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ppplogoThe Peace Academy is happy to announce our partnership as part of a three-year project (2023-2026) entitled “Developing and Testing New Approaches to Peace Professionalism”. The project will

  1. Establish a network or a community of practice to improve our understanding of peace work and related skills, competencies, and values;
  2. Develop and test a system of assessment that can be scaled at the local, national, and international levels to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of peace professionals; and
  3. Create a platform to increase knowledge co-production, translation, and sharing about peace professionalism.

Overall, the project seeks to improve the planning, implementation, and evaluation of peace programs, and to complement curricula in peace and conflict studies.

The project is led by primary investigator Professor Philip Oburu Onguny (the School of Conflict Studies, St. Paul University, Ottawa) and a team of scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. It is funded by a Partnership Development Grant by the Canadian government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The cross-sector and interdisciplinary team brings together partners and collaborators from Canada, USA, Kenya, Colombia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In addition to the Peace Academy, the research partners include the Civilian Peace Service Canada, Conrad Grebel University College, PEGASUS Institute, and the Alliance for Peacebuilding. Collaborators in the project are Lauren Michelle Levesque (Saint Paul University), Jacinta Mwende Maweu (University of Nairobi), Louis Monroy Santander (BSOCIAL Colombia), Jobb Dixon Arnold (Menno Simons College), Richard Moore (MDR Associates Conflict Resolution Inc.), and Anna Snyder (Menno Simons College).

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Ubleha for idiots

  • Implementation

    A word that came into fashion in B&H with the war.  In English, to implement means to execute, to perform or to put into, however, the use of local language counterparts is not recommended lest the mystical aura of a project (See) gets lost. The English word implement originates from the Latin verb implere which primarily means TO FULFILL, TO FILL OUT, and even TO IMPREGNATE A WOMAN. Therefore, implementation is about sex or, colloquially, about screwing someone but most of the time it is only virtual, where either there is no intercourse but there are partners in intercourse or there is only a so-called active partner in intercourse while the passive one (technical term “the one on the bottom”; See: beneficiary) does not at all exist or s/he does exist but does not notice that s/he participates in the implementation. Implementation is normally the biggest challenge for ubleha (See) but the best protection from that danger is a report (See) or, even better, a status report (See).

from Ubleha for Idiots – An Absolutely non useful Guide for Civil Society Building and Project management for Locals and Internationals in BiH and Beyond by Nebojša Šavija-Valha and Ranko Milanovic-Blank, ALBUM No. 20, 2004, Sarajevo, translated by Marina Vasilj.