In November and December 2017 Peace Direct held a collaborative online consultation for experts and practitioners to discuss the nexus between atrocity prevention and peacebuilding, and to share their insight and experiences. Following the consultation, this report presents the analysis and recommendations from participants, and advocates for the recognition of the role that locally-led peacebuilding approaches … Continued
The ways in which development programmes end, whether through a complete phase-out or a gradual hand-over to a local entity, has a significant impact on the success of a project. In order to better understand the multiple dynamics between international and local actors during aid exits and transitions, we held an online consultation that brought together 95 participants from over 40 countries to critically engage with discussions on: Power Dynamics in the Aid Sector, The Role of Local Actors and Capacity Building and Sustainability.
Despite growing evidence of the critical role local people play in tackling violence and building peace, only a small fraction of total funding for peacebuilding supports local organisations.
This learning summary highlights the main lessons from a project aiming to end a pervasive and persistent culture of violence in Zimbabwe by creating a community-wide mechanism to identify and respond to conflict, improve social cohesion and build peace.
This learning summary highlights lessons learned from a project supported by Peace Direct and implemented by Aware Girls in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, in rural districts where patriarchal norms were deeply entrenched. The project aimed to tackle the underlying causes for the low participation of women in political processes, and included empowering women to voice their opinions and improve their leadership skills, and contribute to countering the spread of extremist narratives in the conflict-affected region.
The concept of “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) has become central to the security policy of governments around the world. Yet despite the near-ubiquity of the term there is widespread disagreement over what the concept means.To explore these issues further Peace Direct held a collaborative research project for experts and practitioners interested in this area. Over 5 days in April 2017, 118 expert participants from 36 countries took part in a series of discussions around issues relating to violent extremism and peacebuilding. This report contains reflections from a number of the participants on some of the main themes and sessions from the w
In 2016 we supported 14,827 people to live safer, more peaceful lives as a result of our work with local people building peace around the world. Read the highlights in our impact report.
This report presents the analysis and recommendations of Zimbabwean civil society activists that emerged from a practitioner workshop (called a ‘Peace Exchange’ in this report) which took place in Harare in April 2017.
The rise of the concepts of ‘violent extremism’ (VE) and CVE has caused much discussion within peacebuilding communities around the world. Some see opportunities where the agenda of CVE and peacebuilding overlap, while others believe it is an agenda that distracts from the real root causes of conflict, and could actually undermine peacebuilding efforts. This online consultation brought together a range of experts in violent extremism and peacebuilding, from diverse contexts and expertise, to discuss these issues.
The field of ‘countering violent extremism’ (CVE) is a relatively young and fast-evolving one. Its origins in the security and defence arena, combined with a dominance by Western-based institutions and researchers, has resulted in little focus on locally-led peacebuilding perspectives and strategies. This report aims to redress that balance by highlighting local analysis and solutions following a consultation held in September 2016 with Pakistani peacebuilding practitioners and academics.