The Center for International Policy and Innovation (CIPI) has signed on as a “Festival Celebrity” sponsor of the Carnegie Mellon University International Film Festival. In its seventh year, the 2013 theme “Faces of Media” features new and award-winning films from over a dozen countries from March 21 – April 13. The goal according to film festival organizers, is to expose participants to a variety of “contemporary issues concerning the societal effects of rapid globalized media development, such as violence, (in)justice, identity transformation....”

On Wednesday, February 20, Dr. Jendayi Frazer, Distinguished Service Professor within Carnegie Mellon University’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Heinz College, participated in a panel discussion on the 2013 presidential elections in Kenya at the Brooking Institution, as part of the event “Kenya Decides: The 2013 Presidential Election.” Panelists offered their analysis of the pre-election environment and country’s preparations for the March contest. Kenyans will go the polls on March 4 to elect a President and local level officials in the first contest following the December 2007 elections and subsequent violence that gripped the country.

On February 20, Frazer will participate in a panel discussion on the upcoming presidential election in Kenya at the Brookings Institution. On March 21, CIPI will host the 2013 Electoral Violence Lecture from noon – 2 p.m., Thursday, March 21 at the University Club in Washington, D.C. The second annual electoral violence lecture series will take place just after the first round of elections in Kenya and prior to the beginning of Zimbabwe’s electoral process.