Global
Produced by like minded partner organizations, these evidence based policy articles and reports focus on the multiple regions or apply to the world.
This table contains the entire repository of data and resources that the Better Evidence Project has collected and curated with a Global orientation. To find resources you are interested in, simply use the search box on the top right of the table and search based on any parameters that you are interested in: Country name, Keywords, Type of Resource, Authors, etc. The table will automatically populate as you search. You can expand the number of entries you’d like to see by toggling the show entries box (top left of the table) and selecting the number you’d like to see.
To help narrow your search by keywords, please refer to this post that features a running list of keywords in use in the repository.
Resource Library
Navigate through our resource library, search for the terms you are interested in and the table will populate automatically with matching results.| Title | Authors | Subject Keywords | Abstract | Link | Country Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paving Pathways To Peace Talks With Sanctions Exemptions? | Rebecca Brubaker | Sanctions, Mediation, Diplomacy | The majority of UN sanctions regimes are designed in support of a peace process or to protect an existing agreement. Most of these peace processes involve talks that take place outside the country or region in conflict. Often, however, key stakeholders in the conflict – whose participation in the talks is necessary for a credible and even a durable outcome – are under UN travel bans and asset freezes. These targeted measures are among the most frequently applied of all UN sanctions. Thus, it is often assumed that mediators face a dilemma: exclude listed individuals from talks held abroad or include them and risk violating the existing travel ban and adjoining asset freeze. Or do they? In all but one of the existing UN sanctions regimes, there are little known and rarely used exemptions that would allow sanctioned individuals to participate in peace talks. The language varies in specificity and scope and the process for applying differs between regimes (and even within regimes). But the overall message is clear: mediators possess a formal option for requesting an exception to a sanctions measure in order to enable the successful convening of parties for peace talks.1 The following memo will briefly outline the existing constellation of exemptions related to peace talks, examine how they are meant to work, share insights on how they actually work, discuss implications for policy practitioners, and propose actions aimed at improving these exemptions’ attractiveness to mediators. | https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:7875/SanctionsMediation_WEB.pdf | Worldwide |
| Conflict Barometer | Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research | Political Conflicts Data | The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research’s (HIIK) annually published Conflict Barometer grades countries based on the intensity of sub-national, national or international conflict they are currently experiencing, according to publicly available data. | https://hiik.de/?lang=en | Worldwide |
| Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Theory and Practice | Martina Fischer | Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, Conflict Prevention | This article explores the concept of transitional justice and its role in debates on democratization, nation-building and state reconstruction and its relation to reconciliation, both of which have become increasingly popular. Many researchers and practitioners see reconciliation as a necessary requirement for lasting peace, assuming that once a top-down political settlement has been reached, a bottom-up process should take place, in which unresolved issues of the conflict will be handled in order to prevent questioning of the settlement and a return to violence. In this context, coming to terms with the past is considered a precondition for building peace and future relationships. This chapter reviews the debates on transitional justice and reconciliation in order to assess the practical approaches that stem from these concepts in terms of their relevance for conflict transformation and peacebuilding. It also analyzes the state of research on international criminal justice and truth commissions and highlights the strengths and limits of these approaches. The author also notes that the debates on transitional justice and reconciliation, although they overlap, are not identical, and she outlines the need to see reconciliation as a multi-level process alongside conflict transformation. The chapter concludes by highlighting diverse challenges for research and practice, including a need to focus on the interaction of different actors, levels and mechanisms and to listen to the voices of affected populations. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12901 | Worldwide |
| International Crisis Behavior | Duke University | Peace and Conflict Data | The aim of the ICB Project is to shed light on a pervasive phenomenon of world politics. There are four specific objectives: the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge about interstate crises and protracted conflicts; the generation and testing of hypotheses about the effects of crisis-induced stress on coping and choice by decision makers; the discovery of patterns in key crisis dimensions – onset, actor behavior and crisis management, superpower activity, involvement by international organizations, and outcome; and application of the lessons of history to the advancement of international peace and world order. | https://sites.duke.edu/icbdata/ | Worldwide |
| Development Assistance for Peacebuilding | Rachel M. Gisselquist | Development, Peacebuilding | Development assistance to fragile states and conflict-affected areas can be a core component of peacebuilding, providing support for the restoration of government functions, delivery of basic services, the rule of law, and economic revitalization. What has worked, why it has worked, and what is scalable and transferable, are key questions for both development practice and research into how peace is built and the interactive role of domestic and international processes therein. Despite a wealth of research into these questions, significant gaps remain. This volume speaks to these gaps through new analysis of a selected set of well-regarded aid interventions. Drawing on diverse scholarly and policy expertise, eight case study chapters span multiple domains and regions to analyse Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Programme, the Yemen Social Fund for Development, public financial management reform in Sierra Leone, Finn Church Aid’s assistance in Somalia, Liberia’s gender-sensitive police reform, the judicial facilitators programme in Nicaragua, UNICEF’s education projects in Somalia, and World Bank health projects in Timor-Leste. Analysis illustrates the significance of three broad factors in understanding why some aid interventions work better than others: the area of intervention and related degree of engagement with state institutions; local contextual factors such as windows of opportunity and the degree of local support; and programme design and management. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12176 | Worldwide |
| Uses of digital technologies in managing and preventing conflict | Luke Kelly | Early Warning, Conflict Prevention, Technology | Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly prevalent across the developing world and as such are being used in a variety of ways to prevent, prevent or address violence conflict. ICTs can be defined as ‘electronic equipment and applications that are used to find, analyse, create, communicate, disseminate and use information’ (HD, 2019). The ICTs surveyed in this paper include mobile phones, the internet, social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter, satellites, and GIS mapping applications, and the crowdsourcing of information through these platforms. A large number of applications have been developed to gather, map and disseminate data on peace and conflict. ICTs can help gather a large volumes of information on peace and conflict that can be used to track violence and its causes. ICTs also have applications in preventing conflict through information or positive messaging | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d0cecb640f0b62006e1f4ef/600_ICTs_in_conflict.pdf | Worldwide |
| Gender Inequality Index | UNDP | Gender Inequality Data | The GII is an inequality index. It measures gender inequalities in three important aspects of human development—reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates; empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females and proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and older with at least some secondary education; and economic status, expressed as labour market participation and measured by labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15 years and older. The GII is built on the same framework as the IHDI—to better expose differences in the distribution of achievements between women and men. It measures the human development costs of gender inequality. Thus the higher the GII value the more disparities between females and males and the more loss to human development. | https://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii | Worldwide |
| Community Participation In Transitional Justice: A Role For Participatory Research | USAID | Commmunity participation, trasnsitional justice, reparation, peacemaking. | This manual aims to assist civil society organizations (CSOs) to use participatory research to promote community participation in transitional justice. Community participation benefits transnational justice strategies by assisting them in responding to unique needs and challenges within each community; encouraging the necessary participation to create and enhance change by legitimizing initiatives amongst the public; and addressing root causes of human rights violations like marginalization and disempowerment. Through participatory research, the communities greatest needs and priorities can lead action plan to address them, offering an incentive for community participation in transitional justice. This manual unveils this connection to build sustainable institutions and societies that deliver justice, ensure opportunities and foster the respect for human rights. | https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/CPTJUSAID.pdf | Guinea |
| Prevented Wars, The Role of International Organizational Intervention in Successful Prevention | Margarita Tadevosyan | Third Party, | Recent research has focused on the role of international organizational intervention in preventing large scale wars. The idea of conflict prevention is not new; different scholars have scrutinized different aspects of conflict prevention. At the same time, most existing literature focuses on individual preventive interventions. Recognizing that conflict prevention is an established field both in academic and policy circles, this study provides additional evidence on how conflict prevention can be strengthened and further reinforced by engaging in a systematic analysis of previous cases of preventive engagement by international organizations. The goal of the research was to understand why and how certain interventions led by different international organizations were able to prevent the outbreak of violence and large-scale war and halt the spread of hostilities. This study is a comprehensive review of 18 specific conflict prevention interventions carried out by one of the four large international organizations—the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Organization of American States (OAS), and the Commonwealth of Nations—between 1990 and 2015. With recognition of this diversity, the analysis sought to uncover and understand patterns that would provide additional evidence on how to prevent future wars and violent conflict. Based on the research findings Dr. Tadevosyan developed a targeted list of recommendations that can help intervening organizations to maximize their impact in preventing the outbreak of deadly violence. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12179 | Worldwide |
| Incremental Inclusivity: A recipe for effective peace processes? | Andreas Schädel, Véronique Dudouet, Johanna-Maria Hülzer, and Carlotta Sallach | Inclusive Peace Processes | This report focuses on strategies around the inclusion of various constituencies and interests in conflict resolution processes that can result in legitimate, equitable and lasting solutions to complex protracted armed conflicts. There is a particular focus on the timing and sequencing of multiactor inclusion in peace processes by conducting a comparative assessment of ‘incremental inclusion’ approaches for non-signatory armed groups and civil society actors during the negotiation and implementation of four peace/ceasefire agreements: Afghanistan, Colombia, Mali and Myanmar. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/incremental-inclusivity-in-peace-processes-key-lessons-learnt | Worldwide |
| Untangling Conflict: Local Peace Agreements in Contemporary Armed Violence | Jan Pospisil, Laura Wise, Christine Bell | Peace Agreement, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Problem-Solving Workshop | This article seeks to understand the proliferation of local and sub-national peace agreements negotiated and signed in recent years. While such agreements are not a new phenomenon, local negotiations in violent conflict seem to be becoming increasingly better documented and formalized. This development may be caused by the comparably easy availability of electronic means of documentation and communication, even in remote areas. Local peace processes and resultant agreements have also gained more attention from national, regional, and international actors, in part due to their increased visibility. Interest in local agreements is also driven by the changing dynamics of conflict and peace. Structural shifts at the international have often resulted in a decreasing likelihood of comprehensive peace processes at the national level. The model of the traditional ‘peace process’ at the national level assumes the existence of a state actor who is internationally recognized, and one (or more) armed opposition groups. Often, however, conflicts are more complex. Some conflicts may be understood as contests about the control of the central state and others evolve from a complex interrelation between the national level and a variety of localized conflict settings that are largely based on context-dependent fault lines. In other cases, local agreements seem to play an important role across diverse conflict, in ‘untangling’ forms of conflict, that often operate as complex local-national-transnational-international conflict systems. This report presents the finding of two workshops focused on local peace agreements, their negotiation, the actors involved, and their impact and modes of implementation. Compared to national-level agreements, local peace agreements are considerably shorter and issue-centered. They deal with a wide variety of contextualized topics around the predominant aim of managing local patterns of armed conflict and violence. In their variety, local peace agreements represent the diversity but also the splintered nature and patchiness of what is contemporary armed conflict. Key conclusions are that local peace agreements cannot succeed where negotiations at the national level fail. They can even weaken motivations and incentives for power-sharing deals and provide pathways for contested regimes to sustain their rule. Armed non-state actors engage in such processes based on their strategic political interests. As in peace negotiations at the national level, parties continue aiming to reach their goals through peace talks. The negotiation of local peace agreements will usually reconfigure power relationships and may also undermine and, in some instances, even disrupt ongoing armed conflicts in ways that build confidence for wider peacemaking efforts. Such agreements provide a glimpse into what might be local agendas for peace and the management of conflicts, local forms of deliberation over power-relations, and how civilian and military actors come to an agreement. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12904 | Worldwide |
| Evaluating Peacebuilding: Not Yet All It Could Be | Cheyanne Scharbatke Church | Project Evaluation, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation | This handbook assesses the quality of peacebuilding evaluation work being undertaken in a rapidly professionalizing field. The author gives several examples of good and bad practice and suggests that current evaluation practice is failing to foster accountability and learning quite as well as it could. She explores reasons why evaluation may fall short of established quality standards or stray from its explicitly stated purpose, offering recommendations for improvement to researchers, practitioners and donors alike. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/evaluating-peacebuilding-not-yet-all-it-could-be | Worldwide |
| Local, National, and International Peacebuilding | Peace Science Digest | Peacebuilding | This report focuses on the “local turn” in peacebuilding, and the importance of locally led initiatives and local knowledge in support of peacebuilding activities. The series of articles in this report look to examine how locally driven decision making can help alleviate post-conflict grievances. The articles tackle the issue of power and how the push for the local turn challenges those traditional power structures that are driven by external actors. As a result, the articles raise important questions on the role of donors, the relationship between international and local peacebuilders, and how those relationships impact long-term outcomes of peacebuilding initiatives. | https://peacesciencedigest.org/special-issue-local-national-and-international-peacebuilding/ | Worldwide |
| Women, Peace and Security Index | Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security Index | Women Inclusion & Security Data | The third edition of the global Women Peace and Security Index (WPS Index) draws on recognized data sources to measure women’s inclusion, justice, and security in 170 countries. Trends in the WPS Index show that the global advance of women’s status has slowed and disparities have widened across countries. The WPS Index is published by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the PRIO Centre on Gender, Peace and Security with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. | https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/ | Worldwide |
| DDR and Peacebuilding: Thematic review of DDR contributions to peacebuilding and the role of the Peacebuilding Fund | United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Monitoring/Verification: United Nations, Training | This report reviews the contributions of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) to peacebuilding. The review draws on the experiences of three case studies: Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Nepal and focuses specifically on the projects supported by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The recommendations of the review aim to help the DDR and peacebuilding communities, and the PBF in particular, strategically and programmatically position their support to DDR (-related) initiatives for more lasting and promising peacebuilding results. The review works on identifying lessons that contribute to a greater understanding of the effectiveness and strategic relevance of DDR programmes to peacebuilding, added-value and comparative advantage of PBF’s funding arrangements, and promising practices that can be used to shape future programming. The review approaches the interlinkages of peacebuilding and DDR through the latter’s role in promoting the peace process, provision of basic security, peace dividends (including economic revitalization, restoring social fabrics and civic responsibility) as well as addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict. Firstly, explores the policy relationship and interlink- ages of DDR programmes and peacebuilding and the practical implications of this interrelationship on the ground. Secondly, it provides an introduction to the funding structure of the PBF and provides a summary of each of the three case studies. Thirdly, it explores the results of the three case studies horizontally, highlighting overall trends, contextual differences, lessons, and challenges across the cases. It finally highlights the main findings and expresses recommendations that contain specific action points aimed toward PBF efforts and contributions to achieving sustainable peacebuilding results. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/ddr_pbf_thematic_review.pdf | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Failing Together: Key Lessons On How To Have Constructive Conversations About Failures In Development And Peacebuilding | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Emily Janoch, Benjamin Bestor, Saurav Upadhyay | Development, evidence-based practice | Development and peacebuilding is about tackling complex problems with different stakeholders in contexts that change every day. There is no way to solve these problems without failing. But we are reluctant to talk about failure, especially on the record. Veronica Olazabal from The Rockefeller Foundation, Lane Pollack from USAID, and Leslie Wingender with Humanity United recently spoke about what it takes to learn from failure as part of the InterAction Evaluation & Program Effectiveness Community of Practice. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/failing-together-5-5-2021 | Worldwide |
| Transitional Justice: What Do the People Want? Views from the ground in Guatemala, Nepal, and Northern Ireland | Karin Dyrstad, Helga Malmin Binningsbø, Thandeka Brigham, Kristin M. Bakke | Human Rights: Transitional Justice, Rule of Law, Citizen action | The Guatemalan peace process from 1990 to 1996 represents an early example of the inclusion of civil society in a negotiation process. However, once included, what role could civil society play – and in this case what role was it allowed to play? Clearly, civil society had an influence on the negotiations between the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), but on some sensitive and critical issues civil society was prevented from exerting pressure on the parties. This case brief looks at the ethical implications of this situation. | https://www.prio.org/publications/11155 | Worldwide |
