Organization

In 1992 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme. The objective of this programme was to reinforce the cooperation between the institutions and the advanced educational programmes by constituting and exchanging different kinds of networks, in order to achieve a spirit of academic solidarity, specially with the developing countries. The University of Córdoba, following an initiative of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, considered the creation of a Chair in Conflict Resolution, a proposal that was very well received. In this context, the 10th of March of 2006 the University of Córdoba and the UNESCO endorsed an agreement for the creation of the UNESCO Chair in Conflict Resolution. The approval proposal was introduced by the Spanish Comission of Cooperation and through the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation along with the UNESCO.

Teaching Board

Our main objective is to constitute the Chair as a training and investigation forum; a round table specially focused in the the academic, professional and social fields, in order to analyse the conflict situations that could arise. In this space promoted by the University of Córdoba, we will be able to reflect, investigate, educate, debate and disseminate all the information gathered and share it with professionals. With those who are linked to diplomatic labors and security forces, with the companies and institutions that have programmes related to the progress of developing countries, as well as with non-governmental organizations, jurists, enviromental and humanitarian experts, politicians, sociologists, psycologists and pedagogists.

The specific objectives are: the development of educative programmes for a peaceful intervention in armed conflicts from a preventive, interventionist and reconstructive approach. Managing specific solutions for developing conflicts. Psycho-educative abilities for personal, interpersonal, social, collective and political crisis. Training in social, cultural, economic, institutional and environmental reconstruction.

Advisory Board

The aim of the Advisory Board is the establishment and the correct orientation of the priorities of the Chair. The board is formed by relevant personalities of the collaborating institutions who will supervise the activities of Chair. The following personalities will be offered to form part of the board:

The conflict resolution

The conflict resolution science can be applied to many fields, and it affects all human and social manifestations, from the personal conflicts of a sole human being to those of international character. There are conflicts in all walks of life: familiar, social, economical, cultural, ideological, related to work, of social relationships, of gender, etc. Some of them have a violent component, but all of them deserve a high-level effort from us in order to find pacific solutions to end them, mediating and coming to an understandment. That is why the disciplines and domains that are related to this science are so diverse, as we mentioned earlier: Law, History, Political Sciences, Administrative Sciences, Economy, Philosophy, Religion, Ideologies, Environmental Sciences, etc.

The globalization, which currently affects all the international relations network, provokes the rekindling of old conflicts and the apparition of new ones. This situation requires the specialization of those expert professionals that originally come from such different fields before mentioned. The specialization in conflictology would bring more solutions both to personal and social groups, as well as to national and international organisations. This inter-departmental plan aims to get past the old sectors that taught knowledges that were completely detached from real life, and by that way conform a combination of versatile knowledges which would provide new and diverse ponts of view and solutions for the current conflicts.

The conflicts we are talking about are a reality we need to learn to live with, as they do not disappear by repression or violent elimination. The dialectics of the conflict can be seized in a positive way in order to generate new ways of reaching agreement, consensus or comprehension. The conflict is presented from different prisms and views, from Law, Politics, Religion, Philosophy, History, Biology, Psychology, Sociology… And beginning from these knowledge fields, new paths are interconnected for studying the reasons, the ways and the solutions of the problem.

At all events, the Chair will be flexible in the objectives and will be able to assume those ones which could be of preferential interest for the UNESCO programmes in a specific moment. Due to the nature of the city that holds the Chair, Córdoba, there will be a special dedication to all the topics related to the Culture of Peace, the interculturality, and the meeting and alliance between cultures and civilizations. And all of the activities will have a direct relation with the future International Institute of Arab Studies and the Muslim World.

We will develop a direct collaboration with the MAEC (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation) according to the lines that the Spanish foreign politics dictate as prioritary.

Networks

Mediterranean

In order to develop these objectives, the University of Córdoba will establish a  Mediterranean action plan. For that, the university will use the existing agreements with the University of Messina, the Virginia Commonwealth University of Richmong, the Center for Ibero-American Culture Studies of Cairo (Egypt), and the Abdelmalek Essaâdi University in Tangier-Tétouan. The Mediterranean Studies Centre is currently working, and it was founded by the three first universities mentioned in order to develop study plans for the Culture of Peace in all the countries that are linked by this sea, lands that involve so many different cultures, but also have many profound common elements.

Middle East

Incorporation of an agreement between the University of Córdoba and the Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Babtain Foundation in order to create the Al-Babtain Chair. Enhancement of the collaboration with the government of Kuwait.

South America

Collaboration with the Patagonian Ecosystem Research Centre (CIEP), created within the Regional Programme of Scientific and Technological Investigation of the Government of Chile, which will develop a excellent scientific investigation plan oriented to identify and know the structure, processes and interactions between the different ecosystems that are in the Patagonia region.

It will be located in the Aysén region, and the geographical field of research will primarily be in the south of Chile, between Port Montt and the south limit of Aysén.

The CIEP aims to be the the national and international leader of investigation, evaluation, modelling and monitoring of the interconnected aquatic systems. It will add significative discoveries for the scientific knowledge of the Patagonian waters, and it will collaborate with the proposals of future conservative, legal, normative and economic processes in the area.

North America

Collaboration with the Canadian Studies Foundation to create exchange programmes and other projects.

The Virginia Commonwealth University of Richmond will collaborate with the plan of the Mediterranean Studies Centre as mentioned before.

Beneficiaries

It is difficult to specify a limited group of beneficiaries, as not only the participants of the activities will be beneficiated from them. The results of the investigations, debates and analysis will be published and spread to different public and private organisations. That way we will be able to create reflection elements and to put into practice a pacific way of resolving the conflicts.

Either way, we can say that all the investigators, students, professors, professionals, politicians and urban authorities that will initially begin the different activities come from the following countries:

Italy, France, the United States, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, and Spain.

In particular, this is a set of activities destined to spread the idea of the Spanish cooperation for the culture of peace and the pacific resolution of conflicts.

In addition, there will be a new exchange programme between students and professors of the Mediterranean countries called the “Aristóteles-Averroes Grant”.