Institute for War and Peace Reporting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Institute for War & Peace Reporting (or IWPR for short) is an international media development charity, established in 1991. It runs major programmes in Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Iraq, with offices in Almaty, Baku, Belgrade, Bishkek, Dushanbe, The Hague, Kabul, Priština, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tashkent, Tbilisi and Yerevan.
IWPR is an international network of three organisations which are governed by boards of senior journalists, peace-building scholars, regional specialists and business professionals. The Institute is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom, an organisation with tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) in the United States, and a Section 21 not-for-profit organisation in South Africa.
The organisation produces a free news bulletin which is emailed out weekly to subscribers in almost every country of the world. The reports are from their staff on the ground and focus on issues broadly to do with human rights and development.
[edit] History
The organization was founded during the fall 1991 under the name Yugofax. Started by American Tony Borden, Britons Ben Cohen and Vanessa Quick as well as Serbian journalist Miloš Vasić, Yugofax was initially a newsletter that focused on the troubling developments throughout the Balkans from a liberal perspective.
As the Balkan conflict soon developed into an all out war, Yugofax newsletter changed its name to Balkan War Report.
Eventually, in late 1995, after the Dayton Peace Accord was signed thus ending the war in Bosnia, the newsletter expanded its area of focus to other global trouble spots (initially mainly focusing on ex-Soviet republics) and adjusted its name to simply War Report.
In 1998, the newsletter changed its name again, this time to Institute for War & Peace Reporting and registered as a non-governmental organization. Around the same time, a rift within the organization occurred between the original founders resulting in two original founders leaving as well as some members of the organization's board of trustees. Among those leaving on the occasion were significant contributors such as Sheena McDonald and Miloš Vasić.p.26
