Conferences and Training Workshops (May through August)
American University, School of International Service, Peacebuilding and Development, Summer Institute (Washington, DC, May 2013): This professional training programme provides — for development workers, government officials, conflict resolution practitioners and graduate students working in conflict zones — courses that are specifically designed to focus on bridging the fields of peacebuilding and development. Participants will explore the relationships between religion, culture, human rights, the media and gender. Training programmes are available to the public and are offered in three sessions including: (1) 13–17 May, ‘Religion, Culture, and Conflict Resolution and Designing Programs for Children in Adversity’; (2) 17–19 May, ‘Trauma Sensitive Peacebuilding, Development and Humanitarian Aid and Media and Peacebuilding’; (3) 20–24 May, ‘Monitoring and Evaluation for Peacebuilding Programs and Women's Leadership and Peacebuilding’. For more information and to register, visit http://www.american.edu/sis/cpd/Summer-Institute.cfm
Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute 2013 Annual Peacebuilding Training (Mindanao, Philippines, 20 May to 7 June): The Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) 2013 Annual Peacebuilding Training will consist of 13 courses taught by a distinguished roster of facilitators from Asia–Pacific, Africa and North America. Courses are broken into three areas: Foundation, Thematic and Field-Based. For more information on course dates and themes and to apply, visit http://www.mpiasia.net/programs-and-services/educationtraining/annual-training.html or contact the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute at [email protected]
Eastern Mennonite University Summer Peacebuilding Institute 2013 (Harrisonburg, Virginia, 6 May to 14 June): The Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) offers four seven-day sessions, each with four to six courses running at the same time. Course topics include peacebuilding and conflict-sensitive development, conflict analysis, and peacebuilding programme design. For more information on courses, costs, admissions and to apply, visit http://www.emu.edu/cjp/spi/ or contact the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at [email protected]
Monitoring and Evaluation for Conflict Interventions: Training in Methods and Tools Applied to Peace-Building and Recovery Initiatives (Brussels, 3–5 June):
This course covers the basics of evaluation for interventions that take place in situations of fragility, tension or open conflict. It will cover the specific challenges to evaluation, such as rudimentary plans, lack of information, or complex implementation structures, as well as evaluation criteria, data collection methods and analysis, evaluation management, and ethics in evaluation related to conflict prevention and peacebuilding. It is intended for practitioners who have already engaged in evaluations or who have carried out work in or on conflict. For more information on the course, including fees, contact Farzana Islam at [email protected]
E-Communications
Local First
Local First is a development approach that looks first for the capacity within countries before bringing in external expertise and resources, recognises that much of this capacity is found outside central government and understands that local people need to lead their own development. The Local First website aims to develop a community of practice and knowledge around this approach, and to offer information and debate for those who are already working or would like to work in a Local First way.
Institute of Development Studies Governance and Development Blog
http://www.governanceanddevelopment.com
The Governance and Development blog is written by members of the Governance Team at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK. The authors offer new ideas and challenge conventional thinking on state capacity, the relationship between government and citizens, and security and peacebuilding.
Book Notices
Local First: Development for the Twenty-First Century
Kate McGuinness, ed.
CreateSpace 2012
ISBN 978-1481120241
Written by six international development agencies, Local First examines successful peacebuilding programmes that have been led by local people. It ranges across many aspects of preventing and resolving conflicts — from disarming rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to supporting small and medium enterprises in Afghanistan, from holding governments to account in Timor-Leste, to improving justice in Cambodia. These issues reflect the World Bank's World Development Report 2011, which identified as key priorities the improvement of security, justice and livelihoods in conflict zones.
Conflict and Peacebuilding in the African Great Lakes Region
Kenneth Omeje and Tricia Redeker Hepner, eds
Indiana University Press 2013
ISBN 978-0253008428
Owing to genocide, civil war, political instabilities and ethnic and pastoral hostilities, the African Great Lakes region, primarily Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi, has been overwhelmingly defined by conflict. Kenneth Omeje, Tricia Redeker Hepner and an international group of scholars, many from the Great Lakes region, focus on the interlocking conflicts and efforts towards peace in this multidisciplinary volume. These essays present a range of debates and perspectives on the history and politics of conflict, highlighting the complex internal and external sources of both persistent tension and creative peacebuilding. Taken together, the essays illustrate that no single perspective or approach can adequately capture the dynamics of conflict or offer successful strategies for sustainable peace in the region.
Globalization, Social Movements, and Peacebuilding
Jackie Smith and Ernesto Verdeja, eds
Syracuse University Press 2013
ISBN 978-0815633211
Each year, governments spend billions of dollars on peacekeeping efforts around the world, and much more is spent on humanitarian aid to refugees and other victims of armed struggle. Yet research shows that nearly half of all countries experiencing civil war see renewed violent conflict within five years of a peace agreement. How do we account for such a poor track record? The authors in this volume consider how global capitalism affects fragile peace processes, arguing that the international economic system itself is a major contributor to violent conflict. By including the work of anthropologists, economists, religious studies experts, sociologists and political scientists, this book presents a broad yet thorough exploration of the complexities of peacebuilding in a global market economy. Included in the volume are specific studies of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as considerations of conflicts on the global scale.
Peacebuilding in Practice: Local Experience in Two Bosnian Towns
Adam Moore
Cornell University Press 2013
ISBN 978-0801451997
Mostar's problems are often cited as emblematic of the failure of international efforts to overcome the deep divisions that continue to stymie the postwar peace process in Bosnia. Mostar remains mired in distrust and division, but the Brcko District in the northeast corner of the country has become a model of what Bosnia could be. Its multi-ethnic institutions operate well compared with other municipalities, and are broadly supported by those who live there; it also boasts the only fully integrated school system in the country. What accounts for the striking divergence in postwar peacebuilding in these two towns? Through a grounded analysis of localised peacebuilding dynamics in these two cities Moore generates a powerful argument concerning the need to rethink how peacebuilding is done — that is, a shift in the culture that governs international peacebuilding activities and priorities today.
