Developing Local Peacebuilding Capacity in Ninewa, Iraq

Minority groups residing in the province of Ninewa, Iraq, are often caught up in the political and territorial conflict between Baghdad and Erbil that forces each community to take sides. The region is inhabited by a historically rooted, diverse multi-ethnosectarian population that (beyond Arabs and Kurds) includes Christians, Yezidis, Shabaks, Kaka’i, and Turkmen. The Robert Bosch Stiftung together with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Iraqi organisation Al-Tahreer Association for Development (TAD) want to bring the different minority groups together to mitigate conflict by discussing and finding common ground amongst each other. A locally-led approach is adopted with a twofold impact in mind: to advance the peacebuilding capacity of the local partner organization TAD, and to identify common everyday issues and different perceptions of coexistence that help to correct misconceptions and drivers of conflict through deliberation.