Peacebuilding Experience Research Articles

Walking Towards Peace: Generating Synergies at a Regional Level

Walking Towards Peace is a regional community of practice made up of peace and justice organizations across Latin America and the Caribbean. Its goals are to build capacity for Catholic grassroots organizations with peacebuilding methodologies, to share peacebuilding experiences, and promote the role of the Catholic Church as an agent of peacebuilding. Through its cooperative regional focus and its focus on communities of practice, Walking Towards Peace exemplifies synodality in action, and it shows how synodality can be connected to peacebuilding praxis.

Theater-pedagogy, a peacebuilding experience in Antioquia, Colombia. Its contributions to mental health

Resumen El estudio de la salud mental, en Colombia y en el mundo, ha sido enfocado desde una perspectiva morbicéntrica y conductual. Este trabajo presenta un estudio de caso que tuvo como objetivo comprender de qué manera el proceso de formación en teatro-pedagogía, como iniciativa de construcción de paz, puede aportar a la salud mental. A partir de la confluencia del teatro social, la pedagogía crítica y las experiencias de vida de los y las participantes, se realizó análisis documental, y categorización al diario de campo, entrevistas y grupos de discusión. Participaron personas involucradas en la formación y público asistente en los foros de las presentaciones teatrales. Se encontraron elementos sobre sanación, cuerpo, juego, movimiento y simbolización en relación con salud mental. Se espera que este sea un aporte a la democratización en salud mental en contextos de sufrimiento social.

GENDER-RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE POLICIES – A PATH TO SUSTAINABLE PEACE AND POST‑CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION

The article is devoted to the legal basis and direction of the Government of Ukraine in the development of gender-responsive state policy of the transition period. The international principles and commitments of Ukraine in the framework of transitional justice, taking into account the gender aspect, are revealed, as well as the international and national commitments of Ukraine in the framework of involving women in peacebuilding and participation. The article presents international experience of taking into account international standards and norms in order to protect women’s rights and build peace. Global evidence indicates that women’s meaningful participation in peace negotiations increases the duration of peace. Peace agreements with female signatories are more durable and have a significantly higher number of provisions aimed at political reform and higher implementation rates. The recent study investigating 352 peace agreements in 64 countries between 1990 and 2019 also found that there was a significant increase in the share of peace agreements with gender provisions, from below 10% in the 1990s to 45% in 2013. Yet, this practice appears to have been halted. In 2019, the share of agreements with gender provisions was only at 29%. Despite an increasing evidence about the important role of women, their expertise and meaningful participation in preventing and addressing conflict and sustaining peace, women are still under- represented in the peace processes. Between 1992 and 2019, women constituted, on average, only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators, and 6% of signatories in major peace processes worldwide. Present peacebuilding experiences also indicate that peace is likely to be lasting only if the security needs of the population are addressed in parallel with the political and socioeconomic aspects of conflict resolution and post-conflict recovery. Women’s exposure to conflict may result in their new roles and responsibilities and may open new opportunities for their greater involvement in public life, including peace and security decision-making. Likewise, gender equality positively influences the cohesion and effectiveness of the security sector in increasingly multidimensional peace processes.

Youth, peace & security: gender matters in Asia and the Pacific

ABSTRACT Youth have long been involved in informal peacebuilding, and the United Nations’ recent adoption of the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda makes space for more formal involvement. These policy developments echo scholarship highlighting gender as crucial to understanding the roles and experiences of young people across a range of conflict-affected settings. This understanding is necessary to ensuring gender-equitable youth peacebuilding efforts. Yet much remains to be done in theory, policy, and practice to pursue these ends. This work will necessarily involve considering the diverse roles gender may play in young people’s everyday experiences of peacebuilding across a range of settings. The majority of the world’s young people reside in Asia and the Pacific. Yet, more research on YPS is needed in the region, particularly when it comes to accounting for gender. Reflecting on existing research, this article considers learnings to date and seeks to develop a future research agenda.

Promoting Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding experience in Palestine–Israel: normalising the status quo

Against the backdrop of enduring Israeli settler colonialist expansion in historic Palestine, the selective application of the Northern Ireland ‘Peace Process’ to the ‘Israel/Palestine Conflict’ ignores root causes and acts as a blunt instrument, one that sustains a deeply unjust status quo whilst eschewing decolonisation as the ultimate goal. We argue that the transposition of a Northern Irish peace model to Palestine/Israel serves to reinforce and embed the ‘conflict’ by promoting its own discourse of ‘peacebuilding’, one that is silent on the language of colonisation, which in turn marginalises the legitimacy of Palestinian anti-colonial resistance and prioritises westernised notions of ‘peace’ over international obligations to promote ‘justice’. Our argument is premised upon what is, in the main, a marginalised critique, namely that viewing the Northern Irish Peace Accord as ‘successful’ – an exemplary model suitable for application in other conflict/transitional spaces – depends on how one understands the agreement itself: as a tool to end ethnic conflict by fostering better cross-community relationships through a process of consociationalism that leads to reconciliation; or as a carefully constructed, bureaucratic means of providing a ruse of ‘peace’ whilst appeasing claims to self-determination and ignoring broader colonial history.

