1. INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the April 2018 edition of the SOLLIMS Lessons Learned Sampler –
Inclusive Peacebuilding: Working with Communities.
Various international, national, and grassroots stakeholders have different conceptions of peace and what
it means to build peace. While the term “peacebuilding” was first coined in the 1970s by conflict theorist
Johan Galtung, it did not become a familiar concept in the United Nations (UN) until the 1990s. In the
1992 report “An Agenda for Peace,” UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali outlined various stages
of addressing armed conflict, including preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peace
enforcement, to which he added the concept of “post-conflict peace-building.” A decade later, in 2006,
the UN Peacebuilding Architecture was created to rebuild national institutions after armed conflict through
the Peacebuilding Commission (an intergovernmental advisory body to support post-conflict countries),
the Peacebuilding Fund (which generates rapid funding for peacebuilding priorities), and the Peacebuilding
Support Office (which supports and coordinates the other functions).
When António Guterres became Secretary-General of the United Nations in January 2017, he emphasized
the necessity to refocus the UN on its primary role in preventing conflict. Under his leadership, following
the 2015 Review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture, various UN resolutions on “sustaining peace”
shifted the UN’s focus of peacebuilding from a post-war phase to a conflict prevention approach that must
be integrated across sectors, not just after armed conflict ceases, but long before violence erupts.
Some national government agencies incorporate peacebuilding principles throughout their activities, while
others continue to view peacebuilding as a “post-conflict” activity, despite the UN’s recent shift. The
United States Institute of Peace (USIP), established by Congress to “increase the nation’s capacity to
manage international conflict without violence,” conceives peacebuilding broadly across conflict phases.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) addresses peacebuilding by incorporating
conflict-sensitivity into development programming and country strategies worldwide. Likewise, numerous
regional and functional bureaus at the U.S. Department of State have a stake in building peace. In contrast,
the U.S. Department of Defense primarily focuses on peacebuilding as a specific phase following armed
conflict. U.S. military doctrine identifies “peace building” as “the long-term, post-conflict process of
creating conditions for a lasting peace,” describing it as one of several activities that comprise “peace
operations” (Peace Operations JP 3-07.3 (2018)), similar to “stabilization” (Stability JP 3-07), with an emphasis
on institution-building in sectors of security, governance, rule of law, social well-being, and economy.
Grassroots non-governmental organizations and civil society tend to view peacebuilding as an approach
across all stages of conflict, not just “post-conflict” activities, in line with the UN shift towards “sustaining
peace.” The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a consortium of over 15,000 peacebuilding practitioners
from around the world and nearly 100 peacebuilding organizations, defines peacebuilding as “an elastic
term, encompassing a wide range of efforts by diverse actors in government and civil society at the
community, national, and international levels to address the immediate impacts and root causes of conflict
bef ore, during, and after violent conflict occurs.”
Whether understood as an approach across all stages of conflict or viewed as institution-building following
armed conflict, peacebuilding efforts cannot succeed without the ownership of local stakeholders. As such,
this Sampler focuses on inclusive peacebuilding initiatives within communities from a variety of
international, national, and grassroots stakeholders around the world. Lessons, many written by local
peacebuilding practitioners, focus on consulting with local communities, strengthening just institutions,
and showcasing effective tools and techniques for preventing and transforming violent conflict.
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