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January 2002 Insights Issue #39
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Peace from below?
Building peace from below, an objective of international NGOs working in conflict zones, recognises 'local ownership' as essential for breaking cycles of violence. Political settlements on a 'first-track' official level cannot hold unless broad-based constituencies have the means and resilience to rebuild trust and infrastructure.
What opportunities and constraints do local initiatives face? How do international linkages (between local groups, INGOs, trainers, donors, aid agencies) enhance or distort viability and impact? How far do local populations set their own agendas? And how can local populations exert maximum influence at all levels of society?
Peace building is a process of healing and reconciliation but also involves the reallocation and redistribution of political power. Conflict Research, Education and Training (CREATE) is documenting the experience of communities facing economic collapse, gangsterism, high level political manipulation, population displacement, radicalised religious identities, and military conflict.
Croatia and Bosnia have experienced full scale war and disintegration. In Indonesia (West Kalimantan and Maluku), considerable insecurity has been generated in the regions by simultaneous national projects of democratisation and decentralisation. This has led to competing claims and an unprecedented concern over which groups hold 'majority' or 'minority' status. In Croatia and Bosnia, the UN and international forces took a formal role in settlement and transition, whilst in Indonesia, central government retains a sovereign role in agreeing or not where UN agencies and international NGOs may be operational.
Opportunities and constraints differ according to the nature of violence, of which two types have clearly emerged in both regions:
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a.
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Politically motivated violence by elites, paramilitaries, or the deliberate provocation by political or criminal interests in Croatia, Bosnia, and Maluku
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b. |
Localised resource competition with one identity group determined to win back (and punish) land and forestry rights from another. (Kalimantan)
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In (a) exhaustion and will can coincide to turn the tide and cease fighting. In (b) there is a collective objective from one side of winning and maintaining the former status quo or simply survival on the other. Mechanisms are needed to address and settle contested issues.
Findings indicate that:
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Local initiatives have the advantages of direct access to affected populations, knowledge of the local languages and conditions and the ability to gain people's trust, for example: women's groups, inter-faith initiatives, local businesses striving for job creation, or the use of radio to counter disinformation or provide a forum for debate.
- INGOs bring specific resources such as aid, food, medical supplies, money and expertise, but can unintentionally undermine local strength and resilience.
- Local NGOs also suffer a conflict of loyalties between their own objectives and those of their donors: donors can have specific but unrealistic objectives (workshops, for example, aiming to achieve reconciliation are not easy to accomplish) and local groups need to replicate the NGO model to attract income and recognition.
- Establishing groups committed to human rights, justice, indigenous self-determination, or sustainable development is not sufficient if they lack engagement with political structures.
- War shattered states are ill-equipped to manage the new strains of liberalisation such as privatisation or removing subsidies: jobs and livelihoods are essential to recovery.
Policy challenges include:
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Alternative funding formats to short fixed-term project plans are needed - investment in process, team building, local initiatives, safe meeting places and so on. Long term thinking is crucial.
- Economic regeneration can assist in functional co-operation: a common interest in an economic venture with shared benefits leading to improved stability and reconciliation.
- Community-based organisations and local government need strategies to bridge gaps in responsibility and accountability, by identifying consensus on needs, tasks, roles, and establishing forums whereby government representatives and the community can listen to each other.
- Physical security and access to information concerning rights, options, and understanding (what has happened, why so many have died, other people's experiences) are essential to peacebuilding.
- Initiatives may cut across communities (bringing Christians and Muslims together for example) but a more integrated ‘up and down’ approach is also needed to bring all stakeholders - men, women, elders, youth, traditional and official leadership, religious representatives and government together for integrated impact and change.
Judith Large
Conflict Research
Education and Training (CREATE)
Hawthorn House
1 Lansdown Lane
Stroud GL5 1BJ, UK
T +44 1453 757040
j.macrae@odi.org.uk
Source
‘The inter-play of domestic, regional and international forces in peace building’, Committee for Conflict Transformation Support, by Judith Large, 2001 (www.c-r.org/ccts/index.htm);
'Kafka meets Machiavelli: post war, post-transition Eastern Slavonia' in 'Development in Practice' 9/5, by Judith Large, November 1999
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