History of Coexistence International


In 1996, at the State of The World Forum (SWF) in San Francisco, Alan Slifka, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Abraham Fund, committed himself to fostering a global movement on Coexistence and Community Building Initiative. The purpose of the movement was to convene high-level groups of policy analysts, practitioners, educators and theorists to deliberate upon how to enhance international interest in coexistence and community building, and to make specific recommendations to governments and other institutions about implementing coexistence policies and practice within their organizations.

Alan B. Slifka

Alan Slifka’s vision was taken forward with him by a core group of people led by Susan Collin Marks, Bill Ury, and Jim Garrison who was

the Founder and CEO of The State of the World Forum, an organization designed to facilitate dialogue on issues of global importance.  The group sought to create a movement that would catalyze a global awareness of the needs of coexistence work around the world, and to ensure the commitment of individuals, organizations, agencies and government to the creation of ‘ a world which was safe for difference.


At the 1998 Annual State of the World Forum, the core initiating group, which was jointly chaired by Susan Collins Marks and

Dr. Bill Ury, along with a newly formed secretariat, and thirty five participants from international coexistence organizations formalized plans to officially

Susan Collins Marks

launch a global effort for coexistence at the oncoming regional conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1999.  This conference,

based as it was within a conflicted society, provided an excellent occasion at which to officially launch what was then called The Coexistence Initiative (TCI) The conference group consisted of over one hundred and fifty policy analysts, experts in coexistence curriculum development, coexistence leaders, trainers and educators from around the globe.

During the Conference, the initiative launched A Plan of Action for the 21st Century, a platform providing the basis for an international coexistence movement and network. The mission of the platform was to seek:


Bill Ury

‘the positive and proactive embrace of diversity at all levels of society. TCI’s work is based on the belief that the embrace of diverse

identities is essential to the development of vibrant, peaceful societies. The goal of the proactive embrace of diversity is the development of policies, laws, institutions and attitudes that protect the right of individuals and groups to be both equal and different. In pursuit of its goals, TCI works with grassroots communities, practitioners in the fields of education, human rights, conflict transformation and civil

society development, and policy makers at the local, national, and international levels.’


The Coexistence Initiative sought to fulfill its mission through:

  • Promoting public awareness of and discourse on coexistence;
  • Facilitating exchange of information and best practices in the coexistence field;
  • Mainstreaming principles of coexistence in policy, curricula, and institutions;
  • Supporting an international network of individuals and organizations working on behalf of coexistence.

The Coexistence Initiative formally left the State of the World Forum in 1999, and became an independent organization, initially based in London. It was subsequently registered as an independent non-profit organization in the United States in 2000, and its first Board of Directors were appointed, with Eric Nonacs as Executive Director.

From 1999 until 2004 The Coexistence Initiative focused upon developing the following resources:

  • The Coexistence Notice board which was a compilation of coexistence-related information. It contains analysis and opinion pieces as well as announcements of coexistence activities around the world.
  • A Coexistence Resource Center (CRC) that provided information on events, mid-career opportunities, and news sources on the web, as well as access to information on practical resources such as books, manuals, meeting reports, and videos.
  • Publishing the Coexistence Chronicle, a publication that highlighted coexistence-related work taking place internationally and raised awareness of coexistence projects, issues, and regions of importance.
  • A Communicating Coexistence project aimed at highlighting successful examples of grass-roots coexistence, and encouraging community-level leadership to promote coexistence. As part of this project, TCI held Coexistence Consultations within local communities about the language of, and challenges to building coexistence and the means for practitioners and policymakers to learn from community-level experience.
  • Information Resources and Coexistence Networking. TCI maintained an international coexistence network of more than 1100 practitioners, policymakers, academics, educators, and others, as well as disseminating print and online publications on coexistence-related activities and information worldwide.
  • A survey of practitioners and policy makers, as well as public agencies around the world, who were, and are, engaged in coexistence activities which resulted in a document called Insiders and Outsiders: A Review of Policies that Recognize Diversity and Promote Inclusion and Coexistence

TCI Events in the United States included the following e.g.

