5) Description of initiative: The Institute for Global Leadership delivers training and development programs to address the leadership crisis in resolving long-term social problems and the need for a sustainable peace. In the first pilot program 2002-06, 10 graduates received certificates in the Basic Reconciliation Leadership Program. For examples, the conditions of a post 9/11 era, including the United States' involvement in ongoing international military conflict, call for conflict resolution competencies that help build trust and break the cycle of violence. From the local to the global, emerging and seasoned professionals need training that strengthens existing skills and provides strategies to de-escalate the high levels of conflict and emotions. The Institute teaches and fosters Reconciliation Leadership (RL) and A Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation to Develop Political Will (PPR), an approach and practice that is uniquely inclusive, visionary, reflective and restorative--healing the cycle of violence through inner governance, re-envisioning the common humanity of perpetrators and victims, socially responsible action that transcends self-interest and mobilizing the will of the people for common issues. The PPR for a Global Mediation and Reconciliation Service (GMRS) was developed in dozens of implementations in local and international settings over a period of 16 years for a societal response that complements and strengthens the United Nations' response to global challenges. It began at the United Nations with Celebration of the Children of the World: A Model for Building Global Community in 1992, (an event to unite the disparate members of the UN community to work for the common good beyond their titles and roles) and has grown to s GMRS whose interventions emphasize the links between the individual and the systemic development of human rights and global ethics to secure greater ecological, economic, and social integrity. The PPR emerged out of those experiences as a vehicle and a lightly structured and elicitive approach that could help create global community and address root causes of conflict. PPR integrates participants' strengths and gifts as well as drawing on the untapped energy of the individual and collective unconscious in temporary communities where protracted historic conflict offers opportunities for felt experiences of movement from isolation to global citizenship. The process connects personal peace to global peace, while incorporating holistic principles and practices. The interventions are lightly facilitated, elicitive frameworks, custom-designed for every intervention, allowing all parties to the conflict to have a voice in its solution. (Reconciliation Leadership and the Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation to Develop Political Will are all trademarked services of the Institute for Global Leadership.)

6) Description of innovation: The Institute offers RL, PPR and the GMRS as a practice and framework to approach some of the current practice and theoretical concerns of the conflict resolution field. Drawing on the work of Lederach (1997), Boulding (1968, 2000), Mische (1995), Steele (1997) and others, the Truth and Reconciliation model developed in South Africa, as well as Virginia Swain's 16 years in the United Nations community, RL promotes an integrated approach to analyzing and resolving conflict at its root cause. It encourages the use of an inquiry framework so that practitioners explore the linkages and the interconnectedness between personal, interpersonal, and group processes; it also supports examination of ways in which culture, religion, sexism, racism, class, and other dividers are implicated in conflicts. In encouraging parties to speak and listen to each others' emotions, RL helps participants and conflict practitioners themselves see beyond their roles as victims and perpetrators to their shared humanity. Finally, it highlights this work of conflict resolution as a vocational leadership that needs regular skill development. RL are expected to comprise a GMRS once they have completed their Advanced Certification. With an overarching vision of linking personal and global peace to train RL, a curriculum for peacebuilding has been designed where interpersonal and systemic competencies are learned -- from the personal to the global levels -- by people who want to make a difference, but who are stopped by their own (and the resistant system in which they work and lives') limitations. The practice of RL trains facilitators to lead a custom-designed PPR, adapted for each intervention. This framework, developed in local and international settings, is designed to withstand the stress of the high level of emotions present worldwide.

7) Delivery model: The Institute for Global Leadership presents training in Basic and Advanced Reconciliation Leadership with the support of UN Under- Secretary-General and High Representative Anwarul K. Chowdhury for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States There are dozens of implementations of this work as applied locally, nationally and globally. The website, www.global-leader.org, attracts people and projects as well examination of case studies listed at http://www.global-leader.org/gl_gmrs_ov.htm.

8) Key operational partnerships: Beside the partnership with Ambassador Chowdhury to implement the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010) and the Millennium Development Goals there has been support by United Nations individuals, the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at Eastern Mennonite University, The Human Dignity Network at Columbia, the Hague Appeal (at which this initiative was started in 1999),the Transcend Network for Peace Scholars and Practitioners, the Association for Conflict Resolution. Virginia Swain built a large coalition of support for our inaugural project, Celebration of the Children of the World: A Model for Building Global Community, from the UNICEF, United Nations Environment Program and 70 other UN agencies, NGOs and member states including the former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

9) Financial model: An advisory team that includes an accountant and a part time bookkeeper insures all records are kept up to date.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 80

          • Financing: Through fees and tuition.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: Participant leaders experience personal transformation as well as receiving a toolkit of professional outcomes to change and reconcile resistance systems. They become change agents for their local communities as well as their professional affiliations. Reconciliation Leaders are practical idealists where peace is a way of life. They are taught practical strategies for a sustainable peace in their focal area. We hope to achieve a worldwide network of support for these pilot programs that would enable people from around the world to participate through the development of partners in existing educational and training institutions. The challenge of national sovereignty, self interest, will be addressed from a larger framework so that the global problematique is addressed from the common good perspective.

          • Number of clients in past year: In a startup pilot phase, there were 10 certificates granted to participant leaders who completed the Reconciliation Leadership Basic Program. There were 50 participants in process who completed mission statements designed to focus their leadership efforts.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: The scaling up strategy is designed to begin a new cohort of leaders for the Basic Program. It is hoped that with additional funding and institutional partners, lower fees could be offered to attract more participants and larger groups. We offer our training and programs to emerging and seasoned leaders from all sectors including international civil servants, diplomats, civil society, business, philanthropy, religion and government. For those conflict resolution specialists that are open, we offer re-training in our perspective of the link between personal, community and institutional and global peace. Many people are disillusioned that the the cycle of violence still persists. Our perspective of seeing the cycle from a larger framework than victim or perpetrator is attractive to many who need new solutions to age-old challenges.

12) Origin of the initiative: Challenged by Peace Scholars Dr. Elise Boulding's observation that "a non- governmental initiative to start a global security system has never been accomplished" and Dr. Randall Forsberg's observation that "a window of opportunity exists to end war in the next ten years," ideas took root from my 30 years of experience of peace and justice work -- experience in business and nonprofit leadership, education, counseling and consultation. The seeds that were sown at a Peace Corps Volunteer service in Liberia, West Africa were reaped twenty years later in a Master's study in international peacebuilding and six years of development following the study -- learning the practice of building global community in protracted conflict situations and other global challenges. This has been shared at the United Nation's nongovernmental community since 1992, including at the Hague Appeal in 1999 on the panel, Transforming Violent Conflict: Creating a World Security System at the United Nations.

Contact Information:
Virginia  Swain
Founder and Director
Institute for Global Leadership
(microenterprise)
32 Hill Top Circle
United States
Tel: 508-753-4172
Fax: 508-753-1004
Email: vswain@global-leader.org
Website: www.global-leader.org