International organizations we work with
We work with a wide range of international organizations and individuals in different ways, from partnership on specific projects and co-funding arrangements, to support for local NGOS and consultation, shared analysis and coordination of our approaches. Such organizations include:
Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution (ASPR)
ASPR has hosted several of our Georgian-Abkhaz dialogue meetings as part of the Schlaining process. We have also helped more than 30 people from diverse backgrounds in Georgia and Abkhazia attend ASPR’s International Peacebuilding and European Peace University courses.
BBC World Service
World Service journalists have taken part in media workshops and worked as consultants and trainers for our South Caucasus media partners. They have also helped produce several radio series, and assisted in acquiring radio transmitters for local stations. They regularly host visiting journalists and other groups from the region.
Berghof Foundation for Conflict Studies/Berghof Foundation for Peace Support
We collaborated with Berghof from 2000 until 2005 on the Schlaining dialogue process, which provides opportunities for informal dialogue between Georgian and Abkhaz political, official and civic representatives several times a year. We also worked with Berghof and our local partners to produce a discussion pack on the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, designed to help young people understand and analyse conflict.
Heinrich Böll Foundation
The Foundation’s South Caucasus Regional Office in Tbilisi aims to promote democracy and tolerance by encouraging critical public debate. Together we have supported documentaries about the South Caucasus conflicts produced by Georgian and Abkhaz journalists, and televised debates in Georgia on conflict-related themes. HBF also contributed to a forthcoming book of letters between two writers from Abkhazia separated by the conflict.
Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
We have worked with IWPR since 2003 in a unique venture to break down information barriers between Georgia and Abkhazia. Panorama is a twice-monthly South Caucasian newspaper published in Russian and Georgian and distributed for free in the South Caucasus. It is a rare example of cooperation between Georgian and Abkhaz journalists, and is edited jointly in Tbilisi, Sukhum/i and London.
International Alert has a long-standing involvement in the Georgian/Abkhaz and Nagorny Karabakh peace processes. From 2003 until 2006, they were a partner organization in the Consortium Initiative working on the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. We regularly share analysis about the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.
Media Diversity Institute
Together we have provided technical training for community radio stations and other NGOs in Georgia and Abkhazia trying to make better use of the media in their campaigning work. South Caucasus-wide activities with MDI have included a planning meeting for participants in our Radio Diaries project and a meeting with Internews Armenia, Internews Azerbaijan and the Stepanakert Press Club for young journalists from Azerbaijan and Nagorny Karabakh, introducing them to the challenges of reporting in conflict situations.
Our partnership with the University began in 2004 on a project to challenge xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance in the Balkans, Ukraine, Southern Russia and the South Caucasus. Funded by the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, the RIME project focused on ethnicity and diversity issues. Through research and practical initiatives it aimed to challenge stereotypes, raise public debate and impact on policy.
University of California, Irvine has facilitated cross-community Georgian-Abkhaz dialogue among civil society activists since 1996, producing a series of publications on Aspects of the Georgian-Abkhaz Conflict. In 2003 we collaborated on a study visit to Northern Ireland for civil society activists. We share analysis and occasionally participate in each other’s events.
Partners in Abkhazia
Partners in Georgia
Partners working on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict
