In an effort to tell positive stories we are starting a weekly Peace Indicator. Our idea is to find simple figures that show progress toward peace in the world.
This week’s Peace Indicator: $49 million
Photo Credit: Terry Foss
The Obama Administration’s budget request for the State Department includes $49 million for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in 2010. This is a huge increase over last year’s $31 million budget.
USIP is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution funded by the US government. USIP provides programs to promote peace and stability through nonviolent means. They try to get involved before, during, and after conflicts to do everything they can to help prevent and heal conflicts.
USIP also conducts research into new tools to support peacemaking throughout the world. While $49 million is still far too little for the government to spend on this type of work, the large increase is still a hopeful sign.
The idea for the Peace Indicator came from NPR’s Planet Money podcast which starts each episode by providing a simple economic indicator. Their indicators range widely from obscure financial figures to the number of car salesmen that called a listener in response to one email (5).
We’d like to have a similar wide range of indicators, but we’ll need help. If you have can think of any simple figures that show progress toward peace, please tell us about them.
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