Activities
Draft AGENDA
Goree Institute Annual Board meeting
Gorée, 6th August 2007
Monday 6th August, 2007
Morning
8h30 - 10h30 Financial Audit Report 2006
Activities and Financial Report 2006 (Administration
- Finances - Programmes - Teral)
10h30 - 10h45 Coffee Break
10h45 - 12h30 Board Discussions, with possibility
to meet with senior staff for further information
12h30 - 14h30 Lunch
Afternoon
14h30 - 16h30 Presentation of Strategic Plan 2007
- 2009
Business Plan Teral
Fundraising strategies
Budget 2007 - 2009
16h30 - 16h45 Coffee Break
16h45 - 18h30 Internal Board Meeting
18h30 - 19h00 Meeting with the staff
Closing of the Board Meeting
20h00 - 21h30 Dinner at Residence Georges Soros
Invitation
to a Ndaje (Forum) 7-9 August 2007 at the Gorée
Institute
January 12th-13th 2006: Violent Conflict in Africa : The Search for Warning Signs and Tools of Prevention
The second workshop in the Research/Action series, was held on Participants of this workshop were mostly drawn from various regions around Senegal and included practitioners, researchers and representatives from local NGOs and international organizations. This workshop was dedicated to establishing indicators for violent conflicts to be utilized in conflict prevention by African stakeholders. As such the key questions of this workshop were:
• How do we recognize a potential outbreak of violent conflict before it occurs?
• How do we create a system or method of alert?
December 19th - 20 th 2005: Violent Conflict in Africa: The Search for New Approaches
This was the first workshop in the UNESCO funded Research/ Action series on violent conflict in Africa . Participants included professors and researchers based in Senegal , Guinea-Bissau , the United States and Sweden , as well as civil actors and representatives from local peace networks, such as FERFAP and REFMAP and those from international organisations, such as UNICEF. The three main themes of this workshop were:
• Understanding the causes, logic and dynamics of violent conflicts
• Learning from the successful and non-successful experiences of intervention through diplomacy and NGO's
• Envisioning solutions by listening to practitioners
30th September - 3rd October Workshop on ‘Building an African Constituency'
We have now started the project “African Peace Constituency” (« Alliance des initiatives africaines pour la stabilisation de la paix en Afrique de l'Ouest»), supported by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation (BMZ) through its Development Agency (GTZ). The first workshop under this initiative took place on the island from the 30th of September to the 3rd of October 2005, entitled "Building an African Peace Constituency". It consisted of researchers, practitioners and experts whose primary objective was to identify and promote new approaches to methods of conflict prevention and management.
In the end, participants formed two working groups around different research themes. Group one is primarily concerned with understanding and rendering visible the role of women in peace-building and further understanding peace-building strategies used by members of civil society. Group two is concerned with the use of oral literature as a pedagogical tool and is thus focused on collecting and analyzing oral texts on conflict management and prevention. Despite these divergent focuses the working groups share their general objectives: a) Contributing to the restoration of the social fabric in transborder zones, and b) Exploring approaches to conflict resolution which are grounded in ‘local' understandings and social structures.
These two groups will meet again in our conference, “Violent Conflict in Africa : The Search for New Approaches” to be December 19th and 20th, 2005 where they will present their most recent work and gain feedback from other practitioners, researchers and experts.
13–16th June 2005: "Electoral Process and Political Dialogue" in Guinea-Conakry
The Institute hosted the summit, ‘Electoral Process and Political Dialogue', a workshop for civil actors involved in the electoral process of the Republic of Guinea-Conakry. The summit was coordinated by the Bureau d'Appui à la Coopération Canada-Guinée and financially supported by the Canadian Embassy in Conakry. Its aim and outcome was to establish a dialogue between government administrators in charge of the electoral process, members of the political parties and representatives of Guinean civil society. The dialogue was facilitated by experts from other African states who shared their political experience and technical knowledge of the election process with the participants. As a result of the meeting, participants produced and signed a consensual paper stating how they would develop their alliance in order to create conditions for fair and free elections in the Republic of Guinea.
7th June 2005: Official visit to Gorée Institute by Dr. Michael Hofmann, head of the Africa department at the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation, Germany (BMZ) and exchange on peace and development policies involving Madame Ingrid-Christina Barth and Gorée Institute's executive director Breyten Breytenbach.
26 - 27 May 2005 Hosted Launching of the French translation of the IDEA manual "Reconciliation after Violent Conflict"
The launching of IDEA's manual took place at a seminar assembling representatives of NGOs, human rights and peace initiators from all over West Africa, including our Executive Director Breyten Breytenbach and Program Manager Cornelia Giesing. After a general introduction given by Mark Salter on the various approaches to reconciliation and the reconstruction of post-conflict social relations, participants analyzed the specific situations of several West African countries focusing on the role of various segments of civil society. They then identified the major challenges regarding the role of Civil Society and other actors in peace and reconciliation processes.
1 – 2nd April 2005 : “Belonging, the Crisis of Citizenship and the Nation-State” Social Science Research Council
17 – 19 th January 2005 : “The Electoral Reform in Africa – Exploring Regional Responses”
Pan African Electoral Commission Round Table
This three-day meeting divided into nine discussion sessions focused on the current state of democracy and on the many challenges facing the electoral management bodies in terms of their own capacity, capabilities, lack of financial resources, political pressure and a socio-economic and political environment that mitigates the conduct of an election where the outcomes will have any impact on the democratization process.
This Roundtable is seen to be the beginning of a broader consultation about the setting up of a Pan African Electoral Commission which will provide a platform to assist in consolidating the regional election initiatives and institutionalize, at an Pan African level, electoral Principles and Guidelines for good electoral practice and governance. Final report.
