The Bulan Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, peace-building organization that focuses on maintaining peace through human security advocacy. The concept of human security focuses on the security and human rights of individuals and their protection from political violence, war, injustice and despotism. As such, we work to promote peace by asserting that human rights and security are closely interwoven and human security is key for modern peacebuilding. This stems from the conviction that human rights and security, through their interconnectedness and the indivisibility, are the cornerstones of peace.

                                                OUR MISSION         

The Bulan Institute is a non-governmental organization that works as an independent platform to produce and disseminate expertise, advocate for human security, and initiate dialogue bringing together  experts, international institutions, civil society and governments.  As such, we contribute to peacebuilding in our focus regions by advocating for human security through research, expert analysis, and dialogue to find peaceful and creative solutions.

                                                OUR VISION

In a world of emerging security threats, human rights and security are indivisible and inalienable. Each individual has a right to both security and human rights and the two should be guaranteed and secured to maintain and promote peace.

                                             FOCUS REGIONS

Our focus regions are Central Asia, Eurasia and South Asia, where the security landscape has been beset by fundamental challenges to human safety, such as threats to democratic processes, civil war, violent extremism and terrorism, arms proliferations and innovations, corruption and despotism. The Bulan Institute has worked for  the last two years in Central Asia and in 2019 we expanded our regional focus to Eurasia and South Asia.

                                      HOW WE WORK

We conduct research, and based on findings of our analysis we do informed advocacy for the promotion of human rights, security and peacebuilding. The current complex security challenges  require careful analysis, creative risk management and on-the-ground know-how.We conduct field  research and expert analyses, advocate for peaceful and pragmatic solutions, provide independent expert analysis, and organize expert meetings, conferences and panel discussions. We also design innovative projects involving media, art and new technologies thatcontribute to building dialogue, addressing human rights violations, and raising awareness of systemic issues in the region of focus- Central Asia, Eurasia and South Asia.

We conduct field research that incorporates original voices and in-house experts. This decentralized and diverse approach to advocating for peaceful and pragmatic solutions ensures that we provide the highest attainable professional quality of research and policymaking.

                                            FOCUS AREAS           

Our primary focus areas for the upcoming five years will be preventing violent extremism and the human rights and security implications of arms trade and innovation. Situational human rights analyses in our focus regions will also remain our priority.

Furthermore, the Institute strives to continue working on the prevention of violent extremism, focusing on the repatriation and integration of returning foreign fighters in ourfocus regionsto find good governance practices vis-à-vis this issue. Another focus area is the human rights implications of arms proliferation and innovation. To this end, we advocate for setting common standards for responsible export practices and regulation regarding armed drone proliferation. Dialogue on armed drones combines research, expert analysis and advocacy work.

                                              PREVIOUS PROJECTS

For the last two years, the Bulan Institute has worked on preventing violent extremism in Central Asia with a project that looks into the role of madrasas and other Islamic education institutions to prevent radicalization. We  advocated for an improvement of both the curriculum and study conditions within this system. For instance, our research project in Bishkek published four reports, by analyzing religious education institutions in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, on how Kyrgyzstani people receivereligious education and how religious education abroad can change their behavior.

                                        FUNDRAISING

The Bulan Institute is a non-profit and non-governmental organization that accepts donations and grants. In order to ensure our independence we do not accept government funds, directly or indirectly, or support from any private funder that could compromise our objectivity and independence.