Work in Task Force groups of 2-4 students. Once groups have selected your country of choice, it is upon you to curate a scenario-building exercise, which allows the reader to understand what the conflict is actually about (looking at actors, structures, strategies and processes, among other variables) and to engage in a first set of recommendations for proposed resolution.
Please assume you work for or have been engaged by an international peace NGO, a UN department such as the OSCE, a regional actor or the state department of a world power. Be explicit about the role you are playing. The real-world impact of this exercise is to sensitize you to the relevance of applied research for policy making purposes.
You will present your findings and results in an 8-10 (maximum) minute video presentation.
Scenario Planning
Scenario building is a strategic planning tool that allows you to consider plausible futures. Through a scenario planning process, stories or narratives about what could happen are developed through exploring basic trends and identifying key uncertainties within an identified scope and time horizon. The process often involves a wide range of stakeholders with cycles of learning and scenario refinement. The agreed upon scenarios or stories then serve as focal points for broader discussion, dialogue and action by decision makers who may be from opposing power groups. In the context of this Module on Intervention, the process can help identify and highlight key intervention points.
Scenario planning and building are used in a variety of contexts including governmental, corporate, and non-governmental settings; to address environmental challenges; and in community settings. Purposes include anticipating the future to manage risk and shape strategy in reaction to changing conditions; and to consider alternate futures in order to purposefully work toward shaping them (transformative scenario planning).
Uppsala Conflict Database
When working in and on conflict, analysts often refer to databases. These databases aggregate and compile, in a succinct manner, a set of variables and situations and they each follow a very specific definition of conflict. One of these databases is the Uppsala Conflict Database Project (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) (UCDP). The UCDP is a leading provider of data on organized violence and armed conflict, and it is the oldest ongoing data collection project for civil war, formed almost 40 years ago. UCDP data are systematically collected and have global coverage, comparability across cases and countries, and long time series. Data are updated annually and are publicly available, free of charge. The program divides armed conflict into three categories: “state-based conflict,” “non-state conflict,” and “one-sided violence.”
Assignment Details
In this assignment, your Task Force will conduct a scenario planning exercise using the UCDP database. Please choose one of the following countries:
Yemen Nicaragua
Myanmar Libya
Sudan
A complete scenario planning process often includes a wide range of stakeholders and experts conducted in a phased manner over time. For the purposes of this assignment, assume your team has been charged with exploring some preliminary scenarios with a relatively short deadline. You have access to information in the Uppsala Conflict Database and other readily available information. You do not have the time nor resources to interview experts or other stakeholders.
The goal of your Task Force is twofold:
• first, to gain some experience in the process, and
• second, to provide a foundation for further discussion and planning.
After you complete this first step as outlined below in Additional Details, assume that you will take your learning and experience to a broader team of colleagues and management to assess the value of a more involved effort that would be intended to spur thinking, learning and action among a wider range of stakeholders and experts. In other words, as a first step, your Task Force will demonstrate a sense of what is possible with this process.
As described above, please be explicit in your presentation about the context of the work you are doing. Identify whether you have been engaged by an international peace NGO, the UN/OSCE, a regional actor or the state department of a world power.
Additional Details
There are many models to conduct a scenario planning process. For the purposes of this exercise, please use the following to guide your work.
- Conduct an analysis of the current situation
o Look broadly at the country and then zoom in to the situation you want to explore more deeply. (Referring to the prompts in you Case Analysis assignment in Module 5, particularly the history/context of the conflict, may be helpful here.) - Develop possible future scenarios
o Identify the scope of your futures analysis. Include the time horizon you are considering and why
o As you look forward, who are the major stakeholders? Do they change? Remain the same?
o What are the basic trends both within the immediate context of the situation and external to it that may be significant?
o What are the key uncertainties (risks) that may have an impact on the course of the conflict situation? Include both positive and negative factors. Note: given your constraints, this will not be an exhaustive list, yet it should be a realistic and representational.
o Construct initial scenarios/themes for presentation to your colleagues and management.
Using key uncertainties, develop three stories that reflect a best case, worst case and status quo situation as you look ahead.
What might trigger the conflict to move in each of these directions? What change (or lack of change) of factors/dynamics might lead to this scenario? Be sure to consider endogenous and exogenous factors.
o What are the implications for action of each of the scenarios developed? For each:
What insight does the scenario offer for possible intervention points?
What key factors/variables would you recommend monitoring to know how the situation is evolving toward one of these three scenarios? - As part of your presentation, reflect on the value of the scenario planning process
o What value/challenges did you find in the scenario planning process your Task Force conducted?
o If the scenario planning project was to move forward, what additional stakeholders would you recommend including in the next step of the planning process? Why?
o Recognizing that your effort was limited by time and participants, what are two questions you would want to explore further?
Presenting your Analysis and Findings
Tips for presenting your findings:
• All members of your Task Force should participate in the presentation. Please record your presentation such that your face is visible (at least at the beginning and/or the end of the video) and slides (assuming you are using them) appear in coordination with your words.
• Organize your presentation. Using the 3 major numbered prompts above will help in preparing a coherent presentation.
• Please be mindful of the 10 minute time limit on the presentation. NOTE: Your audience has another commitment and will discontinue listening at the 10 minute mark.
• Please Zoom or another tool to record your presentation. Upload the complete presentation for your group using the submission guidelines below.
Group division of Work：
Teammate 1’s email:
I have been reading up on the Buddhist/Muslim conflict in Myanmar and thinking about the assignment over the last few days.
Here is what I propose. Why don’t I draft a summary of the conflict itself for you to review, edit, add to as you please. I will have that to you some time tomorrow before class starts. I suggest that each of us work on one story (there are three required) — (1) a best-case scenario, (2) a worst-case scenario, and (3) a status-quo scenario, considering all of the factors and assumptions laid out for us in the assignment.
Would you mind if I go ahead right now and select the best-case scenario (unless you have a strong preference for it)? I suggest that you choose one of the other two to focus on a.s.a.p. so that we can e-mail A the third story that is left for her to work on tonight. That will give her a full day (China time) for her to start working on her portion. We do need to e-mail her tonight with this suggested plan of action.
The last part concerns what value each of us got from engaging in the scenario planning exercise and the specific questions are laid out in the assignment. This, too, lends itself well to division.
What I expect is that one person will describe the conflict itself and background, each of the three of us will talk about the one story we are responsible for, and we will end with each of us describing the value we received from doing the assignment.
For my part is write about the (3) a status-quo scenario, considering all of the factors and assumptions laid out for us in the assignment.