Water and Post-conflict Peacebuilding
Erika Weinthal, Jessica J. Troell & Mikiyasu Nakayama, eds
Routledge 2013
ISBN 978-1849712323
Shared waters have proven to be the natural resource with the greatest potential for interstate cooperation and local confidence-building. Indeed, water management plays a singularly important role in rebuilding trust after conflict and in preventing a return to conflict. Featuring 19 case studies and analyses of experiences from 27 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, and drawing on the experiences of 35 researchers and practitioners from around the world, this book creates a framework for understanding how decisions governing water resources in post-conflict settings can facilitate or undermine peacebuilding. The book is part of the Peacebuilding and Natural Resource Management series, which aims to identify and analyse lessons in post-conflict peacebuilding and natural resource management.
Peacemaking and Expert Politics in the Middle East: Anticipations, Knowledges and Entanglements
Riccardo Bocco & Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, eds
Routledge forthcoming 2014
ISBN 978-0415526234
This edited volume proposes a new conceptual framework for the analysis of expert knowledge in peacemaking, as well as providing policy-relevant analysis of the Middle East peace process. The book presents ethnographic and historical accounts of the diverse institutions and actors that act in the name of peacemaking/peacekeeping in the Arab world (UN, NGOs, diplomats, thinktanks, consultants, mediators). It analyses the ways in which peace experts produce knowledge, undertake advocacy, secure legitimacy and address problems and constituencies, as well as delineating the interactions and entanglements of these experts with other professionals in adjacent fields (development, media, state politics, bureaucracy, local community authorities). The volume argues for a new perception of the question of peace in the Middle East which regards peacemaking primarily as a field of power, expert authority and struggles for hegemony. The book advocates a theoretical reorientation of the debates on peacemaking in relation to expert knowledge of the field.
Documents and Reports
Addressing Horizontal Inequalities as Drivers of Conflict in the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Larry Attree, Henk-Jan Brinkman & Saša Hezir
Saferworld 2013
http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/Inequalities-conflict-FV.pdf
Addressing inequalities is important not only for economic growth, development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) but also from a peace and security perspective. Produced by Saferworld and the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office to feed into the joint Civil Society/UN consultation Global Thematic Consultation on Addressing Inequalities in the post-2015 development framework, this paper examines the evidence linking inequality to violent conflict and recommends ways this can be addressed in the post-2015 development framework.
Drawing on economic and social research, together with qualitative analysis from the Balkans, Melanesia, Africa, South and Central Asia and the Middle East, this paper describes how various inequalities — economic, political, cultural and those related to gender, security, justice and social services — can heighten group grievances and lead to conflict. The evidence reviewed also illustrates how conflict and violence play a role in worsening inequality. Based on this, the paper strengthens the case, from a peace perspective, for inequality to be addressed in the post-2015 framework both through policy commitments and in the way progress is measured.
Promoting Peace in the Post-2015 Framework: Brazil
Robert Muggah, Ivan Campbell, Eduarda Hamann, Gustavo Diniz & Marina Motta
Saferworld 2013
http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/Brazil-briefing-PDFFINALonwebsite.pdf
Brazil has a growing influence in the global political and economic system owing to the size of its economy, its role in Latin America and its increasingly assertive positions on international peace and security issues. Current international consultations to set out a new development framework post-2015 present an opportunity to reassess policy approaches to conflict-affected states. There is a real opportunity for conflict-affected states, traditional donors and rising powers to agree on a set of shared goals and indicators that can guide their engagement and facilitate greater coherence and cooperation. This briefing explores Brazil's engagement in conflict-affected states and its potential to contribute to peacebuilding, particularly in the context of the post-2015 development framework.
The BRICS and International Peacebuilding and Statebuilding
Oliver P. Richmond & Ioannis Tellidis
Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre 2013
The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil Russia India China South Africa) has generated a renewed debate about peacebuilding and donor activity. This has slowly influenced the aims, norms and practices of international peacebuilding, statebuilding and development. An examination of their engagement with interventionary forms of development, peacebuilding, statebuilding and their related institutions and practices shows that the BRICS can be both ‘status-quo’ and ‘critical’ actors. On the one hand, they all engage with the liberal peace paradigm and its often-neoliberal agenda that allows them to protect sovereignty and non-intervention, pursue trade interests and advance their own interests (such as a seat on the UN Security Council, regional stability or maintaining their often-ambiguous status of being both aid donors and recipients). On the other hand, their involvement has challenged peacebuilding's and development's Euro-Atlantic character through the unfolding of their own donor and peace agendas. This report highlights the instances in which traditional and emerging actors' agendas converge and diverge — and the motivations behind these agendas.
Linking Program Design and Evaluation in Peacebuilding: A Challenging Task
Center for Peacebuilding and Development School of International Service, American University; Search for Common Ground; & United States Institute of Peace 2013
http://dmeforpeace.org/sites/default/files/Linking%20Program%20Design%20and%20Evaluation.pdf
This report presents the findings from a thematic, meta-review of 10 project evaluation reports from four peacebuilding organisations working in Africa. The meta-review looked at the elements of project design and methods of evaluation included in the evaluation reports to assist evaluation commissioners and evaluators in organising and presenting data and evidence in a manner conducive to use. It also sought to glean trends, gaps and key questions for further work related to the improvement of the design, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding projects. The intended audience of this evaluation report is monitoring and evaluation specialists, evaluation commissioners, and evaluators. The secondary audience is practitioners, students and scholars interested in learning lessons in peacebuilding effectiveness.