Peace is not only the absence of violence. It rests on attitudes, institutions, and structures that can be described, measured, and built. This programme teaches that framework and helps organizations apply it to their own work.
The Institute for Economics and Peace developed the Positive Peace framework from a straightforward empirical question: what do the most peaceful societies have in common that the least peaceful ones lack? The answer was not primarily the absence of conflict. It was the presence of eight measurable conditions, among them a well functioning government, sound business environment, free flow of information, good relations with neighbours, and equitable distribution of resources.
That finding has a practical consequence. If peace has identifiable structural components, then organizations that are not conflict specialists still contribute to it or erode it through ordinary decisions about hiring, procurement, information sharing, and community relations. ARAC International teaches this framework so that partners can see where their existing work already sits inside it, and where a modest change in practice would strengthen it.
Our founder is a certified IEP Ambassador and a certified Human Rights Consultant through the United States Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights. That training informs how the material is delivered, but the content is adapted to the audience rather than presented as a fixed curriculum. A district health authority, a mining sector employer, and a community youth organization need the same framework explained through different examples.
Half day and full day sessions introducing the eight pillars, the evidence behind them, and a structured exercise in which participants locate their own organization within the framework.
Applied training on integrating rights based principles into policy, procurement, employment practice, and community engagement, aimed at staff who make operational decisions rather than legal specialists.
Sessions that make the Sustainable Development Goals usable at team level, with emphasis on Goal 16 and on the reporting obligations partners are likely to face.
Introductory and intermediate training in dispute resolution technique for staff, community representatives, and volunteer mediators, including practice sessions and structured feedback.
Practical instruction in source evaluation, verification habits, and recognising manipulation in circulating information. Delivered in partnership with our public learning platform.
Short, senior level sessions for boards and executive teams who need enough of the framework to govern well without a full training commitment.
Beyond commissioned training, ARAC maintains open learning materials on media literacy, digital literacy, and critical thinking for general audiences. These are free to use and require no organizational relationship with us.
Our published research and editorial work sit alongside the training programme and are available through the resource platform.
Programme staff, country teams, and field offices seeking a shared framework for how their work contributes to peace outcomes.
Organizations operating in fragile or post conflict settings whose employment, procurement, and community practices carry peace consequences.
Teachers, faith leaders, youth workers, and civic organizers who carry these ideas into settings we could not reach directly.
ARAC International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions fund peacebuilding advocacy, technical support to humanitarian partners, and education programmes advancing human rights worldwide.