Course Description:
Conflicts over natural resources and the environment are among the greatest challenges in 21st-century geopolitics. These conflicts present serious threats to human security at both the national and local levels. Natural resources and the environment can nonetheless serve as a vehicle for peace if managed in a sustainable and equitable manner. Environmental peacebuilding has emerged as a new frontier in interdisciplinary studies. It offers a conceptual and operational framework to understand the positive peacebuilding potential of natural resources across the conflict lifecycle while mitigating potential risks.
This massive open online course (MOOC) on Environmental Security and Sustaining Peace provides an in-depth introduction to the multiple roles that natural resources and the environment play in the onset, escalation, and resolution of, and recovery from, violent conflicts. Many of the considerations and approaches in this course are also relevant to understanding and addressing social conflicts around natural resources and the environment.
This course is targeted at:
- Peace and security specialists who want to understand more about natural resources.
- Natural resource experts who want to design more conflict-sensitive programs.
- Sustainable development practitioners, as well as private sector actors, who need to understand how natural resources can be developed in fragile contexts with weak governance.
- Advanced undergraduates and graduate students interested in the key concepts and practices of this growing field.
Disclaimer:
- The contents of this course are indicative, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UN Environment Programme, its contributory organizations or editors or Member States.
- The designations employed and the presentations of material in this course do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UN Environment Programme or contributory organizations, editors or publishers concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries or the designation of its name, frontiers or boundaries.
- Materials provided on this site are provided "as is" and UN Environment Programme specifically does not make any warranties or representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any such materials.
- This site may contain links and references to third-party web sites. The linked sites are not under the control of UN Environment Programmme and UN Environment Programme is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, any of the their content.