The Conflict Management Toolkit is a project created and run entirely by students in the Conflict Management Program at The Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Our goal is to enhance the understanding of the challenges that face scholars and practitioners engaged in conflict management today. We try to identify the tools that are available for mitigating and managing conflict and the ways they should be effectively used.

Rather than to create new theories or conceptual frameworks, this project offers a centralized synthesis of the vast conflict management knowledge that is already available. It is meant as a guide for students and scholars, as much as for practitioners and agencies working in the field. Through this website students are given access to some of the major theories in the field, as well as to the practitioners, organizations and agencies that work in specific regions of the world. Practitioners can also use this site to compare their work to the relevant theory, as well as to other case studies around the world. Rather than giving all the answers to "life's persisting questions" the site should serve as a general map, orienting the user to the link or location where more profound answers can be found.

The Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, has provided the valuable time, resources and patience needed to develop and construct a web project that can be passed on to future generations of students. Over the years, the project will continue to be perfected and adapted to a changing reality; and the information on the site will be constantly revised, as it is criticized or modified by theoreticians, practitioners as well as the changes in the real world.

We are especially grateful to Dr. I William Zartman, director of the Conflict Management Program, whose support, guidance and vision made this project possible. We are also grateful to SAIS and the Conflict Management Program, and especially to Isabelle Talpain-Long for working with us.  Furthermore, we would like to thank Dr. Donald Rothchild and Dr. Saadia Touval, who have both been involved at different levels of development, offering constructive advice and critique.

For questions regarding the toolkit, please contact Amelia Branczik at ameliabranczik@yahoo.com.

For more information about the Conflict Management Program at SAIS, see www.sais-jhu.edu/programs/ir/cm.  For information about the graduate programs at SAIS see www.sais-jhu.edu.