| USHMM Early Warning Project Statistical Risk Assessment | Valentino, Ulfelder and Hazlett, Center for Prevention of Genocide, USHMM | Genocide and Attrocity Risk Data | Genocide and mass atrocities are devastating crimes in their scale and scope, in their enduring psychic scars for survivors, and in the long-term trauma they cause in societies where they occur. Despite past efforts to address systematic killing, and a body of law formed after the Holocaust to prevent and punish perpetrators, such crimes persist. The dataset uses quantitative and qualitative methods to spotlight countries where mass atrocities have not begun, but where the risk for such violence is high. USHMM strives to improve this early warning system for mass atrocities by using a variety of publicly available data and forecasting methods. | https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/ | Worldwide |
| Data For Peacebuilding And Prevention Ecosystem Mapping The State Of Play And The Path To Creating A Community Of Practice | Branka Panic | Digital Security, Technology, Private Sector and Peacebuilding | In 2019 and 2020, the Center on International Cooperation convened researchers and practitioners for a series of workshops on Data for Peace and Security highlighting practical applications of these new approaches in the peacebuilding field. This report, launched at the first virtual dialogue, lays out the state of the field and provides recommendations on how best to grow the field effectively. The report maps and analyzes the existing global ecosystem in the field of data for peace and prevention. It highlights multiple examples of relevant initiatives throughout the world utilizing big data, data visualization, AI, ML, image recognition, and social media listening. It also discusses technical challenges impacting all actors, such as the lack of data or lack of high-quality data, lack of access due to security reasons, and data colonialism, as well as the ethical considerations brought on by exponential technologies (security, accessibility, transparency, safety, trust, bias, and justice), and some specific challenges for data-driven approaches to peacebuilding. | https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/data-peacebuilding-and-prevention-ecosystem-mapping-state-play-and-path-creating | Worldwide |
| Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience : Existing Evidence | Erman, Alvina; De Vries Robbe, Sophie Anne; Thies, Stephan Fabian; Kabir, Kayenat; Maruo, Mirai. | Gender, Youth, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Men and women, boys and girls have different experiences of disasters. Gender dynamics impact both the way they are affected by disasters and their capacity to withstand and recover from them. Gender inequalities can result in gender-differentiated disaster impact, and differentiated impacts can influence gender dynamics, which in turn affect future resilience to shocks. Disaster risk management policies are designed to maximize results, taking local conditions - including gender dynamics - as fixed. When women and men are affected differently by disasters, practitioners and policy makers have a responsibility to use the tools available for mitigating disaster impacts to close gender gaps in outcome. An improved understanding of the gender dynamics of disaster risk and resilience also allows for better policy and program design, which benefits all stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12777 | Worldwide |
| Global Terrorism Index | Institute for Econ. and Peace & Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) | Terrorism Data | The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) using data from Terrorism Tracker and other sources. The GTI produces a composite score so as to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism. The GTI scores each country on a scale from 0 to 10; where 0 represents no impact from terrorism and 10 represents the highest measurable impact of terrorism. | https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index | Worldwide |
| ACAPS Risk List | ACAPS | Risk Data | The dataset contains risks identified by ACAPS analysts in their daily monitoring and analysis of more than 100 humanitarian crises worldwide | https://crisisinsight.acaps.org/risklist | Worldwide |
| Business and Peace: It Takes Two to Tango | Markus Mayer, Ben Miller, Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Johannes Schreuder | Business and peace, Private sector and peacebuilding, Fragility and investment | As a basic proposition, the idea that if businesses can operate in an ordinary manner, that will help build peace, seems uncontentious to many. As a field for both research and policy it is about two decades old. There is increasing agreement among donor governments that strengthening the private sector strengthens the prospects for peace. Unfortunately, evidence to support the proposition is not very strong and, on the other side, there is just as much evidence of business activities contributing to the continuation of conflict. This paper is to be commended for setting out dispassionately to explore the issues and disentangle the different threads of evidence and argument. | https://www.international-alert.org/publications/usiness-and-peace-it-takes-two-tango/ | Worldwide |
| Trust-Building in Security and Rule of Law Partnerships: Risks, Biases and Knowledge Gaps | Karoline Eickhoff, Viktoria Budde | Rule of Law, Security | This policy brief investigates underlying assumptions at the policy level on how trust comes about in Security and Rule of Law (SRoL) partnerships. Drawing on a policy review and interviews, it identifies two prevalent ‘Theories of Change’ as causal pathways for SRoL programs towards enhancing citizens’ trust in security-related state institutions. It then critically reflects on these causal assumptions, considering recent advancements in trust research from various disciplines. Based on analysis, it provides recommendations on how to better reflect trust and trust-building in SRoL policies and programming. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/trust-building-in-security-and-rule-of-law-partnerships | Worldwide |
| Resource Scarcity: Catalyst for Conflict or Cooperation? | Marcelle C. Dawson, Christopher Rosin, Navé Wald | Resources, Conflict Resolution | A common perception of global resource scarcity holds that it is inevitably a catalyst for conflict among nations; yet, paradoxically, incidents of such scarcity underlie some of the most important examples of international cooperation. This volume examines the wider potential for the experience of scarcity to promote cooperation in international relations and diplomacy beyond the traditional bounds of the interests of competitive nation states. The interdisciplinary background of the book’s contributors shifts the focus of the analysis beyond narrow theoretical treatments of international relations and resource diplomacy to broader examinations of the practicalities of cooperation in the context of competition and scarcity. Combining the insights of a range of social scientists with those of experts in the natural and bio-sciences—many of whom work as ‘resource practitioners’ outside the context of universities—the book works through the tensions between ‘thinking/theory’ and ‘doing/practice’, which so often plague the process of social change. These encounters with scarcity draw attention away from the myopic focus on market forces and allocation, and encourage us to recognise more fully the social nature of the tensions and opportunities that are associated with our shared dependence on resources that are not readily accessible to all. The book brings together experts on theorising scarcity and those on the scarcity of specific resources. It begins with a theoretical reframing of both the contested concept of scarcity and the underlying dynamics of resource diplomacy. The authors then outline the current tensions around resource scarcity or degradation and examine existing progress towards cooperative international management of resources. These include food and water scarcity, mineral exploration and exploitation of the oceans. Overall, the contributors propose a more hopeful and positive engagement among the world’s nations as they pursue the economic and social benefits derived from natural resources, while maintaining the ecological processes on which they depend. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12177 | Worldwide |
| Humanitarian Data Exchange | UN OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data | Humanitarian Data | The Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) is an open platform for sharing data across crises and organisations. Launched in July 2014, the goal of HDX is to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. | https://data.humdata.org/dataset | Worldwide |
| Development and Prevention: National Examples of Linkages | Paige Arthur, Céline Monnier | Economics and Conflict, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Conflict Prevention | Development is an essential tool for conflict prevention, as often root causes are related to lack of equitable access to economic opportunities, or a combination of political and economic inequalities that fuel grievances—as highlighted in the 2011 World Development Report and the 2018 UN–World Bank Pathways for Peace report. Some risk factors may therefore need to be addressed with development tools. Drawing on field research and on member state reporting at the recent High-level Political Forum in July 2019, this briefing highlights development measures countries have taken to support prevention, and highlights ways the UN system can better assist these efforts. | https://cic.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/policy_brief_linkages_development_-_prevention-final.pdf | Worldwide |
| Is Prevention the Answer? | Charles Call, Susanna Campbell | Conflict Prevention, Preventive Diplomacy, Monitoring/Verification: Third Party | Is prevention the answer to escalating violent conflict? Conflict prevention uses carrots and sticks to deter future violence. Its power thus rests on the credibility of policy-makers’ commitment to supply the carrot or stick in a timely manner. Unfortunately, there are several political and bureaucratic barriers that make this unlikely. First, it is difficult for policy-makers to sell preventive actions to their constituencies. In contrast with core security interests (like nuclear warfare), an uptick in violence in a faraway, non-strategic country provides a less convincing call for action. Second, preventive decisions are difficult to make. Decision-makers are predisposed to avoid making difficult decisions until a crisis breaks out and they are forced to act. Third, preventive actions are political, not technical, requiring the use of precious political capital for uncertain outcomes whose success may be invisible (manifest in the absence of violence). Perhaps, if decision-makers are able to overcome these obstacles and make more credible commitments to conflict prevention, then conflict prevention will become a more credible solution to violent conflict. | https://www.amacad.org/publication/prevention-answer | Worldwide |
| USIP Report On Dialogue Projects And Transfer | Nike Carstaphen, Ilana Shapiro | Dialogue, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention | This study focused on advancing understandings of dialogue ‘transfer’ processes and effects - or how dialogue effects on participants is spread or transmitted beyond that group to influence other groups, practices or policies, and make broader changes in society. It also examined changes in USIP grant-supported dialogue projects over time and assessed the relative success of different dialogue approaches. The goal was to provide an evidence base to help strengthen the design, implementation and evaluation of USIP grant supported dialogue projects and link lessons learned to strategic programmatic decision-making that improves the impact of peacebuilding initiatives. This report provides a review of the literature on dialogue processes and transfer in peacebuilding, and presents the research methods, results, lessons learned and recommendations for the United States Institute of Peace as it plans for future dialogue grant making. | https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/USIP-Dialogue-Grant-Meta-Review-Full-Evaluation-Report-10.2016.pdf | Worldwide |
| STOPPING WAR: 101 SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS TO REDUCE ARMED CONFLICT | Elliott Short | Conflict Management and Resolution, Peacemaking and Peacebuilding | This data set highlights and provides a synopsis of 101 peacebuilding successes. The goals is to provide evidence that peacebuilding can be effective and what works both in preventing wars and stopping political violence that has already erupted. The review of the cases concludes that intervention by governmental organizations was cited more than 7 times as often as activities by INGOs or local organizations. This report suggests a number of lines of inquiry and raises the question as to how to make interventions more effective and how to get governmental organizations to intervene to stop political violence more often. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12169 | Worldwide |
| Confronting War: Critical Lessons for Peace Practitioners | Mary B. Anderson, Lara Olson, Kristin Doughty | Peace Processes, Inclusion, Do No Harm | This working paper reflects the work and lessons learned from the Reflecting on Peace Practice Project. Over an eighteen month period, RPP conducted twenty-six case studies on a wide variety of types of peace efforts, undertaken in a range of geographical settings, in different stages of conflict, at different levels of society, and with varying forms of connectedness to local, indigenous peace efforts. These case studies were done at the invitation of the agencies involved, to capture their internal reflections on their work, as well as the views of a wide range of counterparts – participants, partnering local and international NGOs and other agencies, communities affected by the work, representatives of relevant levels of government, etc. The cases were conducted through field visits to the areas where the programs were undertaken. There were also a series of consultations bringing together more than eighty peace practitioners—both those who live in conflict situations and those who work outside their own countries. These practitioners reviewed and reflected on lessons that emerged from the cases were telling us. A number of issues emerged as central to effective peace practice but around which there remain significant differences of experience and belief. These linkages between levels in peace work, the roles and relationships between “insider” and “outsider” peace agencies, and the relationship between context analysis and strategy development. Additional areas of focus included tradeoffs between working for the reduction of violence and for social justice, dealing with deliberate disruptions of peace processes, and assessing Inadvertent negative impacts. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12714 | Worldwide |
| Co-managing Peace: Natural Resources, Agreement Design, And The Promotion Of Peace After War | Colleen Devlin, Micaela Iveson, Eric Keels | Natural Resources and Conflict, Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Economics and Conflict | The responsibility of natural resource management can often bring challenges or affect peace agreements, even be a main source of conflict. For this reason, the arrangement between communities and governments to distribute authority and responsibility for natural resource management to stakeholders can ensure joint management of resources after civil war settlements. Through the analysis of 34 comprehensive peace accords that negotiate the end of civil conflict between governments and rebel groups, the advocacy by rebels to co-management provisions and redistributive policies prompted three results: co-management reduces the risk of future fighting, allows a longer peace (compared to resource management provisions), and should address combatant concerns about natural resources through transparency. Co-management, as an approach, not only enhances peace processes after armed conflicts but can also signify a method of prevention by addressing current conflicts where large-scale violence has not yet emerged. | https://securefisheries.org/co-managing-peace | Worldwide |
| Youth, Peace and Security: A Programming Handbook | Tammy Smith | Youth, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Inclusive Peacebuilding | This handbook seeks to contribute to the operational readiness and capacity of United Nations practitioners to implement the youth, peace and security (YPS) agenda. The handbook is intended to be used by country, regional and global teams in the United Nations system, but it can also provide insights and guidance to field practitioners beyond the United Nations, including other international or regional organizations, national counterparts, youth-led and youth-focused organizations, movements and networks, and peacebuilding organizations. It priorities youth-inclusive and youth-sensitive peace and security programming, as a core element of more sustainable and long-lasting peacebuilding efforts. The handbook offers strategic guidance and practical advice on its operational implementation: directions to ensure meaningful youth participation; tools and operational steps for undertaking a youth-sensitive and youth-inclusive conflict analysis; approaches for developing YPS strategic priorities and theories of change; the formulation of YPS outcome statements and indicators; guidance for monitoring YPS projects; exploration on how to evaluate the impact – and not just direct outputs and outcomes – of YPS programming and meaningful youth inclusion; and finally, proposes a series of YPS programming entry points, illustrated by concrete project examples. The handbook is a tool to successfully carry out projects and programmes that are informed by a full understanding of how young people experience and participate in their societies and their interaction with peace and security matters. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/yps_programming_handbook.pdf | Worldwide |
| Sustainable peace cannot be achieved without women | Bigombe, Betty | Gender, Peacebuiliding | https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/10/31/sustainable-peace-cannot-be-achieved-without-women/ | Worldwide | |
| Cognitive-Affective Mapping and Digital Peacebuilding | Evan Hoffman | Conflict Analysis, Cognitive Mapping | Ideologies play a fundamental role in the emergence, escalation and resolution of conflict by underpinning divergent narratives and worldviews. These ideologies are often developed and sustained through a combination of interrelated and deeply-held core beliefs, values and emotions which have been acquired over the course of a lifetime and become reinforced through several cognitive processes and biases. Thus, it can be very difficult to alter or change ideologies once they have been formed. Yet, despite their central importance to conflict resolution, practitioners still need the proper tools to adequately visualise these complex ideologies in individuals and/or groups. Practitioners also have very few examples of ways to work with these divergent ideologies as part of a larger peacebuilding process. This policy brief presents a technique for visualising ideologies using a new software tool called Valence that enables technology-assisted Cognitive Affective Mapping (CAM). It then offers lessons from a recent online conflict resolution exercise in which multiple stakeholders used this tool in an ongoing water conflict in Canada via a series of facilitated Zoom sessions held in 2020. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12709 | Worldwide |
| World Inequality Database | World Inequality Lab | Income Inequality Data | The World Inequality Database (WID.world) aims to provide open and convenient access to the most extensive available database on the historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, both within countries and between countries. | https://wid.world/ | Worldwide |
| Global Militarisation Index | Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies | Militarisation Data | With its Global Militarisation Index (GMI), BICC is able to objectively depict worldwide militarisation for the first time. The GMI compares, for example, a country’s military expenditure with its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its health expenditure. It contrasts the total number of military and paramilitary forces in a country with the number of physicians. Finally, it studies the number of heavy weapons available to a country’s armed forces. These and other indicators are used to determine a country’s ranking, which in turn makes it possible to measure the respective level of militarisation in comparison to other countries. | https://www.bicc.de/publications/publicationpage/publication/global-militarisation-index-2021-1140/ | Worldwide |
| Addressing the Climate-Conflict Nexus in Fragile States | Mercy Corps | Climate, Conflict, Governance | The present study looks at the relationship between climate variability and violent conflict, and the extent to which state capacity is able to mediate this link within five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that have experience conflict or instability in recent years: Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Because most studies look at these relationships cross-nationally, we recognize that there is much variation at the subnational level in terms of climate variability, conflict, and local governance and seek to examine subnational differences. Despite variation across and within countries, two key insights stand out from the analyses. First, the report finds support for a link between higher temperature variability and greater violent conflict. Precipitation variability, however, shows results that are more mixed. Second, the report observes a general trend whereby stronger state capacity appears, in some cases, to reduce the likelihood that climate variability will lead to conflict. | https://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/climate-conflict-nexus | Worldwide |
| Societal Dynamics & Fragility : Engaging Societies in Responding to Fragile Situations | World Bank | Fragility | Extreme fragile situations are now home to at least a quarter of the worlds people. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. It is unsurprising that not a single low-income country in these circumstances has been able to achieve even one Millennium Development Goal (World Bank 2011). In addition, many fragile situations generate spillover effects such as trafficking in illegal goods and persons, and corruption, which threaten the stability of neighboring countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD 2005, 2010). This study views fragility as not only a problem of state capacity, but also of relationships in society. That is, while some elements of fragility emanate from the state, others are deeply rooted in societal dynamics, the way individuals and groups interact and the relationships that form out of these interactions. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12768 | Worldwide |
