01/2012
As of 2012 the former Berghof Conflict Research, Berghof Peace Support and Institute for Peace Education Tübingen (ift) have merged together as part of the Berghof Foundation. The Berghof Foundation has been given a new structure and organisational setting – merging our manifold operational competences in conflict research, peace support and peace education, being complemented with targeted grant-making that draws upon the traditional philanthropic funding provided by the Zundel family to further nurture peacebuilding and conflict transformation.
Currently we are working hard to develop our new joint website. Within the coming weeks and months the content from our old websites (Berghof Foundation.de, Conflict Research, Peace Support, Friedenspaedagogik.de and Berghof Handbook) will be transferred to our new one Berghof Foundation.org. The existing websites will remain available during this transition period, until all the information has been made accessible on the new site. Please be informed that some information and content on the old websites may already have become outmoded, since those will not be updated anymore. We apologize for any inconvenience.
11/2011
With great sadness we announce that Prof. Dr. Volker Rittberger (1941-2011) has passed away. He was one of the most important representatives for Peace Research in Germany. He has contributed substantially to establishing Peace Research programmes at Tübingen University in the past decades and was co-founder of the Institute for Peace Education. He inspired the dialogue between politics and peace research and at the same time enhanced its international reputation, in particular in his function as President of the German Foundation for Peace Research (2003-2010). The Peace Research community has lost an important teacher and promotor.
11/2011
Martina Fischer was elected to join the board of the “German Protestant Kirchentag” (Präsidium Evangelischer Kirchentag), an eminent 60-year-old institution and important civil society forum that creates space for inter-religious dialogue and exchange on ethical, religious and political questions, including panels on global justice, environmental issues, development and peace and conflict related issues. The last event took place in Dresden 2011 (120.000 visitors), the next one is planned in Hamburg 2013. The board is composed by 25 persons active in politics, influential institutions and CSO’s. It supports the process, taking decisions on design and content of the events that usually attract people of many diverse backgrounds and professions.
10/2011
As part of its peace support activities in the Basque Country, the Berghof Foundation has co-sponsored the convening of an international conference to promote the resolution of the Basque conflict in San Sebastian on 17 October 2011, organised by the local peacebuilding NGO Lokarri. The conference, attended by other peacebuilding organisations and prominent world leaders including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, represents a major milestone in the search for lasting peace in the Basque Country, by demonstrating the readiness of all citizens to end violence and move forward through peaceful and democratic means.
Berghof Peace Support senior programme manager Luxshi Vimalarajah attended the event on behalf of the Berghof Foundation. Berghof’s past involvement in the resolution of the conflict in the Basque Country also included the publication of a study written by prominent analysts of the Basque Abertzale Left on the history of the conflict and the arduous path to its resolution.
07/2011
Dekha Ibrahim Abdi (1964 in Wajir – 14 July 2011 in Nairobi).
With great sadness we announce that our dear friend and member of the Advisory Board of Berghof Peace Support, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, has died following severe injuries sustained in a car accident in Kenya, in which her husband and their driver were immediately killed. Our heartfelt condolences go to the couple’s four children and family, and the many colleagues who are left behind.
We mourn the loss of an outstanding woman who enriched and inspired the peacebuilding field for over two decades with her ideas, initiative, wisdom, creativity and persistence. Born into a Muslim Somali family in the Northeast of Kenya, she encountered early on the challenges of ethnic and religious conflicts. She became a key leader of the Wajir peace initiative and ensured its future viability by helping to establish the Wajir Peace Committee. This model of a sustained, inclusive and comprehensive effort to transform the dangers of unleashed tribalism became the starting point for many similar initiatives, in Africa and beyond. Dekha herself became an inspiring model of an “Insider Mediator”, combining the wisdom of African conflict resolution with her knowledge and insights from many peacebuilding engagements around the world. To learn more about her work you may read her contribution to the Berghof Handbook Dialogue.
What inspired many of us particularly in peace research as well as in the peacebuilding community was her soft, humble, imaginative and nonetheless determined approach to take our field of work forward. We will miss her dearly.
07/2011
Prof. Hans J. Giessmann has been appointed to chair the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Terrorism for the next one-year term since 1 July 2011. The Global Agenda Councils (GAC), comprised of 10 to 12 distinguished experts and policy makers from all across the world, serve as informal advisory groups to the World Economic Forum by providing insights and recommendations and contributing to a number of Forum activities. In addition, they also provide input to international bodies such as the G20 and other international organizations.
The Chair plays a critical role in helping shape the Council’s composition and agenda. For the BCR director it is the third term of service in a row, having already been a member of the GAC on “Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction” in 2009 and the Deputy Chair of the GAC on “Terrorism” in 2010.
05/2011
We are pleased to announce that Martina Fischer has been appointed to the scientific advisory council of the German Foundation for Peace Research (Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung). Following ten years of board membership and five years as deputy chair of the foundation, her statutory term came to an end in March 2011. Her new appointment was decided by the foundation’s board, which convened on 23rd May 2011.
05/2011
Prof. Gießmann has been reappointed until 2013 to the Advisory Board for Civilian Crisis Prevention, as confirmed by minister of state Dr. Werner Hoyer on 11th May 2011. The board, comprising 19 different civil society stakeholders, was set up by the German government in 2005 as part of its action plan on “Civilian Crisis Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Peace-Building”. Its main aim is to provide specialist advice to the steering group that coordinates the federal government’s crisis prevention efforts, which span several ministries.
05/2010
The Director of Berghof Conflict Research, Prof. Hans J. Giessmann, was one of two selected resource persons for the first Security Briefing webinar meeting in the “Security – Balancing Travel Efficiency with Security Needs” series, organized by the World Economic Forum, which took place on May 5th, 2010. Together with the EU representative to the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP), Jean-Louis Bruguiére, he informed leading representatives from global companies about recent trends in terrorist activities and challenges for curbing risks and threats. Prof. Giessmann became a member of the Forum’s Council on Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2009.
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