Southern Caucasus
At a glance
As part of our long engagement with the region, we are currently working with young leaders and open-minded young professionals in Georgia, Abkhazia and South-Ossetia. Through joint workshops and study visits, we aim to deepen their understanding of the political processes in the communities affected by conflict and create a space for joint discussion and deliberation about their future interaction and cooperation. We realize this through analysing their complex settings and identifying the challenges that face their societies.
Conflict setting
The conflicts between Georgia, Abkhazia and South-Ossetia date back to pre-Soviet times and erupted into war in the early 1990s (Georgia-South Ossetia war 1991-1992, Georgia-Abkhazia war 1992-1993) and in 2008. In essence, both conflicts are disputes about national self-determination and the desired future national status. The situation is further complicated by a huge number of internally displaced persons. While the situation had been tense for years (such as travel restrictions, limited communication, hostile rhetoric), the war of August 2008 lead to a further deterioration of the situation. Suspicions have intensified in all communities.
The Russian intervention during 2008 and the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have added other layers of complexity. Currently, there is neither consensus among the conflict parties on wider confidence-building measures (or a ‘system of rapprochement’) for the Georgia-Abkhazia-South Ossetia context, nor agreement on how the EU and the international community could constructively support this.
It is, therefore, hugely important to broaden public debate through people-to-people contact, initiate trust-building processes and build the capacities of multipliers in the societies concerned. Through such activities, they can work towards complex-solution models and a broad spectrum of confidence-building measures, which are necessary for a constructive process of conflict transformation.
TopActivities
Early engagement – 1997 to 2005
Berghof´s engagement in the Southern Caucasus goes back as early as 1997. BCR conducted its first dialogue workshop with Georgian and Abkhaz politicians and civil society representatives. Until 2005 we conducted with our partners, 15 one-week dialogue workshops were held and engaged a total of just under 100 participants. The goal of this process was to enable Georgian and Abkhazian decision makers and other influential individuals to discuss all aspects of the conflict. For more details see report A Difficult Encounter – The Informal Georgian-Abkhazian Dialogue Process.
Dialogue & Study visit – Since 2006 ongoing
Starting in 2006, we have been engaging Georgian, Abkhaz and South-Ossetian emerging academic, political and social leaders drawn from universities, political parties, government ministries and professional associations. Through a series of dialogue workshops and study visits to Cyprus and Kosovo we have worked to stimulate public debate in Abkhazia, Georgia and Ossetia about the complex processes of developing good governance and democratization in relation to breakaway and non-recognized entities.
Since 2009, these workshops are also conducted in Moldova and Transnistria using the project name „Engagement through Dialogue: Dialogue and Study Visits for the Transformation of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian Conflicts“. Since then the Berghof Foundation is in partnership with IKV Pax Christi from Utrecht, Netherlands, and local partners in Georgia, Abkhazia and South-Ossetia. In total 12 workshops were conducted with over 120 participants in total. Workshops were funded by the German Foreign Office (Project ZIVIK) as well as by the European Commission under the Instrument for Stability.
We and our project partners believe that it is crucial to broaden the space for dialogue through people-to-people contact. We aim to deepen the current understanding of political processes in the communities affected by conflict and the perceptions of these processes on different sides of the conflict divides. We, furthermore, intend to build the capacities of young leaders and engaged open-minded young professionals to explore what possible cooperation conditions there are for a peaceful engagement. At the same time, they will be challenged to explore the possibilities and limitations of trust-building processes. (For more details visit the Caucasus Dialogue website).
Supporting inside Mediators & Facilitators – Since 2010 ongoing
The main work of BPS has focused on dialogue promotion and building the capacity of local stakeholders. With the project „Young Facilitators of the Future“ we aim to empower young Georgian, Abkhaz and South Ossetian professionals to facilitate and manage dialogue meetings across conflict divide in a sustainable way. The project contains of a series of trainings conducted in Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well of international mixed trainings with Abkhaz-Georgian and South Ossetian-Georgian participants.
With the first training phase completed mixed teams of Georgian-Abkhaz and South Ossetian-Georgian Young Facilitators already facilitated the first “Self-regulated dialogue and study visit workshops” with Georgian-Abkhaz as well as Georgian-South Ossetian participants. The training process of the Young Facilitators was financed by the EU and implemented by the UNDP Confidence Building Early Response Mechanism (COBERM). The first self-regulated dialogue workshop was financed by the UK Government and Conflict Pool.
Contact: Oliver Wolleh
Resources
| Title | Region/Topic | Authors/Editors | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schwierige Begegnung - Der informelle georgisch-abchasische Dialogprozess | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2006 |
| Coloured Pencil Report No.3 - At the Beach | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2010 |
| Coloured Pencil Report No.2 (Chisinau / Tiraspol 11 – 17 April 2010) | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2010 |
| Coloured Pencil Report No.1 (Chisinau / Tiraspol 27 January – 1 February 2010) | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2010 |
| Coloured Pencil Report No.5 - Past, Present, and Future | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2012 |
| Coloured Pencil Report No.4 - The Sixth Day | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2011 |
| Annan Plan for Cyprus - (Russian Translation) | Southern Caucasus | Berghof Foundation for Peace Support | 2008 |
| A Difficult Encounter – The Informal Georgian-Abkhazian Dialogue Process | Southern Caucasus | Wolleh, Oliver | 2006 |