This volume is the product of the International Peace Academy's research program, one of the key program areas that IPA has developed over the last twenty-five years. Today the core activities of the IPA program fall into five areas.

IPA plays a facilitating role by bringing together parties in conflict to explore – informally and often off the record – ways to promote political settlements. In the past we have played this role in relation to conflicts in Central America, Southern Africa and Cambodia. We are now engaged in developing this facilitating role into a major program on preventive action.

Over the last three years IPA has worked closely with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to develop ways of enhancing the capacity of the OAU to respond more effectively to the dramatic situation of conflicts in Africa. These efforts have culminated in adopting a new OAU mechanism devoted to the prevention and management of conflicts in Africa. We are now working with the OAU Secretariat on the challenge of translating this new mechanism into an operational instrument that can make a difference on the ground.

From its inception, IPA played a pioneering role in organizing training seminars for peacekeeping. These have now evolved into policy seminars for senior officials (diplomatic and military) as well as members of the UN Secretariat. The principal objective of the policy seminars is to deepen the participants' understanding of critical policy issues of the day on peacekeeping and peacemaking.