The Peacebuilding Unit

Peacebuilding seeks to prevent future conflict and to address the root causes of conflict.

Preventative and post-conflict peacebuilding measures have been utilised in Africa and elsewhere to prevent violent conflict from arising, to manage conflict situations where they do arise, and to address the root causes of conflict. Peacebuilding, therefore, contains elements of conflict prevention, conflict management and conflict transformation, seeking to prevent, address and transform potential conflict situations.

Peacebuilding is a complex and multidimensional process which takes place, directly and indirectly, over a long time following the formal end of a conflict. Furthermore, peacebuilding is not undertaken by one actor, or one group of actors, alone, but is the product of initiatives and undertakings by a range of stakeholders who play direct and indirect roles in the process of consolidating peace. The consolidation of peace, furthermore, does not take place only at the community level, at the level of the state, or within the recovery and development sphere. Rather, peacebuilding takes place from the grass-roots level to the highest levels of government, and requires efforts and action by internal actors and external actors providing support to peacebuilding processes which, ultimately, are locally owned and must be locally driven. This recognition is slowly taking hold in peacebuilding undertakings in Africa, and the importance of developing peacebuilding approaches which are holistic, inclusive and long-term in their thinking is gaining recognition.

It is this understanding which the Peacebuilding Unit at ACCORD promotes and works in support of.

Angola

Through the Building Peace and Democracy in Angola: Enhancing Capacity for Managing Conflict Programme, the Unit works in Angola in support of developing conflict management and peacebuilding understanding and skills among civil society, at the base of peacebuilding efforts in that country, so as to develop the skills and refine capacities for long-term conflict prevention and management, as well as the sustainable consolidation of gains made in the peace process to date. The Programme aims to contribute to the long-term development and consolidation of peace through capacitating civil society to positively engage in the peacebuilding process ongoing in Angola.

Burundi

In Burundi, the Unit works at various levels and with various stakeholders in promoting sustainable peacebuilding that recognises and addresses some of the core post-conflict challenges. Through its offices in the collines, the ACCORD’s Legal Aid Clinic Project assists in the management and resolution of land disputes, core to the success of the peacebuilding efforts in that country. Through its conflict management trainings for civil society, ACCORD builds on and enhances conflict management and peacebuilding skills among civil society to analyse, manage and transform conflicts, at the personal, community and national levels.

African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme

Through the African Peacebuilding Coordination Programme, which also works in Burundi as well as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Liberia and Sudan, the Unit seeks to foster a deeper understanding of peacebuilding in Africa from policy to implementation processes, to highlight key challenges encountered in peacebuilding, and to provide training to participants which will assist in overcoming these challenges. The Programme also focuses its activities on both internal and external actors in the peacebuilding process, utilising a bottom-up and top-down approach, building and further developing the skill-sets of those directly engaged in and responsible for peacebuilding undertakings, whilst targeting internal actors specifically so as to develop sustainable capacity for peacebuilding in its focus countries. Thus, through this Programme the Unit seeks to support peacebuilding processes which are coherent and coordinated, which are locally owned and driven, and which in the long run are sustainable and prevent a relapse into violent conflict, thereby consolidating peacebuilding efforts and the peace process.