Local Peacebuilding - Challenges and Opportunities

Peacebuilding is at a crossroads. While it is one of the most important instruments for addressing crisis and fragility, it is also persistently criticised. Chiefly the critique focuses on a past record where peacebuilding efforts have been too superficial, and with a number of recurring conflicts taking place. International interventions – from large scale UN missions to bilateral projects and programmes – often operate at the national level of the state and omit to include a wider range of local level actors. Thus, peacebuilding can become disconnected from local realities and suffer in terms of quality and legitimacy. In this EBA report, Joakim Ojendal, Hanna Leonardsson and Martin Lundqvist review the conventional peacebuilding formula and the critique that has come to be known as ‘the local turn of peacebuilding’. The authors unpack the meaning of local peacebuilding through a review of literature and practice, drawing on experiences from Cambodia, Liberia, Somaliland and Rwanda. The report is a timely contribution to an emergent assessment of peacebuilding aims and methods. Recent reviews by the UN highlight the importance of local processes, noting that attempts to rebuild or extend central authority in fragmented societies can actually lead to a deepening of conflict. The Agenda 2030, in particular Goal 16, draw our attention to the importance of capacity development at all levels of the state, while the collection of works from the Doing Development Differently community strongly argues for a 'localisation’ of aid and peacebuilding. Peacebuilding is also a cornerstone of Swedish development assistance and the Government’s Aid Policy Framework identifies conflict as the main detrimental factor to development. Roughly one third of all Swedish bilateral aid is directed to conflict and post-conflict settings. The Stockholm Declaration, from the International Dialogue co-chaired by Sweden, emphasizes that any strategy for supporting transitions out of fragility must be locally driven, locally owned, and locally led. Yet, despite the emergent recognition that peacebuilding must take place at different levels of the society there are few strategies on how to ‘do’ local peacebuilding. If we should take the imperative of going beyond the national level seriously, it means that we must also understand what local peacebeuilding looks like, how it works, and how it can be supported and promoted. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the limitations on outside support to the local level, not least from a safety and security perspective. Another constraint is the risk of local peacebuilding coming at odds with international aims and objectives – for instance, on the inclusion of women in peacebuilding processes. Concentrating on the local level is not a panacea to the challenges confronting peacebuilding, and not all actors at the local level are committed to building a peaceful society. Mindful of these challenges, Ojendal, Leonardsson and Lundqvist put forward nine policy recommendations to help peacebuilders ‘take a local turn’. Some recommendations may serve as signposts for a general re-alignment of peacebuilding – for example, when the authors suggest that peacebuilding should plan more conciously for local level engagement already from the start, and allow local actors to be involved in formulating policies that concern them. Other recommendations deal with peacebuilding capabilities, encouraging international actors to invest in continuous learning processes and a more resilient risk management so that peacebuilding interventions can make many ‘smaller bets’ at the local level instead of a few large- scale national programmes. To build on, to synthesise and to make accessible results from previous research, in order to improve the management and development of Swedish aid, is at the heart of EBA's remit. It is my hope that this report will stimulate debate and contribute to the improvement of policy and practice, making peacebuilding more ‘fit for purpose’. The authors’ work has been conducted in dialogue with a reference group chaired by Malin Mobjork, member of the EBA. The analysis, views and recommendations presented in the report are the sole responsibility of the authors. Stockholm, April 2017 Gun Britt Andersson