| Rising Powers and Peacebuilding: Breaking the Mold? | Charles T. Call and Cedric de Coning (eds.) | Peacebuilding | This edited volume explores what is new and innovative about the peacebuilding approach of key actors (Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey) from the Global South. The results of these peacebuilding efforts by rising Global South powers are compared with each other and to approaches by Western donors and international organizations. The case studies explore whether the evidence shows that these approaches provide successful and alternative approaches to peacebuilding. Essentially, the book concludes that there are lessons to be learned from the peacebuilding approaches of these rising powers. Peacebuilding is both defined and applied differently than how Western powers and international agencies generally frame and implement peacebuilding interventions and programming. | https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-60621-7.pdf | Worldwide |
| Incremental Inclusivity in Peace Processes: Lessons Learnt | Andreas Schädel and Véronique Dudouet | Project Evaluation, Inclusive Peace Processes | This policy brief provides evidence-based lessons learnt and recommendations on the timing, sequencing and modalities of inclusion of nonsignatory armed groups and civil society actors in peace processes. It aims to inform a strategic understanding on how to design and implement peace processes that are effective in bringing about an inclusive political, economic and social transformation. In particular, it draws on a comparative assessment of ‘incremental inclusion’ approaches for nonsignatory armed groups and civil society actors during the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements in Afghanistan, Colombia, Mali and Myanmar. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/incremental-inclusivity-in-peace-processes-key-lessons-learnt | Worldwide |
| Evidence database | Anticipatory Hub | Early Warning & Anticipatory Action Data | This database complements the Early Action Database by collating evidence on the effectiveness of (potential) early actions. Its primary purpose is to help practitioners evaluate and compare early actions based on existing data. As anticipation is a relatively new concept, evidence from anticipatory humanitarian programs may be lacking for many actions. For this reason, to the extent possible, the database also includes evidence from Development, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Humanitarian Response interventions/actions that could be adapted to the anticipatory context (see the implementation context filter). This way, practitioners can still learn from what is known about specific interventions in non-anticipatory contexts. | https://www.anticipation-hub.org/experience/evidence-database/evidence-list | Worldwide |
| Gender Gap Index | World Economic Forum | Gender Inequality Data | The Gender Gap Index quantifies the gaps between women and men in four key areas: health, education, economy, and politics. Data is available from 149 countries for select years between 2010-2021. Scores are based on the level of access women have to resources and opportunities relative to men. Countries are given a score from 0-1. A score of 1 indicates full equality between women and men and a score of 0 indicates full inequality. The Gender Gap Index is published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is designed to capture the magnitude of gender-based disparities and track progress over time. | https://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2018/data-explorer/ | Worldwide |
| Negotiating Disarmament – The Gender Dimension: Barriers to the Inclusion of Women in Disarmament Negotiations | David Felipe Gómez, Ida Rødningen, Nicholas Marsh, Júlia Palik | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Gender, Negotiations | Disarmament is seen as a key means of preventing conflict recurrence. Women are disproportionately affected by weapons: small arms and light weapons used during conflict are often used post-conflict to commit gender-based violence, and explosive weapons in populated areas can severely limit women’s access to public spaces. Women are involved both as part of armed groups, and as the leaders of campaigns against weapons. Despite these experiences, women are routinely excluded from disarmament negotiations. This brief examines three sets of barriers to women’s meaningful participation in disarmament negotiations across five peace processes: Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. | https://www.prio.org/publications/13064 | Worldwide |
| Freedom House Aggregate Score | Freedom House | Political and Civil Rights Data | Freedom House rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in 210 countries and territories through its annual Freedom in the World report. Individual freedoms—ranging from the right to vote to freedom of expression and equality before the law—can be affected by state or nonstate actors. Click on a country name below to access the full country narrative report. | https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores | Worldwide |
| Elections and Conflict Prevention: A Guide to Analysis, Planning and Programming | UNDP Democratic Governance Group | Conflict Prevention, Early Warning, Conflict Mapping, Elections | This guide is designed as a knowledge product for practitioners in the field of governance and electoral assistance. It identifies strategic approaches and forms of programming that can help to anticipate and prevent the types of violent conflict that frequently accompany elections and set back development in emerging democracies or post-war societies. The Guide provides readers with practical options and tools for programming design, early warning and conflict tracking. It presents valuable lessons learned from the previous, extensive experience of UNDP and its partner organizations in the field. The information provided in the Guide reflects UNDP best practice as it relates to the broader framework for UN engagement in electoral assistance. Throughout the Guide, the knowledge gained from research and analysis is paired with perspectives of leading practitioners to show how electoral assistance programming can be adapted to mitigate conflict. The Guide also puts electoral assistance into the broader context of UNDP’s emphasis on democratic governance and conflict prevention, whereby the legitimate, accountable and effective exercise of state authority contributes to the constructive management of social change. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12713 | Worldwide |
| The “Do No Harm” Framework for Analyzing the Impact of Assistance on Conflict: A Handbook. | CDA Collaborative Learning Projects | Program Evaluation, Conflict Resolution, Aid | Although it is clear that, by itself, assistance neither causes nor can end conflict, it can be a significant factor in conflict contexts. Assistance can have important effects on intergroup relations and on the course of intergroup conflict. In a DNH IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT area, for example, one NGO provided 90% of all local employment in a sizable region over a number of years. In another, the NGO estimated that militia looting of assistance garnered US $400 million in one brief (and not unique) rampage. Both of these examples occurred in very poor countries where assistance's resources represented significant wealth and power. At the same time, giving no assistance would also have an impact—often negative. The DNH has thus chosen to focus on how to provide assistance more effectively and how those of us who are involved in providing assistance in conflict areas can assume responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for the effects that our assistance has in worsening and prolonging, or in reducing and shortening, destructive conflict between groups whom we want to help. The DO NO HARM “Analytical Framework” was developed from the programming experience of many assistance workers. It provides a tool for mapping the interactions of assistance and conflict and can be used to plan, monitor and evaluate both humanitarian and development assistance programmes. The Framework is NOT prescriptive. It is a descriptive tool that: 1) identifies the categories of information that have been found through experience to be important for understanding how assistance affects conflict; 2) organizes these categories in a visual lay-out that highlights their actual and potential relationships; and 3) helps us predict the impacts of different programming decisions. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12715 | Worldwide |
| Fund for Peace Fragile States Index | Fund for Peace | Fragility Data | The Fragile States Index (FSI) produced by The Fund for Peace (FFP), is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are outweighing a states’ capacity to manage those pressures. By highlighting pertinent vulnerabilities which contribute to the risk of state fragility, the Index — and the social science framework and the data analysis tools upon which it is built — makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large. The strength of the FSI is its ability to distill millions of pieces of information into a form that is relevant as well as easily digestible and informative. Daily, FFP collects thousands of reports and information from around the world, detailing the existing social, economic and political pressures faced by each of the 178 countries that we analyze. | https://fragilestatesindex.org/ | Worldwide |
| Responsible Ingo Transitions And Locally Led Development: Findings From A Global Online Consultation | Aji Ceesay, Dimitri Kotsiras | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), | A key component of working towards locally led development is to enable responsible partnership transition processes. This is especially crucial in the aid sector where donor priorities regularly shift, and contexts are ever-changing, which has led to a greater need to sustain impact and ensure local actors’ sustainability. However, a significant gap that has emerged to support international actors to effectively leave contexts, end programs, or transform organizational structures is the lack of knowledge around best practices and practical examples of responsible partnership transitions. As the international development sector continues to explore practical ways to work towards locally led approaches, responsible partnership transitions remain a key part of this process. Poor partnership transitions obstruct the road to sustainable development. In these instances, not only are local actors left to pick up the pieces without the necessary tools and resources to continue the work, but any progress from previous work may be lost. International actors need to effectively plan their partnership transitions, and also make sure that these processes are locally led. However, challenges remain in achieving fully locally led partnership transitions, transitions, including how they are defined de and communicated, communicated, as well as what approach is taken and how they are implemented. Other challenges include the abrupt withdrawal of INGOs and funding from partnerships, the exclusion of key stakeholders in transition planning and processes, wider power imbalances in the international development sector and a lack of support for local actors’ capacity and sustainability. | https://www.stoppingassuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/P4D-Consultation-Report_Final.pdf | Worldwide |
| Youth Participation in Global Governance for Sustaining Peace and Climate Action | Masooma Rahmaty and Jimena Leiva Roesch | Youth, climate change, policy, frameworks, locally-led | This issue brief outlines the synergies between the youth, peace, and security (YPS) and youth climate action agendas. It also examines the factors that contribute to young people’s exclusion from global governance, including negative misperceptions of youth, outdated policy frameworks, lack of funding, and weak links between youth and global governance fora. The paper concludes with recommendations for governments and multilateral institutions to better assess the links between youth, peace, and climate change and include young people in decision-making processes. | https://www.ipinst.org/2021/04/youth-participation-in-global-governance-for-sustaining-peace-and-climate-action | Worldwide |
| INFORM Risk Index | UN Inter-Agency Standing Comm. Ref. Group on Risk, Early Warning & Preparedness & European Comm. | Humanitarian Data | The INFORM Risk Index is a global, open-source risk assessment for humanitarian crises and disasters. It can support decisions about prevention, preparedness and response. | https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/inform-index/INFORM-Risk | Worldwide |
| War Prevention Works: 50 Stories Of People Resolving Conflict | Dylan Mathews | Training, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Dialogue | The editors of this book have brought together a collection of stories about how local communities participate in transforming conflicts that have been destroying the lifeways of their society. Offering concrete evidence of what is possible, these stories need to be read and pondered by politicians, civic activists and policy makers. Each story is unique, yet common threads appear in the pattern of the activities described. They include the following: the creation of special listening spaces, whether by national leaders or by local activists, women's groups, faith groups or elders, spaces where stories of suffering are shared with the feared or hated ‘other’; the rediscovery of traditional patterns of restitution and reconciliation, with women's groups and elders often playing key roles; helpful training in the skills of dialogue by friendly outsiders, and accompanying mobilization of the community's learning and service resources; networking among an ever-widening circle of affected communities, and careful involvement of locals with regional and national leaders and elites. | https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/War-Prevention-Works.pdf | Worldwide |
| Evaluating Media Interventions in Conflict Countries | Amelia Arsenault; Sheldon Himelfarb; Susan Abbott | Communications: Media Strategies, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Fondation Hirondelle, Internews Network, the United States Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict, and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace commissioned this report following a five-day multistakeholder meeting of donors, implementers, and academics on how to better evaluate media’s impact in ameliorating conflict, at the Caux Conference Center in Switzerland. The report both reviews the state of the art in evaluating media interventions in conflict and outlines the Caux Guiding Principles (hereinafter, Caux Principles) for improving the evaluation process. It stresses effective evaluation as a critical step forward for using the media in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/10/evaluating-media-interventions-conflict-countries | Worldwide |
| What Transformation Takes: Evidence of Responsible INGO Transitions to Locally Led Development Around the World | Peace Direct, CDA Collaborative Learning and Search for Common Ground, USAID. | financial sustainability, local, effectiveness | What Transformation Takes: Evidence of Responsible INGO Transitions to Locally Led Development Around the World takes readers on a journey to examine responsible transitions from international non-governmental organizations to locally led entities. The book is a compilation of the 19 case studies from the three-year program, Stopping As Success: Transitioning to locally led development (SAS), led by Peace Direct, CDA Collaborative Learning and Search for Common Ground, with funding from USAID. The case studies are organized by various themes including partnerships and financial sustainability, with additional insight from the SAS program, including practical lessons for how shifts in international development paradigms can lead to more sustainable, effective and culture- and conflict-sensitive partnerships, contributing to increased local leadership. | https://www.peacedirect.org/us/publications/what-transformation-takes/ | Worldwide |
| Inclusive Ceasefires and Peace Processes | NPSS | Ceasefire, negotiations, peace process, dialogue | The alarming number of conflicts and associated civilian casualties worldwide emphasizes the need to find resolution through peaceful means. The many methods of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) often prove successful in solving or calming conflicts with the long-term benefit of strengthening communities, infrastructure and ongoing dialogue that are needed to sustain hard-earned peace. Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) is a global civilian protection agency, working in some of the world’s most troubled zones to promote peace through civilian protection, reduction of community violence, and self-protection, conflict prevention, conflict management capacity development. Currently, NP has approximately 300 protection officers deployed in our programs in Iraq, Myanmar, Philippines, and South Sudan and we are collaborating with more than 50 implementing community organizations in 24 countries. To interrupt cycles of violence and facilitate sustainable peace, we work through five avenues, one of which is inclusive ceasefires and peace processes. | https://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/images/Publications/CoreComp/ceasefire_np.pdf | Global |
| Key Considerations When Supporting Peace Processes | DCHA/CMM | Conflict, development, negotiations, mediation, peace. | Development professionals can play an important role in any peace process, providing the technical knowledge and practical, on-the-ground insights necessary to create a peace agreement that is durable. There are a number of lessons learned that are important for development practitioners to keep in mind when supporting peace processes. Much of the guidance offered in this brief has been distilled from multiple sources in academic literature, from background materials used in developing CMM’s toolkit on supporting peace processes and from materials produced by numerous other research institutions | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12754 | Worldwide |
| State Support For Peace Processes: A Multi-Country Review | John Langmore, Tania Miletic, Aran Martin and Nathan Shea | Diplomacy: Track 1, Diplomacy: Track 2 | This study, done for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, explores what mechanisms exist to connect government foreign policy to expertise on peacemaking and peacebuilding. The report examines institutional frameworks that support Track 1 and Track 2 peacemaking and mediation efforts, including they are financed, supported, staffed and trained within governments, NGOs and academic institutions. Seven countries were selected for review: Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The experiences and lessons learned from peacemaking activities in those countries are used to provide recommendations for Australia. | https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/148424 | Worldwide |
| Dynamic Analysis of Dispute Management (DADM) Project | University of Central Arkansas | Third Party Dispute Management Data | The Dynamic Analysis of Dispute Management (DADM) Project was established to assist scholars and students in researching and analyzing efforts by third-party actors – including states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – to manage intrastate or domestic political disputes during the 20th and 21st centuries. The project includes two basic activities: (1) the collection of information associated with cases of intrastate disputes and third-party management of intrastate disputes in the 20th and 21st centuries (intrastate dispute narratives); and (2) the coding of information related to cases of intrastate disputes and third-party management of intrastate disputes in the 20th and 21st centuries (data sets). | https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/ | Worldwide |
| Violence Reduction Subsector Review & Evidence Evaluation | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik & Emily Myers | theories of change, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), networks | With levels of global violent conflict at a 25-year peak, the need for effective and impactful peacebuilding programming could not be more pressing. The peacebuilding field has shown immense commitment to understanding, preventing, and mitigating the impact of violent conflict, but has struggled to aggregate evidence across efforts to analyze, understand, and advocate for what works to reduce violence. If the peacebuilding field identifies where its programming has directly correlated to reduced levels of violence, then it will be better able to ground program design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E) in evidence, and leverage evidence to advocate for the necessity and utility of the field – making the case for peace. This evidence evaluation and subsector review analyzes data from twenty-two cases. Six macro-level violence reduction Theories of Change (ToC) were developed across three approaches from an analysis of the peacebuilding cases and the strength of evidence for each was assessed. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/violence-reduction-subsector-4-2019 | Worldwide |
| The Imperative of Constitutionalizing Peace Agreements | Laurie Nathan | Democracy and Governance | The study seeks to contribute to an understanding of the relationship between comprehensive peace agreements (CPAs) and post-conflict constitutions (PCCs). It defines a PCC as a new or revised constitution enacted as part of efforts to end a violent intra-state conflict and prevent its recurrence. This definition focuses on the purpose and not the timing of the constitutional reform. It encompasses constitutional reform that precedes, follows or takes the place of a CPA in an intended transition from intra-state conflict to sustainable peace. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/the-imperative-of-constitutionalizing-peace-agreements | Worldwide |
