Date
February 20, 2008

Time
10:00 - 11:30 AM

Location
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC

Topic
Gender-Based Violence in the DRC

Special Guests
TBA

The forum will be facilitated by
TBA

Following Meeting
There will be no Great Lakes Policy Forum in March as the GLPF Partners support the Congo Global Action Washington Conference scheduled for March 30 – April 1. For more info visit www.congoglobalaction.org

History of the Forum
In January 1995, Search for Common Ground, Refugees International, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the African-American Institute inaugurated the Burundi Policy Forum. Originally designed to focus on issues surrounding Burundi, the forum quickly incorporated regional themes and changed its name to the Great Lakes Policy Forum. Additionally, the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins joined on as a co-sponsor in 1998.

Regular attendees to the meetings include representatives from the State Department, various embassies, USAID, the United Nations, and various non-governmental organizations specializing in anything from humanitarian assistance to human rights and refugees.

The Great Lakes Policy Forum has become an important source of information sharing in the region and a touchstone for policy makers. A recent report entitled Advances in Understanding International Peacemaking by the United States Institute of Peace described the forum as:

a place outside the regular system to gain information, discuss ideas, and get broader perspectives on the crisis than those fostered in an official or bureaucratic milieu. The forum's main impact comes indirectly, as with much unofficial diplomacy, by influencing the process by which important actors deal with the conflict and coordinate their actions and interventions. The Forum is also unique in that it has fostered a culture of communication and coordination between the NGO and government communities.

Archive Center
Notes from previous meetings since 2001 are available in PDF format. Please click here to visit the GPLF Archive Center.
 

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