SPF Three Year Strategy
Our three year strategy has been developed by engaging – through a participatory approache - our volunteer groups from across the Iraqi governorates and their respective communities, civil society actors, SPF’s field sensors and moniters; and the key community stakeholders.
The current strategy was endored in Spring of this year (2022). The strategy focuses on the following thematic areas of intervention in order to build and sutain peace across Iraq and create cohisive Iraqi communities capable of reducing inter and intra community tensions and transforming conflicts through non-violent and peaceful means in order to achieve peaceful coexistance, good governance and a common identity transcening ethno-religious differences.
The current strategy was endored in Spring of this year (2022). The strategy focuses on the following thematic areas of intervention in order to build and sutain peace across Iraq and create cohisive Iraqi communities capable of reducing inter and intra community tensions and transforming conflicts through non-violent and peaceful means in order to achieve peaceful coexistance, good governance and a common identity transcening ethno-religious differences.
Youth, Peace and Security: UNSCR2250
The United Nations Security Council’s Resolution of 2250 focuses on five actions: Participation, Protection, Prevention, Partnership and Disengagement and Reintegration. These five actions or pillars and the resolution itself promote new narrative of young people with respect to peace and ensures legitimacy and accountability.
This resolution is of imperative importance, especially in Iraq where the youth comprise 68% of the Iraqi population.
SPF strives to implement UNSCR2250 through the following strategic plans:
This resolution is of imperative importance, especially in Iraq where the youth comprise 68% of the Iraqi population.
SPF strives to implement UNSCR2250 through the following strategic plans:
- Establishing effective mechanisms to ensure the active participation of youth in decision making;
- Implementing programmes to capacitate the community to institutionalise the culture of peace and inter-faith dialogue;
- Developing and increasing our partnership with other Civil Society Organisations, especially those that focus on human rights and the rights of young people in particular because they are Iraq’s impetus to democratisation and are more than competent to manage state affairs if and when they are furnished with the opportunity;
- Strengthening youth participation in the decision-making processes, especially those decisions that directly affect the Iraqi young people through establishing national youth councils and ensure youth participation in all key relevant institutions;
- Activating the role of young people in increasing community resilience by promoting UNSCR2250 among the Iraqi youth and key community and state stakeholders so that the young people are able to play an active participatory role within their local communities and on a national level.
Women, Peace and Security: UNSCR1325
The United Nations Security Council’s Resolution of 1325 focuses on four primary pillars: Participation, Protection, Prevention and Relief and Recovery. These pillars were drafted in acknowledgement of the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women and girls, which call for the adoption of a gender perspective to consider the special needs of women and girls during conflict, repatriation and resettlement, rehabilitation, reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction.
Although Iraq adopted a National Action Plan (NAP) in 2014 for 2014-2018, making it the first country in the MENA region to adopt a NAP; and despite the fact that in December 2020 a second NAP was adopted for 2019-2024, much is left to be desired in terms of the implementation of this plan and achieving the resolution’s aforementioned pillars.
SPF’s strategy is to design and develop interventions and implement UNSCR1325 programming through, but not restricted to:
Although Iraq adopted a National Action Plan (NAP) in 2014 for 2014-2018, making it the first country in the MENA region to adopt a NAP; and despite the fact that in December 2020 a second NAP was adopted for 2019-2024, much is left to be desired in terms of the implementation of this plan and achieving the resolution’s aforementioned pillars.
SPF’s strategy is to design and develop interventions and implement UNSCR1325 programming through, but not restricted to:
- Actively involving women and girls in the peacebuilding processes;
- Building the capacities of local government officials, local peace mechanisms, military and security actors on UNSCR1325;
- Engaging local authority and civil society actors in workshops on the governorate level and across Iraqi to increase knowledge of Iraq’s NAP2 and activate its implementation;
- Training local community influencers and key actors: the women and girls themselves and traditional community leaders such as, tribal and religious leaders who can contribute to women and girl’s participation in social and political affairs;
- Designing, developing and conducting awareness campaigns targeting traditional community leaders, syndicates and unions to highlight the importance of women and girls’ role building and sustaining peace;
- Tackling Gender Based Violence (GBV): prevention and accountability; providing a dignified livelihood for women and girls; and ensuring a safe and voluntary return of IDPs, especial women and girls;
- Initiating and/or supporting women and girls’ support centres in marginalised rural areas;
- Increasing Awareness – on nuclear family level or through community and cultural centres - with respect to GBV and women and girls’ right to education;
- Initiating and/or supporting safe spaces for and managed by women and girls in their localities and within their communities;
- Organising and activating awareness campaigns to have women taking a leading role in preventing extremist ideologies on local and national level.
