he global partnership for the prevention of armed conflict

It is within this context, that this paper, examines, civil society and peacebuilding. What seems to exist is a largely descriptive account of civil society peacebuilding initiatives based on its forms and actors rather than its functions.

Despite the interest in Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) peacebuilding activities, little has been done to suggest a functional perspective to CSOs contribution to peacebuilding. It concludes identifying several recommendations and areas in need of further research.Ĭivil society has emerged as a central force in peacebuilding and is contributing to the reframing of discourse around the concept. After briefly situating civil society peacebuilding roles in the policy context and highlighting several critiques, this article concentrates on exploring why they can be key to these tasks and charts the specific functions they can play, focusing on initiatives by civil society from a conflict zone and their external supporters. Civil society can play roles at every point in the development of conflict and its resolution: from bringing situations of injustice to the surface to preventing violence, from creating conditions conducive to peace talks to mediating a settlement and working to ensure it is consolidated, from setting a policy agenda to healing war-scarred psyches.

Yet their roles are poorly understood by international policymakers and these operations too often undermine them. As largely home grown initiatives – albeit sometimes receiving various forms of external support – they are not a product of the security-development nexus of Western directed international peace operations. While some of these responses originate in “global civil society”, many of the most creative and effective attempts to address the causes of conflict and to help resolve it peacefully are undertaken by people from the conflict affected communities themselves. With civilian deaths estimated to account for approximately 75 percent of war-related casualties, ordinary people are increasingly mobilising to respond to the challenge of conflict.

He global partnership for the prevention of armed conflict