Caucasus

The wider Caucasus is a region marked by a set of frozen conflicts. Bottom-up and transnational initiatives can and must be applied to break the ice. Due to our long-standing engagement in workshop-based dialogue, we have become a recognised facilitator in the region. We are currently expanding our activities and extending our coordinating role to new communities and neighbouring countries. Empowering cross-regional local initiatives and addressing the issues of history, identity and memory are at the heart of our work. Thus, we focus on non-state actors, multipliers and young academics.

• History, Memory and Identity
  In our work on History, Memory and Identity in the Georgian-Abkhaz-South-Ossetian conflict, participants from different age-groups in all three regions engage in a dialogue on history. more >

The Berghof Foundation is an active member of the FriEnt Round-Table South Caucasus, which the Working Group on Peace and Development (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Frieden und Entwicklung, FriEnt) has been conducting since 2008. FriEnt is an association of governmental organisations, church development agencies, civil society networks, and political foundations. It aims to pool capacities, support networking and cooperation, and contribute to conflict-sensitive development cooperation. The Round-Table is organised biannually and in accordance to the Chatham House Rule.

Since 2015, the Caucasus Program has supported the Georgian Ministry for Sport and Youth Affairs in it´s confidence-building measures in the field of youth work. As part of the discussion platform on peace issues, the Ministry is funding intergovernmental dialogue on interview episodes involving people affected by the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian wars. The workshops are facilitated by members of our long-standing partner organization "Peace Development Center", which emerged from our "Young Facilitators" program.