In September, the Al-Tahreer Association for Development, a local partner to SIPRI in Iraq, facilitated the second round of issue-based community dialogues in Nineveh province. These community dialogues—of which the first round took place in June and the third round will commence next month—focus on issues of common concern and mutual interest to different communities. Topics include climate change and its impact on agriculture; climate change and environmental degradation; and hate speech. The dialogues bring together community members and stakeholders from three of the principal localities of the province—Al-Hamdaniya, Tal Kaif and Bashiqa—to discuss the findings of research conducted there by SIPRI. The dialogues seek to empower and incentivize the participants towards identifying community-driven solutions to the pressing challenges facing their communities.
Issue-based community dialogues are part of SIPRI’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Programme’s research project ‘Developing Local Capacity Building for Peacebuilding in Nineveh’. The project aims to enhance social cohesion through research and dialogue between different communities as well as with relevant stakeholders and community leaders. The two-year project is funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung foundation.
More information about SIPRI’s work on MENA is available here. Listen to Shivan Fazil, Researcher in the MENA Programme, speak about SIPRI’s work in Iraq in this podcast.
Read more about the Al-Taheer Association for Development here.