| “Frameworkers” and “Circlers” – Exploring Assumptions in Impact Assessment | Reina C. Neufeldt | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Humanitarian Engagement, Peacebuilding | This chapter explores two contending constituencies and their arguments about why and how to identify impact in peacebuilding initiatives in practice. The two constituencies, “frameworkers” and “circlers”, involve sets of people who blend across the lines of development and conflict transformation work and possess very different arguments about how to conceptualize and operationalize issues of impact and change in program design, monitoring and evaluation. The differences matter in a practical sense for workers in international and national NGOs because their views often clash during program design, monitoring and evaluation processes, and leave both sides dissatisfied. These differences also hinder people’s ability to talk clearly about impact and change, what matters, how people “know what they know” about impact and change and, therefore, how they do their peacebuilding work. The premise of the chapter is that by unmasking the conceptual debates, peacebuilders can improve their ability to speak about and achieve effectiveness and impact. After outlining the two basic constituencies, frameworkers and circlers, and a review of the current status of peacebuilding monitoring and evaluation, the author examines how tensions between the two approaches provide insights into the underlying issues that need to be addressed. The chapter concludes with examples of ways that peacebuilding or other social change-orientated programs have adapted to bridge the positions in practice and identify practices that can strengthen particular areas that are currently under-developed and can benefit program design. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12902 | Worldwide |
| The Handbook of Conflict Prevention | Igarapé Institute | Conflict Prevention, Citizen Action, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | This handbook seeks to build more clarity to conflict prevention concepts and practice. Based on extensive consultations at the UN and the AU and with support from Global Affairs (Canada), it offers a working definition and a typology of innovative preventive approaches. In setting out a standard nomenclature, the goal is to help improve knowledge sharing across Africa in particular. At the same time, the handbook is designed to provide policy makers and practitioners with insights and ideas for prioritizing, designing, implementing and evaluating conflict prevention. | https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/The-Handbook-of-Conflict-Prevention.pdf | Worldwide |
| A handbook for development practitioners: ten steps to a results-based monitoring and evaluation system | Jody Zall Kusek and Ray C. Rist | Project Evaluation | An effective state is essential to achieving socio-economic and sustainable development. With the advent of globalization, there are growing pressures on governments and organizations around the world to be more responsive to the demands of internal and external stakeholders for good governance, accountability and transparency, greater development effectiveness, and delivery of tangible results. Governments, parliaments, citizens, the private sector, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil society, international organizations, and donors are among the stakeholders interested in better performance. As demands for greater accountability and real results have increased, there is an attendant need for enhanced results-based monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs, and projects. This handbook provides a comprehensive ten-step model that will help guide development practitioners through the process of designing and building a results-based monitoring and evaluation system. These steps begin with a 'readiness assessment' and take the practitioner through the design, management, and importantly, the sustainability of such systems. The handbook describes each step in detail, the tasks needed to complete each one, and the tools available to help along the way. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12763 | Worldwide |
| Conflict Prevention In Fragile Contexts | Harsh Desai | Fragility, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, War Prevention | Prevention is better than cure. The prevention of violent conflict in fragile contexts is cost-effective, it works and it should matter – to Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members and the broader international community – for sustaining peace. The challenge is in translating recent policy commitments to prevention into practice in fragile contexts. Using the OECD multidimensional fragility framework and insights from the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF), this paper presents lessons on preventing violent conflict that are rooted in a risk and resilience approach and that prioritise country-led and owned responses. It offers DAC members insights on how they can best support conflict prevention in fragile contexts, and it is one of ten working papers contributing to States of Fragility 2020. | https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/041cbaf0-en.pdf?expires=1651770739&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=B6CDB21DEBC10BC2C9A6B63E6B080257 | Worldwide |
| Identifying Pathways to Peace: How International Support Can Help Prevent Conflict Recurrence | Karina Mross, Charlotte Fiedler, Jörn Grävingholt | Peacekeeping, Governance, Economics and Conflict | This article provides new evidence on how the international community can effectively foster peace after civil war. It expands the current literature’s narrow focus on either peacekeeping or aggregated aid flows, adopting a comprehensive, yet disaggregated, view on international peacebuilding efforts. We distinguish five areas of peacebuilding support (peacekeeping, nonmilitary security support, support for politics and governance, for socioeconomic development, and for societal conflict transformation) and analyze which types or combinations are particularly effective and in which context. Applying configurational analysis (qualitative comparative analysis) to all thirty-six post-civil war peace episodes between 1990 and 2014, we find that (1) peacekeeping is only one important component of effective post-conflict support, (2) the largest share of peaceful cases can be explained by support for politics and governance, (3) only combined international efforts across all types of support can address difficult contexts, and (4) countries neglected by the international community are highly prone to experiencing conflict recurrence. Three case studies shed light on underlying causal mechanisms | https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab091 | Worldwide |
| Atrocity Prevention through Persuasion and Deterrence | Jonas Claes | Early Warning, Human Rights, Conflict Prevention | This Peace Brief describes the key findings and conclusions from a working session organized by USIP on April 5, 2012. The participants included 25 leading policymakers, scholars, and NGO leaders with a focus on conflict management and atrocity prevention. The brief serves as input for the U.N. secretary-general's report in advance of the U.N. General Assembly's interactive dialogue on timely and decisive responses to prevent and halt genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity in accordance with the Responsibility to Protect principle. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2012/06/atrocity-prevention-through-persuasion-and-deterrence | Worldwide |
| Non-state Justice System Programming | Barry Walsh, Eric Bartz | Justice, guidance, institutions, community-level, democracy, nonstate. | This guide is intended to assist USAID Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Officers and other practitioners in designing, implementing, and monitoring rule of law programs that include support for community-level non-state justice systems (NSJSs). It aims to provide a digest of techniques used by donors in supporting such NSJSs and offers guidance on best practices and lessons learned, including a sample scope of work (SOW) that may be used as a starting point for future support programs. The observations and conclusions herein may also be useful for programmatic support to other types of NSJSs. | https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/Guide-to-NSJS-Jun-19.pdf | Worldwide |
| SIPRI Arms Transfers Database | Stockholm International Peace Research Institute | Arms Transfer Data | The SIPRI Arms Transfers Database contains information on all transfers of major conventional weapons from 1950 to the most recent full calendar year. It is a unique resource for researchers, policy-makers and analysts, the media and civil society interested in monitoring and measuring the international flow of major conventional arms. | https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers | Worldwide |
| Powers of Persuasion: Incentives, Sanctions and Conditionality in Peacemaking | Aaron Griffiths, Catherine Barnes | Peacemaking, Sanctions | This report is the result of a project that analyzed the use of sanctions, incentives and conditionality from the standpoint of whether they underpin or undermine peace processes (ie the formal and informal processes of dialogue and negotiation between the parties that aim to address their conflict). Used effectively, it seems that these policy tools can tip the balance towards settlement by increasing the costs of fighting and the rewards for making peace. There is often an assumption that such tools have the potential to induce parties to participate in negotiations and encourage them to reach and implement peace agreements. Yet many of the cases in this study reveal how these policy tools have been ineffective or even ‘done harm’ in exacerbating tensions and fueling conflict dynamics. Four overriding conclusions can be drawn from this study for how to enhance the effectiveness of external influence in support of peacemaking. (1) External actors need to prioritize support for sustainable peace as their primary goal in a conflict situation and craft their strategy to help achieve it – recognizing that this may, in turn, create the enabling conditions for achieving other foreign policy goals. (2) Sanctions, incentives and conditionality are most likely to be effective when they are responsive to the parties’ own motivational structures and support a pre-existing societal dynamic for conflict resolution. (3) They need to be designed and implemented in ways that help to create momentum in the resolution process, which (4) typically requires a degree of strategic coherence amongst external actors, necessitating mechanisms for coordination. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12746 | Worldwide |
| Evaluating Peacebuilding Activities in Settings of Conflict and Fragility | OECD | Fragility, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention | Evaluating Peacebuilding Activities in Settings of Conflict and Fragility was developed by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to help improve program design and management and strengthen the use of evaluation in order to enhance the quality of conflict prevention and peacebuilding work. It seeks to guide policy makers and country partners, field and program officers, evaluators and other stakeholders engaged in settings of conflict and fragility by supporting a better, shared understanding of the role and utility of evaluations, outlining key dimensions of planning for them, setting them up, and carrying them out. The central principles and concepts include conflict sensitivity and the importance of understanding and testing underlying theories about what is being done and why. The report describes the convergence of the concepts of peacebuilding, statebuilding and conflict prevention and addresses the emerging international consensus that such contexts require specific, adapted approaches. It considers the principles for engagement in fragile states as the backdrop to evaluating such engagement and outlines the preconditions for evaluability, which should be handled by those designing and managing such programs. Such conditions include setting clear, measurable objectives for peace-related activities, collecting baselines data and monitoring activities. The report analyzes challenges of evaluating in fragile, conflicted-affected societies, the importance of understanding the conflict context; conflict sensitivity and theories of change; and examples of evaluations at work. The report concludes that actionable recommendations based on the conclusions should be presented as opportunities for learning and commissioning institutions should ensure systematic response to the findings. Such an approach will increase receptivity and the chances that findings will be fed back into program design and decision-making. In these ways, more and better evaluation will contribute to identifying strategies and programs that progress towards “peace writ large”. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12883?show=full | Worldwide |
| Opting out of War: Strategies to Prevent Violent Conflict | Mary B. Anderson, Marshall Wallace | Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Violence Prevention, Governance | This book reports stories of existing capacities and resilience on the part of multiple communities—some quite sizable and significant—that manage to prevent violent conflict when all the incentives that surround them are to become involved, to fight. The stories of thirteen communities show that prevention of violent conflict is possible. Normal people living normal lives have the option to say no to war, and they take it. Normal leaders in systems that already exist can respond to and support their people in non-engagement, and they do. This kind of conflict prevention does not require special training, new leadership, or special funding. It occurs, repeatedly and around the world in different types of conflict. The communities described in this book were successful because they acted with intentionality and planning to set themselves apart from the agendas of the war, for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons. They did not move to avoid interaction with actors in the conflict nor attempt to be irrelevant to the battle. They were not hidden from view by remoteness or because of their insignificance in numbers. The alternate route they chose is not war-prevention, but it does constitute prevention of violent conflict in their contexts. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12809 | Worldwide |
| Risks, Dangers, and Threat Models: Evaluating Security Analysis for Conflict Practitioners | Michael Loadenthal, Peyton Nielsen, Devin McCarthy | Security, Conflict Resolution, Peacemaker | The risks to conflict practitioners, peacemakers, humanitarian aid workers, and others serving ‘in the field’ are diverse, deeply contextual, and ever-changing. While ample literature exists focused around documenting and evaluating the history of these dangers, far fewer resources have been authored to promote a comprehensive, proactive, and agile framework for predicting, observing, and understanding risks and threats to one's safety and security. While it is true that many organizations provide their employees with carefully-written guides containing security ‘dos and don’ts,’ what are practitioners meant to do when the conditions on the ground change? Instead of providing fixed solutions to emergent problems, this paper argues for a flexible framework to understand security and risk, and as a result, facilitates the development of a sustained, adaptable security posture and risk balance. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12716 | Worldwide |
| Global Registry of Violent Deaths (GReVD) | GReVD | Conflict Data | The Global Registry of Violent Deaths (GReVD, pronounced like ”grieved”) will be a database of every violent death coded by time and location. The primary use of the registry will be monitoring and counting violent deaths as an important part of monitoring global violence trends. Furthermore, it is expected that the database will be an important record and recognition of lives lost to violence. To build the infrastructure necessary to monitor violent deaths at this scale, new coding standards, innovations in human and machine coding and increased precision of coding will be necessary. Innovations in these technologies and practices will be shared within the consortium. These innovations will be shared with governments of countries affected by violence so that global monitoring of violence can improve. The consortium is committed to helping countries and civil society improve their monitoring of violence as an important component of promoting global violence reduction. | https://grevd.org/ | Worldwide |
| Fresh Insights on the Quantity and Quality of Women's Inclusion in Peace Processes | Thania Paffenholz, Antonia Potter Prentice, Cate Buchanan | Gender, Peace Process, Mediation | This policy brief resulted from a meeting of policy analysts, practitioners, and academic involved in the women, peace and security agenda to review, analyze and frame key findings from research related to women's participation and gendered approaches to inclusive peace processes. The brief was intended to contribute to the UNSCR 1325 high-level review process. The focus is on understanding why there is a persistent lack of women's direct participation in peace processes and the connection to the political economy of power as well as ways technical packages for women's participation can be strengthened and increased. Mediators play a key role in increasing women's meaningful participation. In addition, the complexity of women's multiple identities and roles needs to be better reflected in peace process design. Interspersed in the brief are both examples of women's participation in peace processes as well as recommendations for ways to strengthen women's participation. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12897 | Worldwide |
| Conflict Data Dashboard | NGO Safety | Conflict Data | Updated weekly, this dashboard presents all recorded security incidents by date, location, type, perpetrator and the impact on civilians. | https://ngosafety.org/conflict-data-dashboard/ | Worldwide |
| The Security Council And Conflict Prevention: Entry Points For Diplomatic Action | Richard Gowan | Preventive Diplomacy, Monitoring/Verification: United Nations, Governance: Reforms | This paper explores how members of the Security Council can design and implement preventive diplomatic strategies in response to emerging, escalating and acute crises. The Council’s behaviour in crisis situations is often reactive and far from strategic. Council members regularly struggle with (i) uncertainty over conflict dynamics; (ii) divergent national interests; and (iii) the lack of clear policy options for managing a situation. These limitations reflect not only the inherently chancy nature of conflict prevention – which is always an uncertain business – but also the political limitations of the Council as a factious intergovernmental body. These limits mean that the Council is often only a supporting player, or not a player at all, in preventive efforts led by States or regional organizations. The paper provides options for building a degree of diplomatic coherence around a set of goals within the Council and with other actors, and how the Council can engage directly with actors in a conflict. | https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:7963/UNSC_ConflictPrevention.pdf | Worldwide |
| Food Systems in Conflict and Peacebuilding Settings | Caroline Delgado, Vongai Murugani, Kristina Tschunkert | Hunger and violence, Food insecurity | Food security is closely related to peace and stability. Failing food systems and the resultant increasing world hunger are among the most pressing issues of our time. The figures are stark: in 2020, 155 million people were acutely food insecure—an increase of nearly 20 million from the year before. Nearly 30 million people were on the verge of starvation, meaning that they did not know where their next meal would come from. The world is thus far not on track to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (Zero Hunger) by 2030. Despite the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, violent conflict remained the main driver of global hunger in 2020. The number of active violent conflicts is on the rise, and they are also becoming increasingly severe and protracted. Conflict has a direct negative impact on food systems, affecting people’s ability to produce, trade and access food. In most armed conflicts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, conflict actors have used food as a weapon of war and deliberately destroyed food systems, with lasting food insecurity as a principal legacy of war. Moreover, food insecurity may create grievances that can escalate into instability and violent conflict, acting as a channel for individuals or groups to express broader socio-economic and political grievances. Simply put, without a resolution to food insecurity, it will be difficult to build sustainable peace, and without peace, the likelihood of ending global hunger is minimal. The increases in both acute food insecurity and violent conflict demand urgent and decisive action. The objectives of this three-part policy paper series are to emphasize the urgency of addressing the relationship between conflict and food insecurity and to point out existing opportunities to do so. This initial paper aims, firstly, to inform policymakers of the intricate relationships between food security and violent conflict. Secondly, it aims to alert policymakers to the potential ability of sustainable and equitable food systems to contribute to peace, and then highlights the action required to enhance this potential. The paper synthesizes existing research and evidence, concluding with four recommendations. The second paper explores the links in context, detailing how they play out in two specific settings: Venezuela and Yemen. The third paper discusses opportunities and practical steps that can help to break the vicious circle of hunger and conflict. | https://www.sipri.org/publications/2021/other-publications/food-systems-conflict-and-peacebuilding-settings-pathways-and-interconnections | Worldwide |
| INFORM Severity Index | ACAPS | Humanitarian Data | The INFORM Severity Index is a regularly updated, and easily interpreted model for measuring the severity of humanitarian crisis globally. This global severity analysis is coherent with other types of severity analysis conducted by ACAPS, in the field, at a subnational level. | https://www.acaps.org/methodology/severity | Worldwide |
| Diplomacy And Peace In Fragile Contexts | Jonathan Marley, Erik Forsberg | Fragility, Diplomacy, Facilitation | Diplomats and other diplomatic actors serve as the primary political actors in fragile contexts, both for OECD Development Assistance Committee members and the broader international community. They directly contribute to immediate and long-term peace, and their broad political network and knowledge positions them as a nodal point for effective and inclusive humanitarian, development and peace action in fragile contexts. This paper examines three different functions diplomatic actors assume that contribute to peace in fragile contexts: diplomacy as global governance, diplomats as peacebuilders and diplomats as facilitators. This paper is one of ten working papers supporting States of Fragility 2020. It works together with Security actors in fragile contexts, Conflict prevention in fragile contexts, and Peacebuilding in fragile contexts to provide comprehensive background to Chapter 2 on peace in States of Fragility 2020. | https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/6a684a4b-en.pdf?expires=1651771308&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=03936B557D88A03E1581B672AF6176BC | Worldwide |
