Peace Direct currently works with local peacebuilders in 14 countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas.*

Asia and the Middle East

Across Asia and the Middle East, we work with 10 peacebuilding partners.

• In Afghanistan, we partner with an organisation that defends women rights and helps women find employment to support their families.
• We have multiple partners in Pakistan who are tackling human rights restrictions  and supporting young people to build a non-violent future.
• In Syria, we partner with groups  providing free education and mental health care to children and  parents impacted by the conflict.
• Our partner in Sri Lanka focuses on addressing conflict between religious and regional groups.
• And in 2025, we are exploring ways to support peacebuilding organisations in Palestine.

Discover our partners across Asia and the Middle East.

Africa

The majority of our ongoing partnerships are across Africa, where we work with 14 local partners running diverse peacebuilding initiatives.

• In DRC, these range from creating local warning systems to prevent violence to using sports to bridge divides, as well as sharing messages of peace with local communities over the radio.
• In Sudan, our partner is responding to the civil war; providing trauma support, countering misinformation, and tackling hateful language.
• We work with organisations in Nigeria and Zimbabwe to address violence against women and support non-violent elections.
• Our partners in Mali and the Central African Republic focus on the role young people can play in promoting peace and ending cycles of violence.

Discover our partners across Africa.

Americas

In 2023, we set up new partnerships with three peacebuilding organisations in Colombia:

• Agenda Joven, which focuses on the participation of young people in peacebuilding.
• Justapaz, which promotes non-violence through training for civil society.
• Redepaz, a network with a 30-year history of promoting citizen participation in peacebuilding.

Learn more about these partners.

* For security reasons, we cannot list all of the countries we work in – nor all the partners we support –  on our website

Our work around the world goes beyond our relationships with our partners.

Across all the regions, we support the next generation of peacebuilders, working with our local partners to identify people with bright ideas to change the future, and providing them with small amounts of funding to test those ideas. This work has funded hundreds of initiatives in just a few years, all taking innovative approaches to address the unique needs of their communities. Learn more about this work here.

Strengthening networks

We also try to strengthen the networks of local peacebuilders in every country – and across borders. We hope that by connecting peacebuilders across a country or region, they will have greater impact together. We hope they will be more respected and brought into national peace processes, will be able to respond faster and more effectively to emergencies, and will be able to take action together to counter rising trends of violence.

Sharing perspectives of local peacebuilders

Finally, we work with local experts around the world, including where we don’t have partnerships, to identify new peacebuilders and organisations. We showcase these peacebuilders on our sister platform, Peace Insight, to raise the visibility of their work and connect them with potential funders.

How do we choose which countries to work in?

We work across a broad range of countries. We balance our impact across places with active large conflict like civil war, with places in a ‘post-conflict’ or ‘dormant’ stage, where conflict is more local.  

We want to work in places the international community and media has neglected.  This means countries where violence is destroying lives, but international support is limited or has been cut off. 

What do we consider when choosing a new partner?

When considering whether to start working in a new country, we think about several factors: 

• What is the current state of conflict in the country? How much support is the international community already providing? 

• Is there an organisation or individual whose work we’re keen to support?  

• What difference will support from Peace Direct make? What value can we add? 

Our decisions about where to work are not always about choosing a specific country. Instead we might look to partner with a particular organisations. When choosing partners, we look for groups with strong connections with local communities. We want to work with partners who are committed to locally led peacebuilding, and who value inclusion and nonviolence. We also look to support partners that are already making a difference to their communities, or have the potential to make even more impact. 

In 2025, we are exploring the possibility of working with an organisation in Palestine. We will start by collaborating with them to identify the best ways we can lay the foundations for a future free from violence.