Strengthening Civilian Capacities to Protect Civilians (UNV.2016.006)
According to the World Bank, more than 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by repeated violence. In absolute terms, the need for direct physical protection of civilians against imminent violence has never been greater than it is today. Local and international actors are struggling to protect all those under direct threat, wherever conflict occurs. A small number of civil society and humanitarian organizations have begun providing direct physical protection for civilians through a method called Unarmed Civilian Protection (UCP), which promotes nonviolent means for a community to protect itself from violence.
The aim of this advocacy presentation is to raise awareness for and increase understanding of UCP. It starts by explaining the need for UCP, followed by an introduction to its key principles and methods, and finally describing how it fits into wider protection efforts and global discourses.
At the end of the course, participants will be able to:
- Differentiate UCP from conventional peacekeeping;
- Place UCP in the history of nonviolence, protection and conventional peacekeeping;
- Define UCP and relevant terms linked to it;
- Describe the actors within UCP; and
- Locate UCP within key global discourses.
The course answers nine questions in sequence:
- Why do we need to protect civilians?
- Who has the responsibility to protect civilians?
- What is unarmed civilian protection?
- How does UCP work?
- Why does UCP work?
- How does UCP complement wider protection efforts?
- What are the strengths of UCP?
- How is UCP linked with key global discourses?
- What can you do?
The average work time is estimated at 1 hour.
This advocacy course is a self-guided, self-paced, web-based course that is on-going and can be accessed at any time. The material is presented in text format with visual aids and web-based reference resources. Regular activities allow the participant to test their understanding of and reinforce the message of the course.
The course is open exclusively to United Nations Volunteers, holding a valid contract. Please note that a verfication will be carried out by UNVs Programme prior to the beginning of the course. Only those participants for whom possession of a valid contract is confirmed will be enrolled in the course.
No reimboursement will be possible for participants who enroll without a valid UNV contract.
Technical Requirements
- Minimum hardware and software requirements:
- Platform: Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, ME, XP or superior; MacOS 9 or MacOS X.
- Hardware: 64 MB of RAM, 1 GB of free disk space.
- Software:
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (download for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html).
- Adobe Flash Player (download for free at http:/get.adobe.com/flashplayer)
- Microsoft Office (Windows or Apple version) or Open Office (download for free at http://www.openoffice.org )
- Browser: Internet Explorer 8 (download for free at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internetexplorer/worldwide‐sites.aspx; works better with Firefox 3.6 or higher (download for free at http://www.mozilla‐europe.org/en/firefox). Note JavaScript & Cookies must be enabled.
- Modem: 56 K
The course Introduction to Peace Operations has been awarded the 2012 international Open ECBCheck Standards.