Summary Report Local peacebuilding June 2019 What works and why ii | Local peacebuilding: What works and why Local peacebuilding: What works and why | iii Abbreviations DRC Democratic Republic of Congo DM&E Design, Monitoring and Evaluation NGO Non-governmental organization SDG Sustainable Development Goals UN United Nations Acknowledgements This is a summary version of a longer report which is available online at: https://www.peaceinsight.org/reports/whatworks This research was conducted and the final report written by Phil Vernon under the guidance of a steering group consisting of Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Elizabeth Hume, Dylan Mathews, Bridget Moix and Sarah Phillips. The research benefited from support by Mohamed Ismail, Vahe Mirikian and Shaziya Netto, and we would also like to thank Ken Barlow for editorial support. The author retains final responsibility for all errors of fact or judgement. We acknowledge and thank all the organizations who contributed source documents, and particularly those who kindly agreed to the inclusion of references to their work in the text. This report would not have been possible without generous financial support from Milt Lauenstein. Local peacebuilding: What works and why | iii Preface Although the Global Peace Index recorded the fi rst eff ecti veness and impact, and a lack of contextual increase in global peacefulness in fi ve years in 2019, understanding sti ll hampers eff orts to provide the facts on the ground in many countries speak ti mely, fl exible support to local peacebuilding to a diff erent reality; one where communiti es are eff orts. In additi on, existi ng policy commitments at being torn apart by violence that was both avoidable the UN level have not yet been operati onalized. and, in many cases, predictable. In the past month, conti nued violence in central Mali threatens to This report, a joint collaborati on between Peace spiral out of control, with the latest att ack resulti ng Direct and the Alliance for Peacebuilding, aims to in the deaths of scores of people. In May, the UN address one of the questi ons we oft en hear from esti mates that 300,000 people fl ed the violence policymakers and donors around the eff ecti veness in Ituri province in DRC, hampering the ongoing of local peacebuilding eff orts. If concerns about the Ebola response eff orts. And in Sri Lanka, the Easter eff ecti veness of local eff orts is one of the reasons Sunday terrorist att acks have led to a series of for the lack of investment by governments and retaliati ons against Muslim communiti es across the multi lateral insti tuti ons, we hope that our analysis country, with over 1,000 Muslim refugees originally of over 70 evaluati ons collected from a diverse from Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan fl eeing just one range of organizati ons and contexts across the town. All the while the global number of refugees world will help strengthen the case for support. conti nues growing to unprecedented levels as The examples in this report and the accompanying people fl ee violent confl ict. website not only speak of remarkable heroism; they demonstrate tangible impacts on the ground in What links the examples above, and many other places where violence is oft en dismissed as endemic. countries experiencing violence right now, is the From reducing violent confl ict in Sudan and eastern proliferati on of opportuniti es to build peace that DR Congo to protecti ng villages from att ack in are routi nely being overlooked by the internati onal Colombia, these stories highlight what is possible, community. While high level negoti ati ons do oft en even in places where nati onal level peace processes stall, there are countless opportuniti es to support have stalled. bott om up peacebuilding in some of the most violent contexts right now. Local peacebuilding actors are This year at the UN High Level Politi cal Forum in protecti ng vulnerable people, resolving local disputes, New York, member states will review progress made preventi ng displacements and saving lives. towards SDG16. We believe that SDG16 cannot be achieved without greater levels of parti cipati on At Peace Direct we have been dedicated to by and support for local peacebuilding eff orts. supporti ng and strengthening local capaciti es for Localizati on is now a prominent theme within peace since our founding over fi ft een years ago. the humanitarian sector. Let’s start talking about The premise underpinning our work is that local localizing peace and investi ng in it now. people working to stop violence and build peace in their communiti es remain the greatest sources of untapped peacebuilding potenti al globally. While the rhetoric around supporti ng local peacebuilding eff orts is slowly changing, internati onal and Dylan Mathews nati onal policies and practi ce are not keeping up. A CEO Peace Direct combinati on of bureaucrati c ineffi ciency, systemic inerti a, risk aversion, concerns about scale, capacity, iv | Local peacebuilding: What works and why Local peacebuilding: What works and why | 1 Contents Abbreviations ii Acknowledgements ii Preface iii 1 Introduction 2 2 Local peacebuilding impact 4 3 What helps local peacebuilding succeed? 8 4 Challenges 12 5 Areas and mechanisms for support 14 6 Recommendations 18 The full version of this report can be found at: www.peaceinsight.org/reports/whatworks Local peacebuilding: What works and why | 1 1. Introducti on Despite an increased commitment to peacebuilding on the part of donors and other internati onal organizati ons, the world has become more violent in the past decade.1 Furthermore, while meeti ng Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 is recognized as crucial to achieving all SDGs,2 progress has been disappointi ng, and is currently under review.3 2 | Local peacebuilding: What works and why Local peacebuilding: What works and why | 3 As the UN Security Council has made clear, while Based on an examination of over 70 external peacebuilding can and must be supported by evaluations of local initiatives, the report highlights international efforts, peace is only durable when it is and analyses their considerable success in three locally built, owned and sustained.4 domains of impact:5 Local peacebuilding – actions initiated, led and • Preventing, reducing or stopping violence; implemented by people in and from their own context, both at the grassroots and nationally – is • Improving relationships between and therefore essential. Yet local peacebuilders are too among people and peoples (i.e. ‘horizontal often starved of support. Their political leaders relationships’); can be unsupportive, meaning international help is crucial. International donors and organizations, • Improving relationships between people and however, are often unwilling or unable to step in. those who govern them (‘vertical relationships’). This can be due to risk aversion, prejudice and The report further divides these impacts into operational constraints, as does an unwarranted three ever-deepening levels of change: scepticism that local actions have the requisite Knowledge and attitudes, behavior, and structures depth, scope and scale of impact to reduce violence (i.e. norms, systems, institutions) (illustrated in and shift societies from fragility to resilience. Figure 2 on page 8). Even so, local peacebuilders have demonstrated a significant impact on peace. This report therefore argues that the international community must give them more support. Local peacebuilding Local peacebuilding in this report refers to peacebuilding initiatives owned and led by people in their own context. It includes small-scale grassroots initiatives, as well as activities undertaken on a wider scale. Peace Direct distinguishes between initiatives that are (1) locally led and owned, where local people and groups design the approach and set priorities, while outsiders assist with resources; (2) locally managed, where the approach comes from the outside, but is “transplanted” to local management; or (3) locally implemented, primarily an outside approach, including external priorities that local people or organizations are supposed to implement. Locally led Locally Locally & owned managed implemented More local ownership Less local ownership 1 Institute for Economics & Peace, ‘Global Peace Index 2018: Measuring Peace in a Complex World’, June 2018. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/reports 2 Pathfinders for Peaceful and Just and Inclusive Societies, ‘The Roadmap for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies: A Call to Action to Change Our World’, Center on International Cooperation, 2017. Available from: https://cic.nyu.edu/programs/sdg16plus 3 UN Sustainable Development Goals Knowledge Platform. See: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg16 4 UN Security Council Resolution 2282 (2016), Sustaining Peace. 5 The full report, of which this is a summary, can be downloaded at https://www.peaceinsight.org/reports/whatworks Local peacebuilding: What works and why | 3 Three clusters of peacebuilding approaches Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 emerged from the evaluations studied: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to • Community-based peace initiatives; justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels • Initiatives led by or engaging with specific groups, such as women, SDG 16 peace target youth and traumatized people; Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere: • Initiatives that advocate improved national