Civil Society Leaders’ Experiences of Peacebuilding in Londonderry/Derry City, Northern Ireland: Transforming Cultural and Psychological Barriers

This article reviews the empirical data the second author collected from 120 semi-structured interviews with the leaders of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and funding agency development officers conducted during the summer of 2010 in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. The research explores 44 Derry City respondents' experiences and perceptions regarding external economic aid in the Northern Ireland peace process. To this end, this article explores the role of economic aid from the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union (EU) Peace and Reconciliation or Peace 3 Fund in engaging with civil society in transforming psychological and cultural barriers towards building sustainable peace in Londonderry or Derry City. Themes emerged inductively from data. It includes the CSO leaders' and funding agency development officers' perspectives on building peace and both funds' impact on the Northern Ireland peacebuilding process. CSO leaders and funding agency development officers acknowledge the importance of external economic assistance support in development and forging cross-community contact projects. The interviewees also highlighted issues related to political participation, community competitiveness, and psychological barriers that emerge from CSOs working with both programs. Some of the conclusions are related to broadened peace process interventions to a multi-articulated approach that includes different areas of peacebuilding intervention.

Características de la intervención psicosocial en el Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio como escenario de construcción de paz en Colombia

Objetivo: el artículo busca analizar las características de intervención psicosocial del Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio (PDPMM) fundado en 1995 y resaltarlo como una experiencia gestada desde los grupos de base, develando las formas de participación ciudadana y de organización social. Metodología: la investigación se estructuró bajo un enfoque cualitativo, empleando el método de análisis de contenido, a través del instrumento de la matriz documental. Este proceso metodológico arrojó un análisis en tres momentos: el primero, la caracterización de la fundación del Programa; el segundo, la perspectiva teórica de lo psicosocial y, el tercero, el análisis de las características de intervención psicosocial del Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio (PDPMM). Resultados: se encontró que uno de los elementos principales del PDPMM fue definirse desde sus inicios como un proceso social en permanente construcción, cambiante, dinámico y sujeto a una recomposición de sí mismo. Por otro lado, se evidenció que es de vital importancia conocer y validar las experiencias de construcción de paz en Colombia, en este caso particular el PDPMM, que propone desde una metodología participativa, una alternativa para asumir y vivir un territorio, pensando lo regional y resignificando los procesos generados con los actores de la sociedad civil. Conclusiones: se concluye que con el Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio los procesos comunitarios fortalecieron la participación, el sujeto político, el tejido social y la construcción de lo público en aras de un bienestar colectivo.

Happiness as a measurement and goal of peacebuilding

ABSTRACTThe Global Peace Index (GPI) measures how ‘peaceful’ countries are, while the World Happiness Report (WHR) index measures how ‘happy’ their citizens are. But when compared side by side, the two sets of findings conspicuously do not match – apparently indicating that people who live in peace do not always live in happiness. To grapple with this interesting dissonance, let us assume that happiness is the ultimate goal in life – as proposed by the Benthamite philosophy – and that peace is therefore an instrumental good, much like health, freedom and autonomy. Once this is taken on principle, it follows that peacebuilding’s overall goal should be to make sure conflict-affected communities are happy. This paper investigates what the results of peacebuilding would look like if they were measured using the GPI and WHR at the same time. Using the former Yugoslavia countries as a case study, it asks whether these countries’ post-conflict experiences of peacebuilding can help explain their WHR and GPI results. The intention is to start a meaningful debate on what peacebuilding’s overall objective should be – and to examine whether the measurement of happiness could be a useful starting point.

Women’s experiences of peacebuilding in violence-affected communities in Kenya

Despite the attention to gender and conflict in empirical positivist peace research, and the interest in local agency in recent peacebuilding literature, women’s understandings and lived experiences of peacebuilding are not necessarily well accounted for. This article, drawing on interviews, focus groups and observation research with 57 female victims/survivors of post-election violence in Kenya, provides an ethnographic study of women’s largely informal peacebuilding activities, ranging from mediation and dialogue to economic empowerment. It analyses women’s constructions and ways of making sense of being peacebuilders, demonstrating that, while participants employed dominant gender frames, they exerted considerable transformative agency in their communities. It argues that their ‘gendered responsibility for peace’ at community level is simultaneously empowering and disempowering. The research aims to increase understanding of the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the ways in which women exercise peacebuilding agency through a focus on their own voices and lived experiences.

