WEEK THREE: The Path to World Peace: Worms & Ballot Boxes

Honestly, I was squirming in my seat when the 3 foot long guinea worm was pulled out of the girl’s foot in The Carter Center Health Programs video from Sudan. I was sitting side-by-side with the other summer interns during an informational session, and I’d like to point out that I was not the only one squirming. It wasn’t until quite a bit later in the day that I put the real pieces together: it’s not about killing disgusting worms; it’s about creating political stability.

The Carter Center (TCC) has several hallmark programs and outstanding accomplishments that solidify the NGO’s place as an effective implementer of social advancement. However, when you look at its list of activities and programs, it seems a little like a hodgepodge: programs focusing on disease eradication and mental health, peace programs furthering democratic principles and human rights, conflict resolution programs establishing judicial systems, national election monitoring, and increasing access to information in China. Hmmm…a hodgepodge?

Quite the contrary.

Instead, it is a systematic plan to create peace in some of the poorest areas of the world where “the bottom billion” fight to survive each and every day.

This weekend, all of the summer interns had the enjoyable opportunity of participating in a retreat. Unlike many “retreats” that consist of weird games and insufficient amounts of caffeine, this retreat was like a 24 hour crash course in organizational development. Guess who the case study was? The Carter Center.

After losing my appetite over the guinea worm, the light bulb went on in my head when I was listening to the incredibly informative Kelly Callahan discuss TCC’s Health Programs. After listing the unbelievable achievements in nearly eradicating guinea worm and reducing trachoma and river blindness, she said, “this is how The Carter Center creates peace.” Peace? But she’s talking about health programs. I swear I was listening. What did I miss?

There are so many reasons that lead a country to civil war, that divide groups of people within a state, that make religious factions take up arms, but what’s the controversial or divisive thought behind fighting disease? Both Khartoum and South Sudan want to eradicate guinea worm. The former government and the junta of Niger both want to eliminate trachoma. Here is something that unites people – something that can improve people’s lives and fight poverty, which one might argue, is the ultimate cause of civil war. In a world where Dr. John Stremlau says there are “no political solutions to these problems”, there are still answers - like fighting disease.

Dr. Stremlau, who is the Vice President of Peace Programs at TCC, is the kind of integrated thinker that sparks a young person to evaluate organizational development as it pertains to mission building. If TCC can figure out the right balance of programs, it can connect the steps from conflict resolution through political stability to peace. Look at Liberia - a country in the TCC portfolio. The Center started its work there with mediation in the early 1990s and is now working to improve the judicial system including citizen access to justice. In Sudan, The Center is working through its health programs and through election monitoring to get access to the country’s people while leading up to the January referendum that will decide the country’s fate. If TCC can leverage its comparative advantage in Africa to build a partnership with China’s recent intervention, it can broker a deeper dialogue about democratic reform in the People’s Republic. Then, maybe it will be possible for democracy to “win both the moral argument and the political argument”, and that pathway might include a joint trachoma elimination program in Ghana between TCC and China.

So if the goal is as Dr. Stremlau says, “creating politically stable states”, then that guinea worm is pretty important to world peace. No more squirming.