This week’s Monitor is a special edition on COVID-19 and peacebuilding. Our feature article is by Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding in the United Nations (UN) Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. He writes about how the peacebuilding work of the UN and others have been affected by COVID-19, and how peacebuilding contributes to strengthening the resilience that communities and societies need to overcome the pandemic.
ACCORD, together with the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) and the African Union Commission, organised an African consultation for the 2020 review of the UN peacebuilding architecture, and Cedric de Coning and Nontobeko Gcabashe provide a summary of the recommendations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Edward Mulbah shares the findings of a COVID-19 Community Resilience and Conflict Sensitivity Monitoring assessment that the Liberian Peacebuilding Office (PBO) undertook in July, and Edouard Cishahayo provides an overview of a youth peacebuilding project launched by ACCORD in the Central African Republic. Both of these initiatives are supported by the UN Peace Building Fund.
In the final contribution to this week’s special edition Andreas Hirblinger and Elin Berg reflect on the role that innovative digital solutions can play in strengthening societal resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.