| Peace Processes and Their Agreements | Christine Bell, Laura Wise | Peace Process, Multi-Track Diplomacy, Inclusive Peacebuilding | This chapter in Contemporary Peacemaking: Peace Processes, Peacebuilding and Conflict sets out how peace processes unfold and agreements are reached, drawing on a major quantitative and qualitative review of peace agreements in the post-Cold War era. It explores the function that formalized agreement plays in providing an exit from conflict, understanding how different types of agreements addressing diverse issues are used to move forward at various stages of a peace process, and at different levels of conflict. We argue that practices established in 1990 are now at a crossroads pointing to a new global realignment that affects who intervenes, why and to what end, and new forms of conflict. All of these factors challenge established peace process practices and the assumptions that underpin them. We point to “complex conflict systems” requiring multilevel peace processes across inter-related geopolitical, national and local conflicts, and suggest forms of adaptive management which are required to deal with the interactions between these levels. | https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Bell-Wise2022_Chapter_PeaceProcessesAndTheirAgreemen.pdf | Worldwide |
| Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2020 | Diego Lopes da Silva, Nan Tian, Alexandra Marksteiner | Military spending | World military expenditure in 2020 is estimated to have been $1981 billion, the highest level since 1988—the earliest year for which SIPRI has a consistent estimate for total global military spending. World military expenditure in 2020 was 2.6 per cent higher in real terms than in 2019 and 9.3 per cent higher than in 2011 (see figure 1). The global military burden—world military expenditure as a share of global gross domestic product (GDP)—rose by 0.2 percentage points in 2020, to 2.4 per cent. This increase was largely due to the fact that most countries in the world experienced severe economic downturns in 2020 related to the Covid 19 pandemic, while military expenditure continued to rise overall. | https://www.sipri.org/publications/2021/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-military-expenditure-2020 | Worldwide |
| Pathways for Peace : Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict | Conflict Prevention, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Economics and Conflict, Diplomacy, Locally-led Peacemaking: Women-led | The resurgence of violent conflict in recent years has caused immense human suffering, at enormous social and economic cost. Violent conflicts today have become complex and protracted, involving more non-state groups and regional and international actors, often linked to global challenges from climate change to transnational organized crime. It is increasingly recognized as an obstacle to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This has given impetus for policy makers at all levels – from local to global – to focus on preventing violent conflict more effectively. Grounded in a shared commitment to this agenda, Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict is a joint United Nations and World Bank study that looks at how development processes can better interact with diplomacy and mediation, security and other tools to prevent conflict from becoming violent. To understand ‘what works,’ it reviews the experience of different countries and institutions to highlight elements that have contributed to peace. Central to these efforts is the need to address grievances around exclusion from access to power, opportunity and security. States hold the primary responsibility for prevention, but to be effective, civil society, the private sector, regional and international organizations must be involved. Enhancing the meaningful participation of women and youth in decision making, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people are fundamental to sustaining peace. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12782 | Worldwide | |
| DME for Peace Website | Search for Common Ground | Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation Data | DME for Peace was created to provide professionals in the peacebuilding, development and humanitarian sectors with a platform to share tools, methodologies and findings among the community to help them identify and demonstrate what works, what does not and why. DME for Peace is a consortium and network of practitioners, evaluators and academics that share best and emerging practices on how to design, monitor and evaluate peacebuilding programs. The site has more than 1,000 resources focused on design, monitoring and evaluation that are shared and posted by the community in order to promote greater collaboration and transparency as well as increase the effectiveness of the peacebuilding field. | https://www.dmeforpeace.org/ | Worldwide |
| Localising protection responses in conflicts: challenges and opportunities | Victoria Metcalfe-Hough | Citizen Action, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Violence Prevention | In conflict situations around the world, civilians are providing their own frontline ‘protection services’, adopting a variety of strategies and utilising various capacities and capabilities to try to prevent and mitigate the impact of conflict-related violence and abuse, and repair the damage done to their lives and livelihoods. On the ground, however, international humanitarian organisations are still failing to fully understand and systematically integrate these local and self-protection efforts in their own response strategies. This report considers in detail the role of local populations in their own protection; the role of local non-state actors in enhancing those efforts; and the relationship between these and the strategies adopted by international ‘humanitarian protection’ actors. The paper further seeks to explore the tensions, challenges and opportunities inherent in a more localised approach to protection. | https://odi.org/en/publications/localising-protection-responses-in-conflicts-challenges-and-opportunities/ | Worldwide |
| International Multiparty Mediation and Conflict Management Challenges of cooperation and coordination | Siniša Vuković | Mediation, Conflict Management | This volume aims to provide a detailed explanation of the effects of cooperation and coordination on international multiparty mediation in conflicts. Contemporary scholarship stresses that the crucial ingredients for a successful multiparty mediation are ‘consistency in interests’ and ‘cooperation and coordination’ between mediators. This book seeks to supplement that understanding by investigating how much the ‘consistency of interests’ and ‘cooperation and coordination’ affect the overall process, and what happens to the mediation process when mediating parties do not share the same idea and interest in finding a common solution. At the same time, it explores the obstacles in achieving coordination and coherence between various mediators in such an environment and how to surmount the problems that multiple mediators face when operating without a ‘common script’ in attempting to mediate a negotiated settlement. The study investigates three distinct mechanisms (both on the systemic and contextual level) that have the potential to deter defection from a (potential) member of the multiparty mediation coalition: geo-political shifts, changes in the conflict dynamics, and mediators’ ability to bargain for a cooperative relationship. As the number of states and international actors that are involved in mediation increases, a careful assessment is necessary not only of their relative institutional strengths and weaknesses, but also of how to promote complementary efforts and how to synchronize the whole process when one actor is transferring the responsibilities for mediation to others. This book will be of much interest to students of mediation, conflict management, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12174 | Worldwide |
| VDEM Egalitarian Democracy Index | VDEM Institute (Staffan I. Lindberg) Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg | Democracy Data | Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is an unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. We provide a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles. | https://www.v-dem.net/ | Worldwide |
| Gender Mainstreaming in Ceasefires: Comparative Data and Examples | Forster Robert, Bell Christine | Peace Agreement, Ceasefire, Gender | This Spotlight addresses the question of whether and how ceasefire agreements in armed conflict address the specific needs and interests of women. It also provides examples of agreements that have integrated gender equality issues and addressed women’s participation. The Spotlight aims to provide both data and examples from past practice for women and gender equality advocates to draw on when seeking to influence ceasefire negotiations. Ceasefires may be agreed in stand-alone documents for example, to create an environment for peace talks, or occur within other peace agreements as a broader peace process unfolds. The authors begin by providing a general overview of ceasefire agreements, followed by an assessment of why it is important that ceasefires should include gender sensitive provisions. Based on their review of what ceasefires tend to include, the authors then set out when and how women have been addressed in ceasefire agreements to-date, and conclude by noting some strategies that have been used by women and gender equality advocates to influence ceasefire agreement provisions. | https://www.politicalsettlements.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/PA-X-Spotlight-Ceasefires-Digital.pdf | Worldwide |
| WJP Rule of Law Index | Juan Carlos Botero, Mark David Agrast, and Alejandro Ponce, World Justice Project | Rule of Law Data | The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index® is the world’s leading source for original, independent data on the rule of law. Covering 139 countries and jurisdictions, the Index relies on national surveys of more than 138,000 households and 4,200 legal practitioners and experts to measure how the rule of law is experienced and perceived worldwide. | https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/research-and-data/wjp-rule-law-index-2021 | Worldwide |
| Women’s Participation And The Fate Of Nonviolent Campaign: A Report On The Women In Resistance (Wire) Data Set | Erica Chenoweth, Conor Seyle, Sahana Dharmapuri | Locally-led Peacemaking: Women-led, Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding | Drawn from the Women in Resistance (WiRe) data set, this report is a first of its kind attempt to assess resistance movements on the degree to which they incorporate women into their political goals, their memberships, and their leadership. The brief draws on the findings from the full report, which examines the effects of women’s representation in resistance movements on their choice of strategies and movement effectiveness. It outlines key findings from the data, as well as practical implications and recommendations for governments, civil society, and scholars. | https://oursecurefuture.org/research-analysis/women%E2%80%99s-participation-and-fate-nonviolent-campaigns-policy-brief | Worldwide |
| Ceasefire monitoring: Developments and complexities | Cate Buchanan, Govinda Clayton, Alexander Ramsbotham | Peace Agreement, Ceasefire, Monitoring/Verification | Ceasefire monitoring can make a crucial contribution to transitions from war to peace. Yet significant variation in the characteristics of ceasefires and monitoring approaches, and the differences across contexts in which they occur, limit attempts at comprehensive analysis and development of standardised guidance on ‘what works’. To support critical reflection, Conciliation Resources convened a set of four joint analysis workshops in October 2020, which brought together practitioners, policymakers, donors, conflict parties, civil society leaders and researchers to reflect on some of the challenges and recent developments in ceasefire monitoring. This Accord Spotlight is not a definitive guide to ceasefires or monitoring missions, but a presentation of some of key reflections that emerged from the workshops, intended to inspire fresh thinking and further contemplation for those attempting to provide more effective support for ceasefire implementation processes. | https://www.politicalsettlements.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ceasefire-monitoring-Developments-and-complexities.pdf | Worldwide |
| Can We Build Peace from a Distance? The Impact of COVID-19 on the Peacebuilding Sector | Elizabeth Laruni, Kim Toogood, Lucy Holdaway | COVID-19, Lack of contact and peacebuilding | This background paper explores some of the ways in which the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has disrupted one of the foundation principles of peacebuilding practice: the basic need to bring people together face-to-face. It takes a step back to look at the overall impact on peacebuilding practice when intergroup contact is limited, encouraging an examination of the principles that underpin practice. | https://www.international-alert.org/publications/can-we-build-peace-from-a-distance-impact-covid-19-peacebuilding/ | Worldwide |
| Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding: A Manual | Jenny Aulin | Peace Processes: Strategies, Facilitation, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The manual specifically explores the multi-stakeholder approach from the perspective of civil society organisations (CSOs). CSOs can take part in multi-stakeholder processes in many different capacities, as original convenor or as an invited participant. To set up an MSP, a civil society organisation will often have to form a partnership with other key actors so that they will have the leverage to invite the right people and agencies to the table. Building on the vast experiences of practitioners and case studies from a diverse set of contexts, the manual has been developed for GPPAC members and other CSOs that are or seek to get involved in MSPs. It also provides guidance on good practice for other actors, such as International NonGovernmental Organisations (INGOs), governments, donors, regional or global intergovernmental organisations that seek to engage civil society in processes that they convene. | https://www.cdacollaborative.org/publication/multi-stakeholder-processes-for-conflict-prevention-and-peacebuilding-a-manual/ | Worldwide |
| Translating Mediation Guidance into Practice: Commentary on the UN Guidance for Effective Mediation by the Mediation Support Network | Miguel Alvarez, Sabina Avasiloae, Roxana Cristecu, Paul Dziatkowiec, Sara Hellmueller, Lars Kirchhoff, Anne Isabel Kraus, Simon Mason, Martha Mutisi, Nathan Stock, Bargara Unger, Zahbia Yousuf | Mediation, Inclusive Peace Process, Peace Agreement | This is a short monograph that summarizes a series of meetings of the Mediation Support Network (MSN), a network of primarily non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that support mediation in peace negotiations. Specifically, MSN members discussed and reflected on the “UN Guidance for Effective Mediation” and specifically focused on how to translate the UN Guidance into practice. Rather than being a comprehensive commentary, this document therefore focuses on certain issues and cases that seem pertinent from the MSN perspective. The discussions focused on numerous case studies that illustrate the challenges of mediation, and how they were dealt with. The aim of these case studies – some of them specifically focusing on the NGO role in mediation – is to help translate the UN Guidance into effective practice. A few key themes about mediation were featured: preparedness; consent; impartiality; inclusivity; national ownership; international law and a normative framework; coherence, coordination, and complementarity; and quality peace agreements. Conclusions included the need for mediation to be professionalized and that careful analysis is needed before any mediation action. Such analysis and strategizing requires the long-term development of institutional and human capacity. There is a strong and legitimate call for making mediation processes more inclusive, with regard to the inclusion of a range of actors (e.g., marginalized groups, women, religious actors, etc.) and with regard to the content of a peace agreement. However, mediators often face pressure to reach a minimum agreement quickly, especially when hostilities are ongoing. This can make it particularly difficult to reach more inclusive, and thus more complex, agreements. Inclusivity also entails efforts, outside the formal mediation process, to support dialogue between actors, so that they can better influence formal processes and sustain peace agreements once they are signed. Coordination of mediators benefits from the inclusion of civil society: Local mediators are often forgotten, even if they have many comparative advantages and play a key role before, during and after formal peace processes. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12757 | Worldwide |
| Ceasefires Tracker: Monitorings the effects of Covid ceasefires on peace processes and armed conflict. | PeaceRep | Ceasefire Data | The Covid-19 Ceasefire Tracker is a publicly available digital tracking tool to examine the consequences of the coronavirus outbreak on peace processes and armed conflict across the world. The tool monitors the progress of ceasefires alongside live data on infection rates in country. The data can be viewed in a timeline format, a search browse format, and a map format which also includes live data on infection rates in country. | https://peacerep.org/covid19/research/ceasefires/ | Worldwide |
| Guiding Steps For Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, & Evaluation | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik & Sharon Morris | theories of change, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), networks | Good evaluation can only happen if we think about learning and evidence at the start of a program. This document, Guiding Steps for Peacebuilding Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation, details seven steps, outlined below, that are the minimum set of steps every peacebuilding program must adhere to in order to contribute to robust evidence and learning in the peacebuilding field. In the document that follows, each step is explained and the critical elements and their importance are outlined. We also provide an initial list of key resources for each step. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12783 | Worldwide |
| Beyond consultations: a tool for meaningfully engaging with women in fragile and conflict-affected states | SaferWorld | Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | The Beyond Consultations tool is designed to support actors to move towards more meaningful engagement with women in fragile and conflict-affected states , in response to feedback that many consultation exercises tend to be extractive, tokenistic and disempowering. The tool enables a self-assessment of current consultation practices and provides a best practice framework to ensure that women and women’s organisations are fully engaged in decision-making processes. It should be used as early as possible during the planning and design phase of engagement, and regularly revisited throughout the participation activity and its evaluation. | https://beyondconsultations.org/ | Worldwide |
| DDR and Peacebuilding: Thematic review of DDR contributions to peacebuilding and the role of the Peacebuilding Fund | United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Monitoring/Verification: United Nations, Training | This report reviews the contributions of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) to peacebuilding. The review draws on the experiences of three case studies: Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Nepal and focuses specifically on the projects supported by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The recommendations of the review aim to help the DDR and peacebuilding communities, and the PBF in particular, strategically and programmatically position their support to DDR (-related) initiatives for more lasting and promising peacebuilding results. The review works on identifying lessons that contribute to a greater understanding of the effectiveness and strategic relevance of DDR programmes to peacebuilding, added-value and comparative advantage of PBF’s funding arrangements, and promising practices that can be used to shape future programming. The review approaches the interlinkages of peacebuilding and DDR through the latter’s role in promoting the peace process, provision of basic security, peace dividends (including economic revitalization, restoring social fabrics and civic responsibility) as well as addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict. Firstly, explores the policy relationship and interlink- ages of DDR programmes and peacebuilding and the practical implications of this interrelationship on the ground. Secondly, it provides an introduction to the funding structure of the PBF and provides a summary of each of the three case studies. Thirdly, it explores the results of the three case studies horizontally, highlighting overall trends, contextual differences, lessons, and challenges across the cases. It finally highlights the main findings and expresses recommendations that contain specific action points aimed toward PBF efforts and contributions to achieving sustainable peacebuilding results. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/ddr_pbf_thematic_review.pdf | Central African Republic |
| Local Peacebuilding: What Works And Why | Phil Vernon | Locally-led, peacebuilding, youth, gender, WPS, early warning | This report argues that more support for local peacebuilding is needed, and highlights examples of effective local initiatives in support of this claim. To counter the scepticism some decision‑makers express about the impact of local peacebuilding, the report is confined to examples that have been objectively assessed by external evaluators or researchers. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/local-peacebuilding-what-6-2019 | Worldwide |
