International Peace and Cooperation Centre IPCC, East Jerusalem

The IPCC, established in Jerusalem in 1997, is an independent Palestinian non-profit organization that develops proactive participatory activities with key stakeholders to initiate the social, cultural, political, and economic processes essential to a peaceful and prosperous future for the Palestinians. Amongst the wide ranging programme is the divided cities network:
In October 2001, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, the IPCC and the JIIS brought together experts and local decision-makers from Berlin and a team of Palestinian and Israeli planners and experts from Jerusalem to explore mechanisms of unification in Berlin and obstacles to the functioning and integration of the city. The work was undertaken to assist the Jerusalem team in analysing mechanisms of integration and separation and deciding how such mechanisms can be employed to shape Jerusalem’s urban environment and bring about a positive transformation there: from a city of conflict to one of peace. In January 2002, the Jerusalem-Berlin Forum (JBF) was established by a group of 30 experts (10 Palestinians, 10 Israelis, 10 Germans-among them decision makers, members of the local parliament and the former mayor of Berlin), which works jointly on identifying mechanisms and techniques that will help the transformation from conflict to peaceful relations in four major areas of interest; socio-cultural, infrastructure and urban development, politics and administration, and socio-economic relations.