Dialogue

The project called “Humanitarian Dialogue for Human Security in Chechnya” (later renamed “Humanitarian Dialogue for Human Security in the North Caucasus” - HDNC) was first sketched out in early 2005. At that time, FEWER Eurasia has been functioning as an independent entity for approximately a year, following the demise of FEWER’s international network and the FEWER Secretariat in London. We were in search for new solutions to continue applying the wealth of methodological expertise accumulated by FEWER over the years of its existence in the field of early warning and early response as well as multi-stakeholder dialogue. There was a sense of the need to re-focus on finding the local solutions to address conflict generating factors in the Northern Caucasus employing, at the same time, the know-how and expertise emerging from the international experience. FEWER Eurasia has preserved the partnership with ex-members of FEWER - swisspeace and Peace Mission of General Lebed (PMGL). These two organizations were perhaps the most effective in forging the link between warning and response that was one of the key goals of FEWER throughout its existence. Swisspeace (Swiss Peace Foundation at that time) set out to create a global consortium called FAST International that was to utilize a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in early warning to inform responses by international development agencies and other actors, while the PMGL had unique experience of directly addressing one of the most sensitive issues in peace-building and dealing with the past - the search for and release of hostages, POWs and illegally detained persons, as well as disarmament of the population.
Since 2005, the HDNC has been financed by the Ministries for foreign affairs of Sweden and Switzerland, being managed and implemented by the NGOs Swisspeace, FEWER Eurasia and PMGL. A pilot phase took place in 2005-2006. A first phase (2006-2008) and a second phase (2008-2010) followed. Since March 2011 Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) has been invited to co-finance the project from the Swedish side.
The HDNC Project is a process of generative dialogue aimed to bridge the gap between the visions of security by authorities and civil society (including communities). It provides a platform and method for dialogue between the federal and republic-level authorities (including the administration of the North Caucasian Federal District) and the civil society in its entire spectrum (including NGOs, youth associations, women organizations, informal community groups and leaders etc.). The themes that form the subject matter of dialogue are determined collectively as the most important human security needs as well as threats to human security requiring responses by the authorities and civil society.
Humanitarian dialogue is understood by the three partner-organizations to this project as a discussion or negotiation process where all the participants are welcome except those who use unlawful violence; where all participants are free to speak as equals (in a roundtable format); and where the purpose of dialogue is real progress in and concrete agreements on improving human security across the region.
To be effective such a humanitarian dialogue needs to be understood - in a wider sense - as a facilitated and jointly-owned process of cooperation on addressing concrete human security issues (e.g. prevention of disappearances, search for the missing people etc.) based on the promotion and protection of undisputed humanitarian norms and standards that all the dialogue participants recognize. We believe that these norms, based on international humanitarian law, Declaration of Human Rights, Russian Constitution, as well as established moral codes, could form the right basis for constructive action to resolve human security problems.
The HDNC project aims at making a sustainable contribution to improving the human security situation in several North Caucasus Republics (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia). The project’s main priorities are to provide support to the families of missing persons and of the victims of the conflicts, which have occurred in the region in the past decades, as well as to prevent further disappearances.
Whereas the pilot project focused on measures to stop abductions and the disappearances of civilians, to disarm the population and reintegrate former combatants and to improve the general conditions for economic development, the first phase of the project (2006-2008) saw an expanded range of actions aiming to make a positive impact on the policy formulation process through a widened platform for the HD process and enhanced communication with federal, regional and local authorities, to develop activities in the field of the search for missing persons with the creation of the CCAS (Centre for Civil Assistance to the Search for Missing persons in the North Caucasus) based in PMGL (and forming a part of this organisation), and to strengthen the gender component by involving women in the process more actively, studying the peculiarities of their roles as compared to men’s, and capitalizing on comparative advantages. The second phase (2008-2010) has seen a natural evolution based on the experiences and results gained in earlier phases, as well as an adjustment to the changing project environment. Extended to involve other North Caucasus Republics in addition to Chechnya (Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia) the project has sought to act on three levels: national, regional and local. Its main focus has been: the activities of the Centre for Civil Assistance in the Search for Missing Persons, implementing rehabilitation programs within the psycho-social sphere, prevention of abductions and disappearances and monitoring the situation in the region.
For the current phase (March 2011 - February 2013) the project was divided into two sub components “Prevention” and “Dealing with the Past” to implement two core objectives that had been identified by the partners in a more focused way:
1. Contributing to preventing the use of illegal violence, human rights abuses and disappearances in the North Caucasus by means of actively promoting non-violent approaches and tools to crisis response through the application of the humanitarian dialogue methodology, expertise exchange and raising awareness on the human security situation in the region.
2. Contributing to reconciliation, post-conflict reconstruction and alleviating post-conflict trauma by implementing activities in the Dealing with the Past framework and stimulating state bodies to adopt these mechanisms.

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