News
Staff changes
ORG’s new Manager of the Moving Towards Sustainable Security Programme, Ben Zala, started in the role in January. Over the coming months, a new set of projects and activities will be announced for the sustainable security work on the ORG website. Anyone interested in getting in touch with Ben to discuss the programme’s work should email: ben.zala@oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
Programme Updates
Moving Towards Sustainable Security
ORG’s Sustainable Security programme held its fourth regional consultation on 15 January, this time focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. Held only days after the tragic earthquake in Haiti, the need to analyse the interconnections between poverty, marginalisation, environmental stresses and the dangers of militaristic policy responses were given extra significance by the unfolding humanitarian disaster in the region’s most impoverished country. The consultation, held jointly with the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre (Noref), provided many insights into the drivers of regional insecurity, blockages to moving towards more sustainable security policies, as well as possible avenues for progress. A report based on the issues raised by the participants and the discussion on the day will be issued soon.
Recording Casualties of Armed Conflict
The Norwegian Government is hosting a conference in Oslo in April 2010 on addressing armed violence as a means to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Oxford Research Group has been invited by Action on Armed Violence to join the steering group, co-ordinating NGO contributions to this conference. ORG’s specialist contribution will be in developing proposals for states’ and civil society’s monitoring of armed violence within their territory.
Human Security and the Middle East
The Middle East team is pleased to announce that it has received substantial funding from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, allowing it to move forward on the Palestinian Strategy Group and the Israeli Strategic Forum.
Gabrielle Rifkind will soon be travelling to Israel to meet with the local leadership of the Israeli Strategic Forum, to attend the Herzliya Conference. She will also meet with leaders of the settler movement to discuss the settler project, which is currently being developed.
The Palestinian Strategy Group, led by Khaled Hroub of the Cambridge Arab Media Project at the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Cambridge University, had its first meeting and is in process of planning several consultations, focusing on promoting inclusive Palestinian strategic thinking and bringing together Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
In December, Gabrielle visited Syria with Lord Alderdice and other colleagues. Meetings were organised with the Syrian Foreign Minister and the leadership of Hamas. The purpose of the visit was to explore possible openings to advance the peace process.
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