| Partners and Competitors: Forces Operating in Parallel to UN Peace Operations | Alexandra Novosseloff and Lisa Sharland | Operations management, monitoring and reporting, peacekeeping, | This report examines the missions that have operated in parallel to UN peace operations to identify how to strengthen these partnerships in the future. It analyzes and categorizes the types of parallel forces that have been deployed and examines the rationales for deploying them. It also looks at strategic and operational challenges, including the challenges unique to peace operations operating alongside a counterterrorism force. Finally, drawing on lessons from past and current parallel deployments, it offers recommendations for member states, the Security Council, and the UN Secretariat | https://www.ipinst.org/2019/11/partners-and-competitors-forces-operating-in-parallel-to-un-peace-operations | Worldwide |
| Incorporating Gender into UN Senior Leadership Training | Lesley Connolly, Sarah Taylor | Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Facilitation | A gender perspective provides the possibility of strengthening and nurturing the effectiveness of peacekeeping. Senior mission leadership teams can greatly benefit from training on gender policies and frameworks, as well as how to apply them in planning and field operations. Gender-sensitive training can guide senior leadership to ensure the preparedness and efficacy of peace operations, taking into account the multiple challenges and crises that such operations might bring. A gender perspective in the context of UN peace operations entails a relevance for senior leaders to effectively implement mission mandates. There are existing gender-related training and preparation techniques that can be increasingly included in the understanding and analysis of missions, which can broaden the traditionally male-dominated models of decision-making. A better grasp on gender considerations at a practical level can better inform, as well as reflect an essential factor in the approaches to senior leadership training. | https://www.ipinst.org/2019/04/incorporating-gender-into-un-senior-leadership-training | Worldwide |
| Environmental Performance Index | Yale University and Columbia University in collaboration with the World Economic Forum | Environmental Policy Data | Using 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories, the EPI ranks 180 countries on environmental health and ecosystem vitality. These indicators provide a gauge at a national scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy targets. The EPI offers a scorecard that highlights leaders and laggards in environmental performance and provides practical guidance for countries that aspire to move toward a sustainable future. | https://epi.yale.edu/ | Worldwide |
| Gender Trainings in International Peace and Security: Toward a More Effective Approach | Sarah-Myriam Martin-Brûlé, Stéfanie von Hlatky, Savita Pawnday, Marie-Joëlle Zahar | Gender, effectiveness, reflection, training, evaluation | As more and more states and organizations adopt a gendered approach to international policy, trainings on how to conduct gender-based analysis and integrate gender perspectives into policies and programming have proliferated. But despite this increase in gender trainings, it remains unclear how effective they have been due to challenges related to their design, delivery, targeting, and evaluation. After mapping the ecosystem of gender trainings in the realm of international peace and security, this issue brief unpacks each of these challenges. It concludes with a set of recommendations for improving gender trainings. | https://www.ipinst.org/2020/07/gender-trainings-in-international-peace-and-security | Worldwide |
| USHMM Early Warning Project Comparison Survey | Valentino, Ulfelder and Hazlett, Center for Prevention of Genocide, USHMM | Genocide and Attrocity Risk Data | The survey consists of just a single question: Which country is more likely to see a new episode of mass killing in [YEAR]? Respondents choose between two countries in a head-to-head comparison. They can answer the question for as many different pairs of countries as they like. Responses are aggregated into an overall rank ordering of countries. Our survey is open to the public for the month of December, and is actively promoted to experts, policymakers, NGOs, and scholars in international affairs. | https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.org/comparison-surveys | Worldwide |
| Paving the Way: Contributions of Interactive Conflict Resolution to Peacemaking | Ronald J.Fisher | Conflict Resolution, Peacemaking | This first-of-a-kind collection brings together in one volume the strongest available evidence of successful transfer effects from unofficial third-party work to official peacemaking. Using comparative case analysis from several real-world interventions, Paving the Way offers insights into the conditions and qualities of successful programs of interactive conflict resolution from experts in the field. Editor Ronald J. Fisher has assembled a collection of seminal case studies that illustrate interactive approaches to conflict resolution from the Malaysia-Indonesia conflict in the 1960s to the Peru-Equador peace process of the late 1990s. Integrating theory, research, and practice, the cases posit that interactive conflict resolution can make a significant, and sometimes essential, contribution to the resolution of protracted and violent identity conflicts. The methods and solutions offered in Paving the Way will serve as best practices for those in the field and as training tools and resources for scholars and policymakers. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12181 | Worldwide |
| Corruption Perceptions Index | Transparency International | Corruption Data | The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is the most widely-used global corruption ranking in the world. It measures how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople. | https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021 | Worldwide |
| Some Reflections on the Role of Power in Track II Mediation | Evan Hoffman | Mediation, Track II, Diplomacy, Power | Power is a central feature of both Track I (formal) and Track II (informal) mediation. Power intersects the mediation process at every stage and is deeply embedded in the process, its design and structure, as well as who facilitates it. This paper addresses the question of how to manage these and other power dynamics and what can be done to alter them. Four key insights are presented based on the author’s personal experience undertaking peacemaking and mediation in Canada and overseas over the last twenty years. The four insights are that: (1) Convening power is shaped by the type of process and who is running it; (2) The mediator has procedural power but exercising it might create a reputational cost; (3) Power imbalances are likely to occur and the mediator needs to make a conscious effort to address them; (4) Power, which is often deeply embedded in the social institutions where the conflict is occurring, can be used for either constructive (peaceful) or destructive (violent) purposes and that decision is influenced by leaders from different sectors (political, military, etc.). Based on these four key insights, several recommendations for mediation and peacemaking actors to address power dynamics are developed. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12710 | Worldwide |
| Peace Agreements Database | United Nations | Peace Agreements Data | The database is a reference tool providing peacemaking professionals with close to 800 documents that can be understood broadly as peace agreements and related material. Users can access the full texts of the agreements in different languages and can use different search criteria, including searching by a number of different thematic issues. | https://peacemaker.un.org/document-search | Worldwide |
| Adding Up to Peace: The Cumulative Impacts of Peace Initiatives | Diana Chigas and Peter Woodrow | Peace Initiatives, Impact Assessments, Case Studies | This book aims to identify how cumulative impacts in peace practice operate at all levels, in order to provide practical lessons for policymakers, donors and practitioners to develop more effective strategies for greater progress towards peace. This book builds on CDA’s Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), launched to answer the question: What works—and what doesn’t work—in peacebuilding? It seeks to deepen our understanding of how multiple peacebuilding initiatives in a conflict zone interacted and added up (or didn’t), to result in progress towards larger societal level peace, or Peace Writ Large. The findings are a product of sixteen case studies conducted between 2007 and 2012, gathering the perceptions of both local and international stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12748 | Worldwide |
| Mediation and artificial intelligence: Notes on the future of international conflict resolution | Katharina E. Höne | Digital security, technology, mediation | This report provides an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of mediation. Over the last few years AI has emerged as a hot topic with regard to its impact on our political, social, and economic lives. The impact of AI on international and diplomatic relations has also been widely acknowledged and discussed. This report focuses more specifically on the practice of mediation. It aims to inform mediation practitioners about the impact of AI on mediation, including its benefits, its challenges, and its risks in relation to peacemaking. It also hints at synergies between the mediation and technology communities and possible avenues of co-operation. | https://www.diplomacy.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Mediation_and_AI.pdf | Worldwide |
| Local engagement with armed groups in the midst of violence | Sophia Haspeslagh, Zahbia Yousuf | Dialogue, Armed Non-State Actors | This report moves beyond the question of whether or not to engage in dialogue with an armed group and explores the spaces in which armed groups operate and their relationships with the people who live there. While local populations are not just passive actors in conflict zones, simply coerced by armed actors, it is equally true that armed groups do not merely exploit or abuse communities in areas in which they operate. Three in-depth case studies from Colombia, northern Uganda and Syria, as well as a shorter analysis from Northern Ireland, illustrate how communities have tried to influence the behavior of armed groups away from violence, and the factors that have affected their interactions – most of which took place in advance of more formal negotiations and often in situations of intense violence and embedded conflict. These local “spaces in between” fighting and talking shed light on the possibilities for more upstream engagement with armed groups and the variety of peace efforts involved in shaping their decisions. The case studies illustrate that reaching out to armed groups does not have to legitimate their tactics or even ambitions. They also show how active community engagement with armed groups can make an important contribution to local human security and peacebuilding. The experiences documented confirm that local peace actors face huge security risks – unprotected by diplomatic immunity or the security of the state. Armed groups often have a blatant disregard for civilian security, or worse, purposefully target populations. Local populations also face security threats from the state, which often views communities close to armed groups as complicit. Active contact by a community with an armed group risks exacerbating perceptions of association. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12750 | Worldwide |
| Effective Weapons and Ammunition Management in a Changing Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Context | Savannah de Tessières | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Peacekeeping, Training | First published in 2018, and developed as part of a joint initiative between the Department of Peace Operations and the Office for Disarmament Affairs, the Handbook provides DDR practitioners with practical guidance to design and implement state-of-the-art disarmament and weapons and ammunition management initiatives as part of integrated DDR processes, including through the use of DDR-related tools such as Community Violence Reduction. The Handbook draws upon good practices and innovative approaches developed in the field, as well as relevant international standards and guidelines. This second edition reflects relevant developments at the policy level, including the launch of the revised Integrated DDR Standards and the new MOSAIC module on SALW control in the context of DDR, and ensures consistent gender mainstreaming as well as systematic integration of youth considerations. | https://www.un.org/disarmament/ddr-handbook-2ed/ | Worldwide |
| Rebuilding The Rule Of Law In Post-conflict Environments | Dr. Corbin Lyday, Jan Stromsem | Post-conflict, rule of law, development, peacemaking. | This guide provides practical guidance on rule of law programming in post-conflict environments. It reflects over twenty years of experience working in post-conflict environments, and presents the key challenges, lessons learned, and programming options for advancing rule of law development objectives in these environments. It is hoped that this guide will facilitate effective analysis, planning and programming that contribute to the strengthening of the rule of law in post-conflict societies. | https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/USAID-Post_Conflict_ROL_508.pdf | Worldwide |
| Why and When to Use the Media for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding | Vladimir Bratic, Lisa Schirch | Communications: Media Strategies, Training, Conflict Prevention | The media’s role in contributing to cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral change on a large scale is unique. Conflict prevention and peacebuilding professionals can use the media in harmony with their other programs - if they know when, why, and how to use the media for the most strategic impact in lessoning the polarization between groups. On the other hand, media professionals still have much to learn about why and when their work can contribute to preventing violent conflict and building peace between groups. The media and peace professionals both have their limitations and share an interest in the dynamics of conflict. Cooperation between agencies, donors, civil society, peacebuilding organizations and media practitioners is essential. There is a need for meetings, seminars and work groups where models and best practices can be shared. Because using media in peacebuilding is a new practice, everyone has a lot to learn from the exchange of experiences. A careful assessment of whether the media is likely to play a positive or negative role in achieving the goals of conflict prevention and peacebuilding requires greater insight into ways the media helps and harms the path toward constructive change. Both peacebuilding and media professionals still have a great deal to learn on this journey | https://www.sfcg.org/articles/media_for_conflict_prevention.pdf | Worldwide |
| UN Support to Local Mediation: Challenges and Opportunities | United Nations: Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs | Mediation, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Monitoring/Verification: United Nations | This publication by DPPA's Mediation Support Unit outlines various opportunities and challenges related to the UN's involvement in support of local mediation and dialogue processes. The paper draws on insights emanating from a series of field deployments, reflection exercises as well as case studies (detailing local mediation processes in 5 country cases, including Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines as well as South Sudan) conducted over the past two years (2018-2020). The paper seeks to deepen understanding of UN engagement at the local level and its strategic relevance to UN peacemaking efforts; distil insights around pursuing linkages between national and local mediation processes; as well as highlight lessons from engagements with traditional peacemaking approaches and the inclusion of women in mediation at local level. Early reflections indicate the need to identify and leverage the UN's comparative advantage; enhance coordination within and beyond the UN; champion the do no harm principle, local capacities and local ownership; as well as strengthen the inclusion of women, youth, indigenous groups, victims, and other, often marginalized groups, in mediation and dialogue processes at local level. | http://dag.un.org/handle/11176/401082 | Worldwide |
| New Technology and the Prevention of Violence and Conflict | Francesco Mancini | Technology, Private Sector and Peacebuilding, Early Warning | This report explores the ways in which ICTs and the data they generate can assist international actors, governments, and civil society organizations to more effectively prevent violence and conflict. It examines the contributions that cell phones, social media, crowdsourcing, crisis mapping, blogging, and big data analytics can make to short-term efforts to forestall crises and to long-term initiatives to address the root causes of violence. Five case studies assess the use of such tools in a variety of regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America) experiencing different types of violence (criminal violence, election-related violence, armed conflict, shortterm crisis) in different political contexts (restrictive and collaborative governments). The cases demonstrate clearly that employing new technologies for conflict prevention can produce very different results depending on the context in which they are applied and whether or not those using the technology take that context into account. This is particularly true in light of the dramatic changes underway in the landscapes of violence and conflict on a global level. As such, instead of focusing on supply-driven technical fixes, those undertaking prevention initiatives should let the context inform what kind of technology is needed and what kind of approach will work best. | https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ipi-e-pub-nw-technology-conflict-prevention-advance.pdf | Worldwide |
| Ten Foundations for Gender Inclusive Peacebuilding Practice | Abiosseh Davis | Gender, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | The present Peacebuilding in Practice paper lays out the foundations for gender inclusive peacebuilding and is a result of a reflection process that Interpeace took between 2017 and 2019 to examine its implementation of gender programming. It demonstrates lessons learned and recommendations for developing, implementing and evaluating gender inclusive programmes. This Peacebuilding in Practice paper, developed through a consultative process across Interpeace offices as well as on an extensive literature review, aims to strengthen Interpeace’s capacity to bring its unique contribution to building sustainable peace and advancing gender equality. The practice note is intended to be complemented by the development and application of tools and processes that allow for the effective implementation of the ten identified foundations. | https://www.interpeace.org/resource/ten-foundations-for-gender-inclusive-peacebuilding-practice/ | Worldwide |
| Peacebuilding in Fragile Contexts | Jonathan Marley | Fragility, Economics and Conflict, Humanitarian Engagement | Peacebuilding thinking and practice have evolved significantly over the past decade. The business case for the effectiveness of peacebuilding has been established. Successful interventions underscore the importance of peacebuilding initiatives, as do the high-profile failures that occur when peacebuilding is absent, fragmented or insufficient. With the emergence of new approaches to peacebuilding led by the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture Review, this paper examines the state of peacebuilding operations and finance in fragile contexts and, building on established trends and debates, identifies four areas that could be critical for driving progress on peacebuilding over the next decade. The paper is one of ten working papers supporting States of Fragility 2020. Together with the papers entitled “Diplomacy and peace in fragile contexts”, “Conflict prevention in fragile contexts”, and “Security actors in fragile contexts”, It provides a comprehensive background to Chapter 2 on peace in States of Fragility 2020. | https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/d222bc0a-en.pdf?expires=1651673547&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=C9569BD773B1329835C441EC6A2E46FE | Worldwide |
| On the Significance of Religion in Conflict and Conflict Resolution | Christine Schliesser, S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, Pauline Kollontai | Religion, Conflict Resolution | In this ground-breaking volume, the authors analyze the role of religion in conflict and conflict resolution. They do so from the perspectives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, while bringing different disciplines into play, including peace and conflict studies, religious studies, theology, and ethics. With much of current academic, political, and public attention focusing on the conflictive dimensions of religion, this book also explores the constructive resources of religion for conflict resolution and reconciliation. Analyzing the specific contributions of religious actors in this field, their potentials and possible problems connected with them, this book sheds light on the concrete contours of the oftentimes vague “religious factor” in processes of social change. Case studies in current and former settings of violent conflict such as Israel, post-genocide Rwanda, and Pakistan provide “real-life” contexts for discussion. Combining cutting-edge research with case studies and concrete implications for academics, policy makers, and practitioners, this concise and easily accessible volume helps to build bridges between these oftentimes separated spheres of engagement. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12172 | Worldwide |
| Global Database of Humanitarian Organizations | Humanitarian Outcomes | Humanitarian Data | GDHO is a global compendium of organisations that provide aid in humanitarian crises. The database includes basic organisational and operational information on these humanitarian providers, which include international non-governmental organisations (grouped by federation), national NGOs that deliver aid within their own borders, UN humanitarian agencies, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. | https://www.humanitarianoutcomes.org/projects/gdho | Worldwide |