Transitional/Restorative Justice
Transitional Justice is an approach to systematic or massive violations of human rights that both provide redress to victims and survivors; and creates opportunities for transformation of the political systems, conflicts and other conditions that may have been at the root of the abuses. Thus, the transitional justice approach recognises that there are two goals in dealing with a legacy of systematic or massive abuse: 1. To gain some level of justice for the victims and survivors; and 2. To reinforce the possibilities for peace, democracy and reconciliation. To achieve these two ends, transitional justice measures usually include elements of criminal, restorative and social justice.
In a country such as Iraq, which has witness decades and continues to experience grave human injustices, transitional justice becomes a pressing necessity.
SPF aspires to intervene and implement transitional justice programming through, but not restricted to:
In a country such as Iraq, which has witness decades and continues to experience grave human injustices, transitional justice becomes a pressing necessity.
SPF aspires to intervene and implement transitional justice programming through, but not restricted to:
- Encourage Iraqi stakeholders to consult and learn about other countries’ experiences with truth seeking processes in order to make sound decisions and establish effective and contextually localised mechanisms to that effect;
- Encourage a victim orientated approach and increased victim and societal participation in any planned truth-seeking body;
- Provide information and analysis to help design and implement effective reparation interventions and programmes;
- Engage the very affected communities, federal and local authorities to discuss compensation methods, draft and activate legislations;
- Encourage community level reconciliation to ensure the safe return and reintegration of IDPs, including people of alleged affiliation.
- cultural centres - with respect to GBV and women and girls’ right to education;
- Initiating and/or supporting safe spaces for and managed by women and girls in their localities and within their communities;
- Organising and activating awareness campaigns to have women taking a leading role in preventing extremist ideologies on local and national level.
Climate Change and Environmental security
Iraq was once part of the fertile crescent, the breadbasket of the ancient world, but raising temperatures, intense droughts, declining precipitation, desertification, salinisation and the increasing prevalence of dust storms make have Iraq ranking the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to changes in the climate. Thus, leaving it grappling with significant and interconnected environmental, security, political and economic challenges. Thus, it is pivotal for SPF to design and develop focus orientated interventions towards environmental security so that Iraqis, both state actors and the general public, create and respond to environmental changes.
Although Iraq ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2021, but not much has been translated into actions in light of the grave environmental challenges that are facing the country.
Some of our strategic interventions include:
Although Iraq ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2021, but not much has been translated into actions in light of the grave environmental challenges that are facing the country.
Some of our strategic interventions include:
- Implementing awareness campaigns on local and national level regarding climate change and its negative consequences on Iraq;
- Capacitating local communities, civil activist actors on environmental justice and engaging them to design and implement community initiatives that reduce the impact of climate change on people’s livelihood and wellbeing;
- Encourage Iraqi stakeholders to consult and learn about other countries’ experiences with tacking the effects of climate change in order to make sound decisions in planning and implementing mitigation strategies;
- Encourage strategic planning and effective implementation of programmes to support Iraq’s commitments to Paris Agreement and its implementation;
- Create community mechanisms that engage local and federal authorities to advocate for change in policies and reduce the health risks of pollution and minimise its effects on people’s livelihood;
- Designing and developing programmes on cross-cutting themes, such as environmental justice, conflict pollution, militarisation of resources/nature and violent extremism;
Prevention of Violent Extremism
Decades of wars, sanction, poor governance, marginalisation and disfranchisement along with sectarian tensions and conflicts have rendered Iraq vulnerable to violent extremism and prey to various armed groups, the most notorious of which being Daesh who exploited the presence of various push factors to tailor their narrative and bolster their presence and expansion across five Iraqi governorates.
Violent extremism is a form of radicalisation that condones and enacts violence with ideological or deliberate intent and can manifest in connection with a range of issues, including: politics, religion, ethnicity and gender relations.
