ICNC is pleased to announce its new partnership with the Paris-based Institut Pour la Paix (IPP)!
IPP’s mission is to promote peace studies in the French-speaking, European and international space. Its leadership, staff and members make up a multidisciplinary team drawing from academic, professional and civil society circles. IPP supports working groups on conceptions of peace; gender and peace; the environment and peace; and civil resistance, nonviolence and the culture of peace. Its activities are primarily based in France but its constituencies are based in many regions of the world.
ICNC-IPP study day in Paris in 2023. The Working Group identified a need to produce educational materials on civil resistance in French. Credit: Amber French.
Study day in Paris, 2023. Credit: Amber French.
ICNC is a leading organization advancing the study and practice of nonviolent civil resistance to achieve rights, freedom, and justice around the world. ICNC’s distinguished education and training programs have attracted thousands of participants from more than 100 countries. Its research and publications make cutting-edge knowledge accessible to diverse practitioners and scholars. ICNC’s website, with the accompanying blog Minds of the Movement, is a global clearinghouse of information, with resources in over 70 different languages and dialects.
Building on this foundation, ICNC supports the development of new, localized educational initiatives in French, focusing on civil resistance and related themes. Its activities have centered primarily on movements and communities in Francophone Africa, allowing ICNC to build networks of trust in several African countries with activists, movements and other civil society actors. From 2021 forward, its activities in continental France have been spearheaded by Amber French, Senior Advisor and Blog Managing Editor, who is based in Paris.
Aims of the partnership
Shooting of online course videos in Paris, 2024.
The partners aim to find synergies between their respective educational and civic initiatives in France, Europe and the Francophone world. Since the beginning of their collaboration, informally in 2021 when Amber French gave impetus for and co-founded the IPP working group entitled “Civil Resistance, Nonviolence and the Culture of Peace“, the partners have reinforced Francophone networks in civil resistance and peace worldwide, namely through the co-production of the first online course on nonviolent struggle in French. Additional partners for the online course project include Non-violence XXI and LUCHA Lutte pour le changement, a Congolese nonviolent movement for peace and democracy.
The partners are committed to creating spaces for dialogue and enquiries to engage people through programs, conversations, audiovisual means and educational resources. Further, they are committed to promoting and supporting research, action-research and knowledge sharing to promote a better understanding of nonviolent civil resistance and peace studies in Francophone spaces.
The partnership is centered on the three themes:
- How civil resistance studies and peace studies intersect and are complementary, as well as how they differ.
- How to build and reinforce Francophone academic, policy and activist communities around civil resistance and peace.
- How to raise the public profile of nonviolent movements for rights, justice, freedom and peace in Francophone media, policy circles and universities.
History of the partnership
Shooting of online course videos in Paris, 2024.
By early 2022, the working group on Civil Resistance, Nonviolence and the Culture of Peace had been established and announced on IPP’s website, with Amber French, Cecile Dubernet, Raphael Porteilla and later Alain Refalo as co-facilitators. The group was officially launched in May 2023 with the organization of a study day, co-sponsored by IPP and ICNC, at the Institut Catholique de Paris. A few dozen collaborators from France, Europe and Africa converged online and in-person that day to present their recent work on the working group topics. ICNC and IPP collaborators attended.
Conclusion of first online course cohort, 2024.
Also in 2023, group co-facilitators collaborated to produce an internal concept note in French outlining the convergences and divergences between conceptions of civil resistance, nonviolence and the culture of peace. This note was made public on IPP’s website in early
2025.
Further, in 2024, the working group organized a working seminar at the Institut Catholique de Paris, again co-sponsored and attended by IPP and ICNC. This time, among ICNC staff in attendance was Executive Director Ivan Marovic, symbolizing the growing importance placed on ICNC collaborative activities with IPP. The working seminar gathered some 20-25 stakeholders in the Paris area to contribute to the development of a multi-partner online course in French on nonviolent struggle. The online course, hosted by ICNC’s online learning platform, was launched in 2024 and as of early 2025 had cycled through two cohorts of dozens of French-speaking activists, researchers and members of civil society from around the world.
Notable actors in the construction of the ICNC-IPP collaboration from 2021 forward are: Amber French (ICNC), Cecile Dubernet (Institut Catholique de Paris, working group co-facilitator), Raphael Porteilla (Universite de Bourgogne, working group co-facilitator), Alain Refalo (Centre de Ressources sur la Non-violence, working group co-facilitator), Laura Lema Silva (former IPP), Ivan Marovic (ICNC), Hardy Merriman (ICNC), Thomas Hippler (IPP), Philippe Bonditti (IPP) and Mickael Lopes (IPP).