation modes & types of activities
Examples of activities can be found below:
1. Research on traditional conflict resolution mechanisms: Over the past couple of years, LPI has supported its partner PDC to research and publish a book on traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution in five selected regions of Ethiopia. As part of the book launch, a seminar was facilitated in Addis Ababa for key stakeholders from government, non-government and academia. In 2009 following the success of this book, PDC commissioned research for a second publication entitled “Traditional Mechanisms for Conflict Resolution in Tigray”. LPI will continue to provide financial and technical support up to the launch.
2. Technical assistance support to Addis Ababa University: Since January 2009, LPI has been providing technical assistance to AAU by providing AAU Department for Political Science and International Relations with on-site support through one LPI staff member, Dr. Tarekegn Adebo. This support will continue until July 2011 with Dr. Adebo carrying out teaching activities for the peace and conflict seminars and curriculum development support for the PhD and MA peace and conflict courses.
3. Sustained Dialogue (SD): SD is a designed process of dialogue. The process is made up of five stages of dialogue that focus on the concept of relationship. It is the main methodology used by LPI and its partner, Addis Ababa Peace Club, on Sidist Kilo campus at AAU and is the first part of the randomisation research project (see 4 below), the results of which will be researched pre and post election 2010. In practical terms, approximately 150 students will be divided into groups of 10 and each group will have two moderators that will facilitate the dialogue. The groups will dialogue around one issue that they feel is the most divisive on campus in bi-weekly meetings during the whole academic year. There is a possibility that this dialogue process will expand to include Haramaya University in eastern Ethiopia.
4. Monitoring and Evaluation of SD: The main impact evaluation strategy for the SD is an innovative randomisation study that will begin in the spring of 2010, in collaboration with Uppsala, Otago and AAU’s College of Education. The basic hypothesis of the study is that those who have participated in the dialogue project will demonstrate more positive and cooperative attitudes and behaviour toward groups different than the participants’ own. This study will be unique, both for research and practice. For research, it is groundbreaking to use randomisation for impact assessment. Building activities for inter-group cooperation and conflict prevention is at the core of many international peacebuilding programmes. LPI and its university partners need increased knowledge of what works where, when, and how to move toward a greater emphasis on cross-fertilisation of theory and practice.
For information about the programme’s results please see Annual report .
Brief flyer about LPI and Ethiopia/Horn of Africa programmes download.