ÇATIŞMA SONRASI BÖLGELERE YÖNELİK BİR ÇÖZÜM OLARAK LİBERAL BARIŞ TEORİSİ: TEORİK BİR İNCELEME

The current situation in post-conflict zones illustrate that liberal statebuilding policies as well as critical perspectives are inadequate to build sustainable and viable alternatives. Critical concepts - such as hybridity, everyday peace and local-centred- as well as the liberal peace thesis, have become a kind of orthodoxy in the literature. Although these critical concepts offer alternative human-centric solutions, in most conflict zones they seem inapplicable due to harsh and violent socio-political and economic conditions. This article makes an in-depth analysis of the Liberal Peace Theory as the facilitator of contemporary peacebuilding experiences and justification of the liberal interventions. The paper aims to illustrate the necessity of a contingency approach which considers the contextual differences of various post-conflict zones. This contingency approach rejects the orthodoxy of the liberal peace theory and its justifications as well as its criticisms having hegemonic perspectives in the literature.

Могут ли страны БРИКС сотрудничать в вопросах международной безопасности?

The BRICS have made considerable strides in economic and development cooperation, yet the coalition has not been as successful in formulating and implementing an agenda of its own to address international security despite clear signs that the coalition wishes to promote cooperation in this area. Why, then, have the BRICS been slower to cooperate on security issues, and what are the prospects for intensifying cooperation in this area? This article analyses BRICS cooperation agenda-setting in international security against the backdrop of the coalition’s efforts to institutionalize itself as a flexible yet coherent entity and an influential collective actor in international affairs. Drawing on key BRICS documents and reports related to security meetings, I examine three types of security-related efforts that have been made since the first summit, in 2009.These include attempts to coordinate positions on specific security issues, namely armed conflicts, and related normative stances; efforts to coordinate policies; and institution-building initiatives. I find that the bulk of BRICS security discussions have focused on the first category, with some effort to coordinate policy and minimal progress in institution-building in the security arena. This finding shows that international security has not, thus far, been among the “paths of least resistance” that the grouping’s diverse members have found in their efforts to deepen intra-group collaboration-a fact that can be explained by citing internal differences as well as contextual factors. However, the hurdles to a more cohesive BRICS security agenda are not insurmountable, although they may restrict the gamut of topics addressed by the coalition’s cooperation efforts. In particular, there is an unexplored area in which the five states could enhance their security cooperation while drawing on their development and peace-building experiences and preferences: that of conflict prevention.

El Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio – ¿Un modelo de construcción de paz para el post conflicto en Colombia?

Esta ponencia incide sobre una experiencia <em>sui generis</em> de construcción de paz en Colombia – el Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio (PDPMM). El objetivo principal es evaluar en qué medida el PDPMM se concibe como un verdadero “laboratorio de paz” y abre caminos novedosos y “fórmulas” alternativas para la paz a nivel local y regional, que se podrán replicar en otras regiones del país, en un potencial escenario de post-conflicto en Colombia. La hipótesis de trabajo es que el PDPMM se configura como un modelo consolidado y válido de construcción de paz positiva a nivel regional, de lo cual se pueden rescatar diversas enseñanzas y “buenas prácticas” para la construcción de una paz sostenible y duradera en Colombia.

Civil Community-Peacekeeper Relations in UN Peacebuilding: The Case of South Asian Peacekeepers

Building peace to prevent the recurrence of conflict is an inevitable role of United Nations peacekeeping operations today. As this activity increasingly occurs in populated, low-intensity conflict areas, relations between peacekeepers and civil communities become significant. Peacebuilding cannot achieve any level of success unless it is directly relevant to the communal needs of the local people. Building an alliance for peace in civil communities is vital not only for strengthening civil community-peacekeeper relations but also for fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility in local minds. By examining the peacebuilding experience of South Asian states, this article shows that the complex, sensitive and volatile nature of today’s operational environments have necessitated employing soft aspects of military science as part of a community-centered approach to peacebuilding.

The Role of Rotary Clubs in Post-Conflict Peace Building: A Case of Northern Uganda (2006-2010)

This paper presents the Peace building experience of Rotary Clubs in Northern Uganda between 2006 and 2010, so as to identify their contributions in post-conflict peace building processes. Through the Reflective Peace Practice (RPP) analytical framework, the paper presents an insight into Rotary clubs’ post-conflict Peace building interventions in the Northern Ugandan districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Lira and Pader. The paper is premised on the theoretical framework of Rotary’s outline of international service that identifies the paths to peace as: patriotism, conciliation, freedom, progress, justice, sacrifice, and loyalty. The paper discusses Rotary clubs’ peace building projects in Northern Uganda as clustered along three generic lines: the improvement of health, alleviation of poverty, and education support. The effectiveness of the “paths to peace” principles was hampered by challenges such as: the eroded core values of the people owing to life in Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps, the beneficiary non-ownership of Rotary projects, the difficulty in recruitment and maintenance of Rotary clubs’ membership as well as limited funding. The paper acknowledges that Rotary clubs’ approaches to peace building especially the peaceplus ‘model’ has potential if adapted to the local context, to contribute to conflict transformation efforts in post conflict Northern Uganda

