Establishing Peace Studies in the Iraqi Universities

Establishing Peace Studies in the Iraqi Universities

The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research PhD. Prof. Abdul Razzaq Al-Issa, has emphasized on the importance of enhancing peacebuilding capacities and the need for peace studies in the Iraqi universities, duringIraqi Al-Amal Association’s final conference of “promoting peace education framework for reconciliation” project on 11 June 2018. The project is funded by the government of Japan, and supported by UNDP-Iraq, ICRRP; and in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

The project is a 1 year long and achieved the following results:

• -Establishment of a ministerial consortium for peace education, membered by 15 college deans from 7 Iraqi universities. The consortium has set the ministry priorities in this field into: Inclusion of peace education in the universities syllabi;Establishing a diploma in peace and conflict studies; and Establish peace research centers and units.
• -Conducting 37 youth-led peace initiatives in Baghdad, Anbar, Salah Aldin, Najaf, and Karbala; by the 72 trained youth on social transformation tools and skills.
• -Dialogue sessions, speeches and lectures by the 23 trained academics from Baghdad, Anbar, Tikrit, Kufa, and Karbal universities; who has also produced 6 researches about Iraqi social cohesion current situation and conflict analysis.
• -Preparing, printing and distributing the first peace and conflict studies terms lexicon in Arabic, after a long inclusive validation process with Iraqi and Arabic academics and experts; and translating 3 key texts and books in this field into Arabic to act as resources for peace studies in Iraq.

The conference started by a speech of the minister; Followed by a speech of the deputy country director of UNDP in Iraq Mr. Gerardo Noto who has demonstrated the efforts of UNDP in Iraq, and the results achieved in ICRRP.

The conference continued by a presentation of Iraqi Al-Amal Association about the project main results and focusing on the youth peace initiatives which displayed by short videos produced and presented by the youth documenting their activities. Then the speech of Iraqi Al-Amal association was by the executive director Mr. Jamal AlJawahiri, who explained the efforts and the type of the dedicated work done to reach these results, and pointed to Al-Amal broader work in peacebuilding field and its future plans as contributing to establish peace studies degree in one or more universities, and continuing the work with academics, researchers and youth. Finally the project participants received their success certificates from the minister and Mr. Noto.