| Integrating masculinities in peacebuilding: shifting harmful norms and transforming relationships | Siad Darwish, Sophia Close | Gender, Violence Prevention, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | The integration of gender into peacebuilding programmes is still mostly synonymous with the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. And while women’s meaningful inclusion and participation in peace processes is essential to building sustainable peace, women’s rights organisations and some peacebuilding organisations have long realised that the connection between masculinities, violence and militarism also needs to be addressed to reduce violence in all its forms. This practice paper is based on a review of Conciliation Resources’ work on masculinities and peacebuilding over the last three years, with a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kashmir, Nigeria and the Pacific Region. This paper reflects on the challenges experienced when we integrated a focus on masculinities into our gender, peace and security programming, and offers some practical lessons for peacebuilders to address militarised and violent masculinities. | https://www.c-r.org/learning-hub/integrating-masculinities-peacebuilding-shifting-harmful-norms-and-transforming | Worldwide |
| DDR and Peacebuilding: Thematic review of DDR contributions to peacebuilding and the role of the Peacebuilding Fund | United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Monitoring/Verification: United Nations, Training | This report reviews the contributions of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) to peacebuilding. The review draws on the experiences of three case studies: Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Nepal and focuses specifically on the projects supported by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The recommendations of the review aim to help the DDR and peacebuilding communities, and the PBF in particular, strategically and programmatically position their support to DDR (-related) initiatives for more lasting and promising peacebuilding results. The review works on identifying lessons that contribute to a greater understanding of the effectiveness and strategic relevance of DDR programmes to peacebuilding, added-value and comparative advantage of PBF’s funding arrangements, and promising practices that can be used to shape future programming. The review approaches the interlinkages of peacebuilding and DDR through the latter’s role in promoting the peace process, provision of basic security, peace dividends (including economic revitalization, restoring social fabrics and civic responsibility) as well as addressing the root causes and drivers of conflict. Firstly, explores the policy relationship and interlink- ages of DDR programmes and peacebuilding and the practical implications of this interrelationship on the ground. Secondly, it provides an introduction to the funding structure of the PBF and provides a summary of each of the three case studies. Thirdly, it explores the results of the three case studies horizontally, highlighting overall trends, contextual differences, lessons, and challenges across the cases. It finally highlights the main findings and expresses recommendations that contain specific action points aimed toward PBF efforts and contributions to achieving sustainable peacebuilding results. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/ddr_pbf_thematic_review.pdf | Nepal |
| Atrocity Forecasting Project | Goldsmith, Soymea, Australian National University | Genocide and Attrocity Risk Data | The project has the overall purpose of enhancing capacity for forecasting mass atrocities and genocide globally and in the Asia-Pacific region. The specific aims are to: develop sophisticated, appropriate, and cutting-edge quantitative forecasting models, improve understanding of the causes of political instability and conflict which greatly increase the probability of mass atrocities or genocide, improve understanding of the crucial causal processes which lead from instability to mass atrocities or genocide, and produce forecasts and reports which are useful as early warning tools for protection of vulnerable populations. The project builds on the current academic literature, and employs machine-learning based forecasting techniques, which can greatly enhance analytical capacity in combination with standard qualitative and quantitative social science methods. The forecasts are intended to be used in combination with other quantitative and qualitative analysis and expert knowledge. | https://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/atrocity-forecasting | Worldwide |
| At the Gates to Peace: Mediators as Gatekeepers | Jørgen Jensehaugen, Kristoffer Lidén, Isabel Bramsen | Mediation, Inclusive Peacebuilding, Peace Process | Limiting the number of parties Brief Points and reducing external interference in peace mediation used to be considered the recipe for success. Yet, this logic of exclusion has been countered by an ever-growing expectation of inclusivity to create a just and sustainable peace. This policy brief explores how attempts to balance exclusion and inclusion affects the roles and responsibilities of peace mediators. | https://www.prio.org/publications/13059 | Worldwide |
| Key Themes From Digital Workshop On Building Evidence Based Practice In Peacebuilding | Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik, Saurav Upadhyay | evidence-based practice, WPS, | The Alliance for Peacebuilding, Better Evidence Project, and One Earth Future organized a Digital Workshop to promote collaboration among global peacebuilding practitioners on advancing the field’s evidence-based practice. Alliance for Peacebuilding’s Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik and One Earth Future’s Conor Seyle presented findings from their recently released report: Some Credible Evidence: Perceptions about the Evidence Base in the Peacebuilding Field. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/key-themes-buidling-evidence-based-practice | Worldwide |
| 25 Spheres Of Digital Peacebuilding And PeaceTech | Lisa Schirch | Digital security, technology, peacebuilding, conflict prevention | This policy brief outlines twenty-five spheres where technology can contribute to peacebuilding goals and describes five generations of thinking related to the evolution of technology’s impact on peacebuilding. Digital peacebuilding contributes to democratic deliberation, violence prevention, social cohesion, civic engagement, and improved human security. Digital peacebuilding contributes to the wider field of digital citizenship and “tech for good.” The policy brief concludes with seven recommendations to build social cohesion, civic engagement, and improved human security, which emerged out of a recent Peace Direct global consultation and a Toda Peace Institute workshop. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12785 | Worldwide |
| Gender-sensitive conflict analysis: a facilitation guide | SaferWorld | Gender, Problem-Solving Workshop, Inclusive Peacebuilding | Gender-sensitive conflict analysis is a starting point that enables peacebuilding organisations to understand how gender inequality fuels conflict and discrimination, exclusionary politics and violence against marginalised groups in society. It also highlights how different types of violence are used to maintain power in public (political) and private (family and community) spaces, and how these spaces are connected. For organisations working in places affected by conflict and violence, a gender-sensitive conflict analysis provides a chance to move beyond gender-sensitive peacebuilding practice into seeking to promote equality and meaningful participation that leads to structural change. The guide is intended to support facilitators to undertake a participatory gender-sensitive conflict analysis | https://www.saferworld.org.uk/resources/publications/1284-gender-sensitive-conflict-analysis-a-facilitation-guide | Worldwide |
| People-to-people Peacebuilding: A Program Guide | USAID Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation | Peacebuilding, community-building, development, conflict sensitive. | This guide, developed in consultation with scholars and practitioners, provides specific guidelines on the implementation of people-to-people peacebuilding programs for use by USAID and its development partners. These programs, conducted in some of the most difficult and challenging environments, require special care to ensure impact, capture learning and advance a Do No Harm approach. The guidelines aim to assist program designers and evaluators in how best to do that by describing the state-of-the-art in people-to-people peacebuilding. Its purpose is to assist USAID staff at Missions, as well as others working in development and peacebuilding, to implement high-quality people-to-people programs. The guide is structured around fourteen guidelines grouped into three stages of the program cycle: design, implementation, theories of Change and monitoring and evaluation. The bibliography serves as an extensive reference for further research and learning. While the guidelines described in this guide would likely be applicable to most conflict mitigation programs, the focus of this document is specific to people-to-people programming and conflict-sensitive international development. The guidelines were identified based on extensive review of existing people-to-people programs and interviews in March-April 2010 with scholars of conflict resolution noted for their expertise in people-to-people approaches. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12752 | Worldwide |
| Negotiating Disarmament: Lessons Learnt from Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sri Lanka | Nicholas Marsh, Julia Palik | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), | Disarmament is often characterized as a necessary condition for peace to prevail in the aftermath of civil conflicts. Yet implementation is contingent on what has been negotiated behind closed doors, a process that so far has received little attention.Without knowledge of the positions, motivations, and interests of parties involved in disarmament negotiations, our understanding of particular disarmament outcomes remains incomplete. To fill this gap, we examined negotiations on disarmament in Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Sudan, and Sri Lanka. Our findings focus on the degree of inclusivity in the negotiations, the symbolic relevance of disarmament, and the various roles of external parties in disarmament negotiations. | https://www.prio.org/publications/12869 | Worldwide |
| When disasters and conflicts collide: improving links between disaster resilience and conflict prevention | Katie Peters, David Keen, Tom Mitchell | Climate and Conflict, Food Insecurity, Natural Resources and Conflict | This report focuses on the links between conditions of vulnerability and risks associated with the nexus of natural disasters, conflict and fragility. It also recognises that any given context will be mired by an even more complex array of intersecting risks. For example, in 2011, drought, and food and political insecurity in East Africa contributed to a full-scale humanitarian crisis. A combination of natural hazards, conflict and fragility provided a recipe for human suffering. The evidence base for the ‘natural’ disasters-conflict interface is challenging: it is fragmented and contested, with a number of studies highlighting directly opposing lines of arguments. This suggests that the complexity of conflict and disaster dynamics can only be understood when grounded in specific contexts. Examples are therefore provided in the report from disaster risk reduction in Afghanistan, resilience building in the Sahel region, community based risk reduction in Karamoja and national risk reduction in Nepal. | https://odi.org/en/publications/when-disasters-and-conflicts-collide-improving-links-between-disaster-resilience-and-conflict-prevention/ | Worldwide |
| On Hybrid Political Orders and Emerging States: State Formation in the Context of ‘Fragility’ | Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements, Anna Nolan | Fragility, Governance, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | This article examines the rationale and underlying assumptions of the mainstream discourse on fragile states. The authors argue that the conventional perception of so-called fragile states as an obstacle to the maintenance of peace and development can be far too short-sighted, as is its corollary, the promotion of conventional state-building along the lines of the western OECD state model as the best means of sustainable development and peace within all societies. Too often, state fragility research and analysis as well as state-building policies are oriented towards the western-style Weberian/Westphalian state. Yet this form of statehood hardly exists in reality beyond the OECD world. Many of the countries in the ‘rest’ of the world are political entities that do not resemble the model western state. This article proposes that these states should not be considered from the perspective of being ‘not yet properly built’ or having ‘already failed again’. Rather than thinking in terms of fragile or failed states, it might be theoretically and practically more fruitful to think in terms of hybrid political orders. Such a re-conceptualization opens new options for conflict prevention and development, as well as for a new type of state-building. Drawing on the examples of East Timor, Bougainville and Somaliland, the report points out the shortcomings of external state-building, and presents some innovative approaches to state-building. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12899 | Worldwide |
| Positive Peace Index | Institute for Economics and Peace | Peace and Security Data | Peace is much more than the absence of violence. Positive Peace describes the attitudes, structures and institutions that underpin and sustain peaceful societies. The Institute has developed a conceptual framework, known as the Pillars of Peace, that outlines a system of eight factors that work together to build positive peace. Derived from a statistical analysis of over 4,000 datasets, the Pillars of Peace provides a roadmap to overcome adversity and conflict, and to build lasting peace. | https://www.economicsandpeace.org/research/ | Worldwide |
| Peace Education | Mari Fitzduff; Isabella Jean | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Training, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives | This report is a result of an initiative to reflect on developments, contributions, and prospects in specific areas where USIP grantmaking has been concentrated. The authors were commissioned to review the state of the field, to identify the lessons learned, and to contemplate future directions of work in the area of peace education, with reference to USIP grantmaking. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/11/peace-education | Worldwide |
| Enforcing UN Sanctions and Protecting Humanitarian Action: Towards a Coherent and Consistent Approach | Sophie Huvé, Rebecca Brubaker, Adam Day, Zuzana Hudáková | Sanctions, Humanitarian Engagement, Rule of Law | Sanctions represent some of the most important tools at the disposal of the United Nations (UN) and are often deployed as part of the Organization’s conflict prevention and management strategies. In situations of armed conflict, UN sanctions regimes coexist alongside International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and interacts with those actors tasked with providing impartial humanitarian assistance to lessen the negative impacts of war. While in principle UN sanctions and humanitarian action share common goals of helping to prevent the worst aspects of armed conflict, in practice they can come into contradiction with each other. For example, overbroad implementation of sanctions regimes can impede the ability of humanitarians to access vulnerable populations or deploy much needed resources. In turn, sanctions designers worry that humanitarian aid can sometimes be diverted or manipulated to subvert the intended goals of sanctions regimes. This raises several important questions: (1) How can the sanctions and humanitarian communities better understand each other’s respective priorities? (2) How can sanctions regimes be better designed and implemented to protect humanitarian action while still functioning effectively? (3) What specific steps could the Security Council take to improve the interplay between UN sanctions and humanitarian engagement? Based on in-depth case studies, a wide-ranging online survey, and qualitative interviews with experts across the humanitarian and sanctions communities, this United Nations University Centre for Policy Research explores the relationship between UN sanctions and humanitarian action. Acknowledging the complex and challenging environments in which sanctions regimes are employed, the report highlights continuing gaps in knowledge across the two communities, and the need for greater understanding for how sanctions and humanitarian action could be more complementary to each other. The report offers a range of recommendations to the UN Security Council, sanctions actors, and humanitarians. | https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:8672/UNU_SanctionsandHumanitarianAction.pdf | Worldwide |
| The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project | ACLED | Conflict Data | ACLED collects real-time data on the locations, dates, actors, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events around the world. | https://acleddata.com/#/dashboard | Worldwide |
| Reconciliation in Practice | Kelly McKone | Reconciliation, Peace Processes: Strategies, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E) | Reconciliation plays a key role in building sustainable peace after mass violence which requires individual and collective work along the lines of identity. Through a deeper understanding of reconciliation, its definitions, and its practices on the ground, a clearer path can bring forth an effective analysis of coordinated efforts by individuals, non-governmental organizations, and governments. It is key to observe different reconciliation efforts and approaches, to unfold various projects’ intervention strategies, indicators to measure efficacy, evaluations, and transference of information. The report follows four stages: discussion of research methodologies used for information gathering and analysis; then it presents and evaluates the ten distinct, albeit overlapping, areas of practice in the field; the results are then presented according to the measures at the individual, community, or government level; lastly, gaps in the practice and evaluation of reconciliation are discussed and recommendations for future research are expressed. This research is a base to inform further questions regarding reconciliation projects and methods. Overall, practices and intervention strategies of reconciliation are looked upon, as well as the operationalization of the definition of reconciliation and associated terms, weak and strong indicators used at different levels, and evaluation tools and what it involves to the stakeholders. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2015/08/reconciliation-practice | Worldwide |
| Human Development Index | World Bank | Health and Standard of Living Data | The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. These contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. | https://hdr.undp.org/en/data | Worldwide |
| Language of Peace | Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (University of Cambridge), in collaboration with the United Nations Mediation Support Unit | Peace Instruments, Terminology | The Language of Peace (LoP) data base of peace agreements is a key component of United Nations Mediation Support Unit’s online mediation support capacity. The database has been co-developed with Cambridge University. It is an innovative tool to search provisions of peace agreements providing easy access to compare and collate language on key issues across 75,000+ provisions of around 1,000 peace agreements. | https://www.languageofpeace.org/#/ | Worldwide |
| Eirene Peacebuilding Database | Alliance for Peacebuilding | Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation Data | The Eirene Peacebuilding Database® is the culmination of nearly two years of work to search, catalogue, curate, and share peacebuilding key indicators that will help you all better assess your work and measure impact. It puts forward program approaches, indicators, and measures currently being used in peacebuilding across seven program areas. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/eirene-peacebuilding-database | Worldwide |
| Uppsala Conflict Data Program | Uppsala | Conflict Data | The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) is the world’s main provider of data on organized violence and the oldest ongoing data collection project for civil war, with a history of almost 40 years. Its definition of armed conflict has become the global standard of how conflicts are systematically defined and studied. | https://ucdp.uu.se/ | Worldwide |
| Alternative Dispute Resolution Practitioners Guide | Scott Brown, Christine Cervenak, and David Fairman | Alternative Dispute Resolution, conflict management, negotiation, conflict resolution. | With the spread of ADR programs in the developed and developing world, creative uses for and designs of ADR systems are proliferating. Successful programs are improving the lives of individuals and meeting broad societal goals. There is a critical mass of ADR experience, revealing important lessons as to whether, when, and how to implement ADR projects. Drawing on this experience, this Guide is intended to provide an introduction to the broad range of systems that operate under the rubric of ADR. It is designed to explore and clarify the potential uses and benefits of ADR and the conditions under which ADR programs can succeed. It is written to help project designers decide whether and when to implement ADR programs in the context of rule of law assistance or other development initiatives. The Guide is also explicit about the limitations of ADR programs, especially where they may be ineffective or even counterproductive in serving some development goals. | https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/200sbe.pdf | Worldwide |
| Global Peace Index | Institute for Economics and Peace | Peace and Security Data | Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. This report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to-date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies. The GPI covers 99.7% of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: – the level of Societal Safety and Security, – the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict, – and the degree of Militarisation. | https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/#/ | Worldwide |
| UN DDR in an Era of Violent Extremism: Is It Fit for Purpose? | James Cockayne, Siobhan O'Neil | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Peacekeeping, Training | This short collection of studies examines the challenges to effective United Nations (UN) disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programming posed by today’s conflict environment. The collection, and the larger research initiative of which it is a part, aim to generate debate about how to best address the legal, operational, ethical, and strategic challenges facing DDR programme staff in the field. | https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/un_ddr_in_an_era_of_violent_extremism.pdf | Worldwide |
