Social Cohesion in Iraq: Leveraging Religious, Political, and Tribal Authorities for Conflict Transformation
How can we foster social cohesion by engaging with informal religious and political authorities in conflict contexts, such as present-day Iraq?
This report answers this question by outlining a conflict transformation approach developed by Cordoba Peace Institute – Geneva (CPI), and in Samarra, Talafar, and Iraq as a whole, between 2018 and 2023. The methodology used was a combination of: 1) a ‘safe mediation space’ approach and diapraxis, 2) collaboration between insider and outsider mediators, and 3) leveraging formal and informal sources of influence, including religious, political, and tribal. The report aims to learn from the experiences of case studies to guide practitioners applying such methods in other similar contexts.