  • Networking for Coexistence: Using Linkages to Build Peace.
  • Roundtable on Coexistence and Addressing the Information Divide
  • Creating a Culture of Conversation workshop,
  • Coexistence with the Police: Partnership with the Community in Fighting Violence against Women and Children,
  • Common Ground Film Festival in India,
  • Building Coexistence after September 11th: Resources for Dialogue, Peacebuilding, and Tolerance.
  • Strengthening Coexistence: A Civil-Military Dialogue.
  • Meeting on The Development of a Coexistence Index
  • Meeting on the Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Uganda
  • Coexistence in the Eye of the Camera: Examining how Television and Film can Further Coexistence
  • The Challenges of Building Peace in Africa and Beyond
  • Practical Technology? The Use of the Internet by Coexistence
  • Interactive workshop on Dramatic Performance and Conflict Transformation.
  • Learning Coexistence: Fostering Cultural Understanding and Student Leadership.
  • Fostering Dialogue After 9/11: Changes, Opportunities, and Lessons
  • Conflict and Humiliation workshop.
  • The Middle East Peace Quilt project
  • Reaching Out for Peace in the Middle East (co-sponsored by Amnesty International, TCI, The New Israel Fund, Peace Works, The American Friends of Neve Shalom, and Search for Common Ground)

TCI International Events and Activities:

  • Kenya: Reflecting on Peace Practice: a Nairobi Workshop, which brought together over 25 practitioners from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and elsewhere to collectively address issues of Coexistence.
      • Ghana:  Conference co-organized with the Ghana-based West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peace building in the Mano River Basin brought which together 60 key leaders from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to discuss post-conflict reconstruction in these countries.

        Coexistence Center Uganda:

        The Coexistence Center in Uganda was a joint project of The Coexistence Initiative and the Center for Conflict Resolution (CECORE), and was located within CECORE's offices in Kampala.

        • Building Coexistence in Uganda - a workshop that brought together individuals working in various coexistence-related fields in Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss possible partnerships in coexistence work.
        • Educating Youth in Times of Conflict – a workshop that provided a forum for stakeholders to assess the effects of violent conflict on the education of young people living in conflict areas.
        • Networking forum on Prospects for Partnership, geared towards cooperation between coexistence stakeholders and practitioners working in Uganda.
        • Enhancing Coexistence between the Military and Civil Society. This dialogue, encouraged communication between members of the civil society and the military to devise ways of fostering coexistence between the two sectors.

          Current Phase of TCI – now Coexistence International at Brandeis University

          In 2004, it was agreed by the TCI Board to transfer TCI to Brandeis University where its Chair, Mari Fitzduff, was engaged in developing a Graduate Masters program in Coexistence and Conflict. In 2005 the name of the Organisation was changed from the Coexistence Initiative to Coexistence International, (CI) in recognition of the established nature of the organization, and an organizational framework was developed. The newly reformed organization decided, in conjunction with it’s a slightly reconfigured Advisory Board to concentrate on ensuring the multiplication of coexistence work through related and relevant fields such as democracy, security, the environment, the arts, human rights etc. It was agreed that coexistence work was not just the responsibility of a specific cadre of coexistence organizations and individuals, but that its work needed to be mainstreamed into all aspects of a society, to ensure the coexistence health of communities, regions, and nations. By such an approach CI hoped to increase the overall amount and effectiveness of coexistence work happening throughout the world.

          Since its relocation to Brandeis in 2005, many of the earlier programs of the initiative have been nurtured and expanded within the reformed CI such as e.g.:

          The work of TCI with WANEP in West Africa, has helped the current regional work of CI in developing a coexistence focus through a multitude of organizations currently working in West Africa.

          Some of the current CI initiatives have also taken up some themes of TCI such as coexistence and security, post-conflict coexistence and the use of art in coexistence work. Like TCI, a priority for CI is strengthening and expanded a network of coexistence allies.

          The work of coexistence in Uganda which was a focus of TCI’s work continues to flourish under the auspices of  the Center for Conflict Resolution in Uganda (CECORE) whose director is a CI Board member.

          The Review of Policies that Recognize Diversity and Promote Inclusion and Coexistence, a research dpocument originally produced by TCI has proved a useful forerunner to the work currently being undertaken by CI in their country studies series, which examines coexistence practices throughout the world.

          The idea of a Coexistence charter/audit for governments, first suggested by Alan Slifka at the launch of TCI in Belfast in 1999, and subsequently developed by CI Chair Mari Fitzduff, has now become a project of the prestigious Club of Madrid (CoM). The project is called the Shared Societies project, where the further developed audit has become an active, international tool, designed to persuade governments to implement coexistence policies in their governance, economic, legal educational, arts, environmental, security and social policies and practice.

          The expressed vision of the of the Shared Societies project project,  ‘Building a World Safe for Difference’ echoes the very first idea on which TCI was initially based in 1999, and is a testimony to the work and long term commitment of Alan Slifka, and the founding group members of TCI, in particular the work of its first Chairs, Susan Collin Marks and Dr. Bill Ury