Mind the gap: the importance of local institutional development in peace-building-funded security interventions

In this paper, the authors analyse current spending priorities of the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF)-funded security sector reform (SSR) programmes. They conclude that these spending priorities do not appear to support traditional components of SSR and underfund programmes needed for the development of local public administration and civil society. This is observed despite the published commitments of UN PBF funding priorities to include the strengthening of national institutions in the context of support to the wider security and justice sectors.1 The underfunding of civil society and local administration has been shown to undermine PBF's goals for the type of liberal democratic reform upon which peace-building, conflict management and conflict prevention rests. Focusing on the importance of accountability, the authors build on the scholarship of the rule of law literature to explore wider concerns associated with limited support to local public institutions and civil society. Drawing on empirical research on the peace-building experience in Sierra Leone, the authors reflect on concerns with the effects of past and current funding priorities and expose a number of ‘capacity deficits’ which have emerged in the wake of PBF funding patterns. The article concludes with several recommendations for a contextual approach to the development of local institutions and civil society in PBF-recipient countries more generally, and in Sierra Leone more specifically. This work contributes to the growing literature that seeks to link security sector reform with the need for a more nuanced approach to peace-building.

Expectations and Experiences of Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone: Parallel Peacebuilding Processes and Compound Friction

This article investigates local experiences of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone and explains how these experiences were influenced by the parallel administration of many peacebuilding processes. Using qualitative data it shows how the goals and procedures of these various processes overlapped and interacted in the imaginations of local people, generated unpredicted expectations, and eventually led to negative experiences of the Commission's work. I describe how Tsing's idea of ‘friction’ can helpfully explain local experiences of peacebuilding and the new concept of ‘compound friction’ is introduced as a tool for understanding the local impacts of parallel peacebuilding processes.

The Role of Women in International Peacebuilding: An Islamic Perspective

Dr. Aida Abadžic Hodžic is Senior Lecturer at the Art History Department, Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. The name of this colloquium, with all its three aspects, indicates already the complexity and extraordinary relevance of the selected topic: the role of women, the process of building and maintaining peace in the world, and the interreligious perspective. In the first part, I will present some of the central principles and teachings of Islam in relation to the position, significance, and role of woman; then in the second, I will refer to the foundational views in Islam about peace, mercy, and justice; and in the concluding part, I will examine a contemporary Muslim peacebuilding experience, focusing specifically on the role and significance of Muslim woman in the process. At the same time, I will take a look at the modern, post-war experience of Bosnian society, which faces many problems and challenges, such as coming to terms with the harrowing events from a recent past that includes a large number of killed and displaced persons, processing all those responsible for war crimes, and finding basic preconditions for reconciliation and renewed coexistence. This experience also may be viewed as a model for future reflection on these issues in a wider, European political and social context.

Jordanian-Israeli relations: the peacebuilding experience

1. Introduction 2. The Long Journey To Peace: Jordanian-Israeli Relations until the Treaty of Peace of 1994 3. Achieving and Building Peace 4. Obstacles to a Warm Peace at the Structural Level 5. The Refugee Question and Peace 6. Leaderships and the Peacebuilding Process 7. The Road to a Warm Peace

Coordinating Philanthropy for Peace

AbstractCollaboration at many levels – between governments, non-governmental organizations, regional groups, and academic disciplines – will create the fabric from which a durable peace can be established in the post-9/11 era. Private foundations, even without the vast resources of government agencies, can play an important catalytic role in encouraging collaboration across the spectrum of peacebuilding. Transaction costs and barriers to negotiation can make collaboration difficult for foundations and grantees, but the potential gains from collaboration overcome the costs of time and the risks of uncertainty inherent in collaborative ventures. Foundations can be especially helpful in establishing collaborations linking theory and practice (especially in the area of evaluation); in bringing together grantees in particular geographical areas; and in helping disseminate best practices and lessons learned from peacebuilding experiences. Foundations can create an even stronger voice for peacebuilding if foundation leaders are willing to join together as effectively in the peace and security area as they do in areas such as the environment and public health.

Searching for OAS/UN task-sharing opportunities in Central America and Haiti

As is true in other parts of the world, the United Nations (UN) is playing an increasing role in Central America and the Caribbean. After 45 years of self-prescribed ostracism, the UN has launched its first peacekeeping operation in the hemisphere, monitored and verified elections, mediated peace negotiations and helped implement peace agreements. Moreover, the role of the UN in El Salvador and Haiti is considered by many as exemplary peacebuilding experience.