1.10.2006, Berlin

The Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze (Center for International Peace Operations - ZIF) was established by the German Federal Govern­ment in June 2002 with the aim of enhancing Germany’s civilian crisis pre­vention capacities. ZIF’s core mandate is the training, recruitment, and support of German civilian personnel for peace operations and election observation missions conducted in particular by the OSCE, the EU, and the UN. An integral part of this mandate is the support of these tasks through the Analysis and Lessons Learned Unit. ZIF is, therefore, or­ga­nized into three units.

• the Training Unit prepares civilian personnel for future missions. Courses are conducted on the national and the European level and cover issues such as international humani­tarian law, intercultural communication, and elec­tion observation. Field exercises simulate complex risk situations such as moving in mined areas and hostage taking. ZIF cooperates closely with international organizations as well as other European training centers, and is a founding member of the EU Group on Training.
  
• the Recruitment Unit maintains a pool of pre-trained and pre-selected German civilian professionals. In close cooperation with the German Foreign Office, ZIF selects candi­dates from this pool and deploys them to peace and election observation missions. Currently, about 180 German professionals are serving in UN, EU, and OSCE field missions.  Since its founding, ZIF has also deployed more than 1300 German elec­tion observers all over the world.
  
• the Analysis and Lessons Learned Unit analyzes current international crisis management issues with special relevance for ZIF’s mandate and monitors developments in a range of areas such as rule of law programs in peace operations, the cooperation between civilian, police, and military actors, and organized crime in post-conflict areas.