Extremism is a contentious term: 1. a process by which individuals or groups adopt violence as a desirable and legitimate means of action; and 2. Extremist thoughts that do not condone the exercise of violence and operate within legal boundaries.
The former are defined as behaviours i.e. extremism thoughts manifesting in violent extremist actions, whilst the latter are construed to be attitudes that do not manifest as actions, but may positionally manifest as such if and when triggered by any given incident. Thus, prevention of violent extremism is intervening at this attitude level as a preventive measure.
Some of SPF’s PVE inventions include:
Violent extremism is a form of radicalisation that condones and enacts violence with ideological or deliberate intent and can manifest in connection with a range of issues, including: politics, religion, ethnicity and gender relations.
Extremism is a contentious term: 1. a process by which individuals or groups adopt violence as a desirable and legitimate means of action; and 2. Extremist thoughts that do not condone the exercise of violence and operate within legal boundaries.
The former are defined as behaviours i.e. extremism thoughts manifesting in violent extremist actions, whilst the latter are construed to be attitudes that do not manifest as actions, but may positionally manifest as such if and when triggered by any given incident. Thus, prevention of violent extremism is intervening at this attitude level as a preventive measure.
Some of SPF’s PVE inventions include:
- Working closely with and supporting the Office of National Security Advisory (ONSA) in developing, implementing and monitor the effective implementation of ONSA’s national ‘Strategy to Combat Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism’;
- Capacitating local communities, local and national authorities and security actors in preventing violent extremism on national and local level;
- Capacitating youth and women to play an active role in mitigating and reducing the effects of violent extremism through increasing community resilience in preventing violent extremism;
- Initiating and supporting local community mechanisms so that they can intervene on the grassroot level and reduce inter and intra community tensions and transform conflicts;
- Design and develop effective programmes at Iraq’s educational facilities to increase student resilience in challenging violent extremist narratives and mitigate the effects of the prevalent push factors on their peers;
- Working with the marginalised and disfranchised social groups such as, women, youth, people with disabilities and IDPs to empower them and challenging and preventing violent extremism;
- Working with and among the stayee, IDP and returnee communities; and with families with perceived affiliation to increase their resilience and ensure a safe and voluntary reintegration, reconciliation and social cohesion.
Peace Journalism
Peace journalism, as the name suggests, is a form of journalism committed to exploring root causes of conflict in order to create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict. The increasing use of social media and rise of yellow journalism across the globe and Iraq in particular, has underlined the importance of peace journalism so that media covers conflicts with sensitivity and produces alternative narratives to hate speech, violence and gender discrimination among other salient issues.
SPF’s fully capacitated media team strategises and implements peace journalism programming through, but not restricted to, the below interventions:
SPF’s fully capacitated media team strategises and implements peace journalism programming through, but not restricted to, the below interventions:
- Capacitating youth, women and civil society activists on peace journalisms so that as citizen journalists they can cover conflict sensitive areas and issues and offer alternative non-violent and peaceful narratives;
- Promoting peace and coexistence through positive and successful stories that increase inter and intra community cohesion;
- Tackling hate speech and fake news (including yellow journalism) that engender tensions and conflicts among the various Iraqi ethno-religious communities and different social groups;
- Tackling all forms of online extortion, including but not peculiar to sextortion;
- Promote the active and leadership role of women and youth in all forms of media;
- Cover the activities, initiatives and topics that promote the salient aspects of the salient themes of SPF’s strategy.
Volunteer Groups
SPF strongly believes in the impact and effectiveness of volunteer groups and based on this convention, SPF has established active volunteer groups in a number of Iraqi governorates, towns and cities such as: Nineveh, Kirkuk, Baghdad and Diyala; and continues to strive to establish more such volunteer groups who SPF capacitates and supports in implementing community initiatives in their respective areas.
Membership and Coordination
To implement our current strategy, SPF leads Nineveh Peace Forum by providing technical coordination and legal representation; and is an active member of the following alliances and coordination mechanism:
- Peace and Reconciliation Working Group;
- Nineveh Protection Cluster;
- Coalition for Just Reparation (C4JR);
- Members of the UNSCR 2250 Alliance
- PVE National Alliance
| sustainable_peace_foundation_booklet_english.pdf |
| arabic_sustainable_peace_foundation_booklet_arabic.pdf |