Nonviolent Peaceforce International Meeting

Nonviolent Peaceforce International Meeting

Michigan Peace Team is a member organization of the International Nonviolent Peaceforce, a trained civilian peaceforce. MPT is one of the North American representatives to the International Governing Council, which recently met in Guatemala. Here is the short report from the meeting.

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The Nonviolent Peaceforce International Governing Council and several staff members gathered in Guatemala City, Guatemala in late August for a sequence of meetings including the annual meeting of the IGC, attended by all members except one who was not able to obtain a visa. Michigan Peace Team is represented on the International Governing Council and our representative attended the annual meeting.

During a 2-day strategy workshop prior to the meeting, participants discussed our organizational vision and how to achieve it. The workshop participants confirmed the Nonviolent Peaceforce goal to develop large-scale deployment capacity and expressed the need for the development of a strategic plan. As a follow-up, the IGC created a working group to develop the methodology for a strategic planning process and draft a strategic plan within the next several months. In addition to the IGC, everyone within the NP constituency including Member Organizations and supporters will have input into the strategic plan.

The IGC also revised its own structure and expanded participation from the global South among its leadership, incorporating lessons learned since the IGC formed in 2002. Because of the urgent need to develop the ability to mount large-scale interventions, sometimes on short notice, the IGC created a fourth committee on Capacity Building to work on regional trainings, developing rapid response ability, youth activities, and creation of a registry of nonviolent interveners and trainers. NP also created a new staff department for capacity building, headed by David Hartsough, to coordinate and implement the work of the new IGC committee.

Both the IGC members and the staff present agreed to invest more time and effort to involve member organizations in the work of the IGC committees as well as in Nonviolent Peaceforce operations.