| Peacebuilding Architecture Review: Matrix of Recommendations | NYU Center on International Cooperation | Peace and Security Data | Across 2020, the United Nations (UN) invited contributions to its Peacebuilding Architecture Review (PBAR). On paper, a consultative process is a good idea. But in practice, participants can come out of it frustrated. The PBAR was no exception. Most contributors looked at the secretary-general’s report in the hope of seeing their recommendations reflected—but apart from general statements with which few could disagree, the report focused mainly on providing examples of UN’s successful activities. Contributors were left to wonder if their inputs benefitted from enough attention to justify the hours and resources invested in the process. To rescue these efforts from oblivion, CIC undertook—with the support of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office—a daunting task: extracting the recommendations from the more than 70 papers that were submitted for the PBAR. Close to 800 recommendations from the UN, member states, civil society organizations, Independent Eminent Persons, and Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) consultations were consolidated in a matrix.. | https://cic.nyu.edu/Peacebuilding-Architecture-Review-Matrix | Worldwide |
| Mapping Business-Peace Interactions: Five Assertions for How Businesses Create Peace | Jason Miklian | Private Sector and Peacebuilding, Economics and Conflict, Diplomacy | The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community, international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12775 | Worldwide |
| Some Credible Evidence: Perceptions about the Evidence Base in the Peacebuilding Field | Conor SeyleSarah HeyborneJessica Baumgardner-ZuzikShaziya DeYoung | Peacebuilding | "This report presents the result of a survey conducted by One Earth Future and Alliance for Peacebuilding asking peacebuilders and researchers about their perception of what kind of evidence exists and what kind is needed to improve work in the peacebuilding field. The discussion around “evidence based practice” in peacebuilding has included debates over what kinds of information counts as evidence, what kinds of methods are appropriate for generating this information, and what kinds of evidence are needed to support effective peacebuilding. These debates may create the impression that the field as a whole doesn’t have a strong shared understanding of what kind of evidence exists or what matters. This survey represents an attempt to determine if the field has a shared understanding of what kind of evidence is needed and where that evidence exists." | https://oneearthfuture.org/research-analysis/some-credible-evidence-perceptions-about-evidence-base-peacebuilding-field | Worldwide |
| Second Generation Disarmament, Demobilization And Reintegration (Ddr) Practices In Peace Operations- A Contribution To The New Horizon Discussion On Challenges And Opportunities For Un Peacekeeping | United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations _x000D_ | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Peacemaking, Training | This report is an initiated study by member States in a policy dialogue on the challenges and opportunities of peacekeeping, the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Section of the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) to document the innovative programmes to provide policymakers and practitioners with sophisticated skills and tools to negotiate the local dynamics on the ground. Many ideas and practices highlighted have been implemented through a scholar-practitioner and security orientation, moving away from top-down implementations of a Security Council mandate. With the increasing deployment of UN operations diverse preconditions, the guidance provided in the Integrated DDR Standards needs to be complemented with practical measures that address these new contexts — by using Second Generation measures. The study underscores that DDR practice has evolved over the last several decades demanding institutional change, as well as reflecting the broader change in UN peacekeeping. The report is primarily based on four field studies: Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, and Liberia. It also compares traditional DDR and Second Generation programmes, as one implements relevant provisions for peacebuilding, while the other uses an evidence-based approach. Taking into account key internal challenges and its forefront role in UN integration efforts, the study explores several key aspects of planning and implementation of Second Generation DDR programmes and then goes on to describe key policy options. Moreover, it inquires through the categorization of Second Generation measures in three broad parts: Post-conflict stabilization measures; targeting specific groups with different approaches and incentives; alternative approaches to addressing disarmament and unregulated weapons. | https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/2gddr_eng_with_cover.pdf | Worldwide |
| From Militants to Policemen: Three Lessons from U.S. Experience with DDR and SSR | Alison Laporte-Oshiro | Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Governance: Transition | Consolidating the legitimate use of force in the hands of the state is a vital first step in post-conflict peacebuilding. Transitional governments must move quickly to neutralize rival armed groups and provide a basic level of security for citizens. Two processes are vital to securing a monopoly of force: disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration and security sector reform. Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) involve disbanding armed groups that challenge the government’s monopoly of force. Security sector reform (SSR) means reforming and rebuilding the national security forces so that they are professional and accountable. U.S. experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo yielded three crosscutting lessons: go in heavy, tackle DDR and SSR in tandem, and consolidate U.S. capacity to implement both tasks in a coordinated, scalable way. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2011/11/militants-policemen-three-lessons-us-experience-ddr-and-ssr | Worldwide |
| Ceasefire Drafter’s Handbook: An Introduction and Template for Negotiators, Mediators, and Stakeholders | Public International Law & Policy Group | Peace Agreement, Ceasefire, Mediation | The Public International Law & Policy Group’s (PILPG) Ceasefire Drafter’s Handbook is a guide intended to effectively supplement the activities of negotiators and drafters of ceasefire agreements. This Handbook draws from PILPG’s experience in ceasefire negotiations, as well as state practice and comparative analysis of over 200 ceasefire agreements from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. This Handbook includes an Introduction to Ceasefires and an Annotated Ceasefire Template. The Introduction to Ceasefires provides information on the core elements of ceasefires, the effects of asymmetry on ceasefire agreements, the role of third parties, and the legality of ceasefire agreements. The Annotated Ceasefire Template describes core provisions and provides sample language for drafters to incorporate into ceasefire agreements. Although each template section offers drafters a guiding framework, it may be necessary to reshape the provisions to address the nuances of each situation. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12910 | Worldwide |
| Berghof Glossary on Conflict Transformation: 20 Notions for Theory and Practice | Berghof Foundation | Conflict Resolution, Inclusive Peace Processes | This is a study developed by the Berghof Foundation team that explores what it takes to create “space(s) for conflict transformation”. The study emphasizes that inclusive and participatory spaces for conflict transformation have become even more important in preventing fragile peace processes from losing momentum or breaking down. The essays in the study promotes principles of local ownership and responsibility, empowerment, non-violence, participation and inclusivity. It discusses how to shape dialogue and facilitate negotiation processes in the role of a supporting actor. There is also an exploration of how to adjust to new trends in the current peacebuilding environment, including increased focus on innovative and locally designed infrastructures for peace. | https://berghof-foundation.org/library/berghof-glossary | Worldwide |
| Untapped Peacebuilders: Including Persons with Disabilities in the Builiding Peace | Sophia Close | Inclusive peacebuilidng, Persons with disabilities | Inclusive peace, or the idea that all stakeholders in a conflict-affected society should have a meaningful role in shaping peace, is receiving widespread global recognition.1 There are currently around one billion women and girls, men and boys, and sexual and gender minorities with disabilities, affected by a range of sensory, physical, psychosocial and/or intellectual impairments. This number is rapidly increasing due to global population aging, increased incidence of chronic diseases and injuries caused by environmental factors such as climate change, natural disasters and conflict. This number represents around 15% of the global population, making persons with disabilities the largest minority group in the world.3 There is a clear link between poverty and disability with 800 million persons with disabilities living in developing countries.4 More than half of all persons with disabilities live in countries affected by conflict and natural disasters. | https://www.c-r.org/learning-hub/untapped-peacebuilders-including-persons-disabilities-building-peace | Worldwide |
| DDR Support to Mediation | United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Section | Mediation, Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration (DDR), Monitoring/Verification: United Nations | This document provides an overview of the use of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) in support of the United Nations efforts to reducing violence. The report places an emphasis on the use cases of DDR and community violence reduction (CVR) in the pursuit of peace processes. The document prepared by the UN Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration section includes use cases of DDR mechanisms in Mali, Darfur, Colombia, Yemen, Central African Republic, The Republic of Congo. The report touches on how DDR (and CVR) supports mediation efforts and what are potential risks from those approaches. The report identifies how DDR can support direct mediation, capacity building efforts, in addition to conflict analysis and mapping of the relevant stakeholders. Finally, the report explains the mechanisms by which DDR officers are deployed to support mediation efforts lead by the various United Nations missions and their partners. | https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/ddr_support_to_mediation_process_2018.pdf | Worldwide |
| Reflecting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace | Peace Direct | reflection, reccomendations, peacebuilding, civil society | The role of civil society in building sustainable peace is no longer debatable. ‘Reflecting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace’, presents a summary of a global online consultation with civil society that took place in June 2020. Over 280 participants from 97 countries joined the virtual conversation to share their perspectives on peacebuilding and contribute their views and experiences. This report is a synthesis of their exchange and presents key messages and recommendations on how to improve support for peacebuilding, and better understand the role of civil society in building sustainable peace. | https://www.peacedirect.org/us/publications/reflecting-on-peacebuilding-and-sustaining-peace/ | Worldwide |
| National Dialogues: A Tool for Conflict Transformation? | Susan Stigant; Elizabeth Murray | Dialogue, Peace Processes: Strategies, Facilitation | National dialogue is an increasingly popular tool for conflict resolution and political transformation. It can broaden debate regarding a country’s trajectory beyond the usual elite decision makers; however, it can also be misused and manipulated by leaders to consolidate their power. This brief includes principles to strengthen national dialogue processes and considerations for international actors seeking to support these processes. | https://www.usip.org/publications/2015/10/national-dialogues-tool-conflict-transformation | Worldwide |
| Women's Participation in Peace Processes | Council on Foreign Relations | Gender & Peace Agreements Data | This interactive displays data on women’s participation in a selection of major Track I (formal or official) peace processes since 1992, building on research by the Women and Foreign Policy program (WFP) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and data featured in the UN Women report Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations: Connections Between Presence and Influence. The following outlines the methodologies used by WFP scholars and includes a definition of terms. | https://www.cfr.org/womens-participation-in-peace-processes/explore-the-data | Worldwide |
| SIPRI Multilateral Peace Operations Database | Stockholm International Peace Research Institute | Peace Operations Data | The SIPRI database on multilateral peace operations provides comprehensive, reliable and authoritative data on all multilateral peace operations (both UN and non-UN) conducted around the world. The purpose of the database is to present an annual snapshot of multilateral peace operation deployments. SIPRI is currently expanding its multilateral peace operations database and, among other things, moving from annual to monthly snapshots. | https://www.sipri.org/databases/pko | Worldwide |
| Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management | Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) | Evaluation | The DAC Working Party on Aid Evaluation (WP-EV) has developed this glossary of key terms in evaluation and results-based management because of the need to clarify concepts and to reduce the terminological confusion frequently encountered in these areas. | https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/2754804.pdf | Worldwide |
| Interactive Peacemaking: A People-Centered Approach | Susan H. Allen | Peacemaking, Conflict Resolution, International Relations | This book examines the theory and practice of interactive peacemaking, centering the role of people in making peace. The book presents the theory and practice of peacemaking as found in contemporary processes globally. By putting people at the center of the analysis, it outlines the possibilities of peacemaking by and for the people whose lives are touched by ongoing conflicts. While considering examples from around the world, this book specifically focuses on peacemaking in the Georgian-South Ossetian context. It tells the stories of individuals on both sides of the conflict, and explores why people choose to make peace, and how they work within their societies to encourage this. This book emphasizes theory built from practice and offers methodological guidance on learning from practice in the conflict resolution field. This book will be of much interest to students and practitioners of peacemaking, conflict resolution, South Caucasus politics and International Relations. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12182 | Worldwide |
| Parallel Tracks or Connected Pieces?: UN Peace Operations, Local Mediation, and Peace Processes | Arthur Boutellis, | mediation, local, peace processes, United Nations | This paper considers how local mediation fits into the broader political strategies of UN peace operations. Building on a series of country case studies published by IPI and the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs’ Mediation Support Unit, it provides preliminary answers to whether, when, where, and how the UN can engage in local mediation efforts. It explores what capacities the UN would need to increase its engagement in local mediation, what role it can play, and how it could better configure itself and engage in partnerships. While this paper does not advocate for UN peace operations to engage more or less in local mediation processes, it concludes that missions ought to assess whether, when, and how short-term investments in local mediation can contribute to longer-term, sustainable conflict resolution. In each case, they should tailor their role based on informed strategic decisions and appropriate partnerships and as part of a broader effort to strengthen and foster greater coherence in national peace processes. | https://www.ipinst.org/2020/12/parallel-tracks-or-connected-pieces-un-peace-operations-local-mediation-and-peace-processes | Worldwide |
| Assessing Progress on the Road to Peace: Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating Conflict Prevention | Goele Scheers | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention, Citizen Action | This paper evolved out of the experiences of GPPAC in setting up a planning, monitoring and evaluation system. During this process, discussions about monitoring and evaluation took place within the network. These discussions revealed that many of the civil society organisations are facing challenges in monitoring and evaluating conflict prevention activities; most of them are still looking for effective tools and methods to assess the results of their work. | https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/AssessingProgressontheRoadtoPeace_ECCP2008.pdf | Worldwide |
| Opening the Black Box : The Contextual Drivers of Social Accountability | Grandvoinnet, Helene & Aslam, Ghazia and Raha, Shomikho | Citizen Action | This publication fills an important knowledge gap by providing guidance on how to assess contextual drivers of social accountability effectiveness. It aims to strategically support citizen engagement at the country level and for a specific issue or problem. The report proposes a novel framing of social accountability as the interplay of constitutive elements: citizen action and state action, supported by three enabling levers: civic mobilization, interface and information. For each of these constitutive elements, the report identifies 'drivers' of contextual effectiveness which take into account a broad range of contextual factors (e.g., social, political and intervention-based, including information and communication technologies). Opening the Black Box offers detailed guidance on how to assess each driver. It also applies the framework at two levels. At the country level, the report looks at 'archetypes' of challenging country contexts, such as regimes with no formal space or full support for citizen-state engagement and fragile and conflict-affected situations. The report also illustrates the use of the framework to analyze specific social accountability interventions through four case studies: Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Yemen, and the Kyrgyz Republic. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12771 | Worldwide |
| Faith Matters: A Guide For The Design, Monitoring, & Evaluation Of Inter-Religious Peacebuilding | Peter Woodrow, Nick Oatley, & Michelle Garred | religion, design, monitoring, and evaluation (DM&E), peacebuilding | The Guide outlines the decisions and stages involved in setting up a monitoring process and undertaking an evaluation for inter‐religious action for peacebuilding. It adapts and supplements secular evaluation principles and practices to ensure that the monitoring and evaluation of inter-religious actions are sensitive to and respectful of faith traditions, values, practices, priorities and motivations—and that they capture adequately the important spiritual dimensions of the work. It draws on available “how to” guidance on monitoring and evaluation processes and includes multiple references to the most relevant resources. | https://www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org/afp-publications/faith-matters-10-2017 | Global |
| Reducing Armed Conflict In “Boendoe” | Elliot Short | Early Warning, Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Monitoring/Verification: Third Party | The construction of a local peace infrastructure in the country known as “Boendoe” helped to reduce violence in the area and minimised the risk of an armed conflict. | https://bep.carterschool.gmu.edu/reducing-armed-conflict-in-boendoe/ | Boendoe |
| Adding Up to Peace: The Cumulative Impacts of Peace Initiatives | Diana Chigas and Peter Woodrow | Peace Initiatives, Impact Assessments, Case Studies | This book aims to identify how cumulative impacts in peace practice operate at all levels, in order to provide practical lessons for policymakers, donors and practitioners to develop more effective strategies for greater progress towards peace. This book builds on CDA’s Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), launched to answer the question: What works—and what doesn’t work—in peacebuilding? It seeks to deepen our understanding of how multiple peacebuilding initiatives in a conflict zone interacted and added up (or didn’t), to result in progress towards larger societal level peace, or Peace Writ Large. The findings are a product of sixteen case studies conducted between 2007 and 2012, gathering the perceptions of both local and international stakeholders. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12748 | Worldwide |
| Designing for Results: Integrating Monitoring and Evaluation in Conflict Transformation Programs | Cheyanne Church and Mark Rogers | Project Evaluation, Conflict Resolution | This manual, produced by Search for Common Ground in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace and the Alliance for Peacebuilding, focuses on the challenges faced by conflict transformation practitioners in their attempts to measure and increase the effectiveness of their work with practical tips and examples from around the world. As an introductory volume and one of the first to focus on the practical application of integrated design, monitoring and evaluation, it seeks to introduce peacebuilding practitioners to the concepts, tools, and methods needed to incorporate better design, monitoring, and evaluation practices into peacebuilding programming. | https://www.dmeforpeace.org/resource/designing-for-results-integrating-monitoring-and-evaluation-in-conflict-transformation-activities/ | Worldwide |
| What Makes or Breaks National Dialogues? | Tania Paffenholz, Anne Zachariassen, Cindy Helfer | Dialogue, Mediation | The international mediation and peacebuilding community continues to struggle to fully comprehend the functioning, relevance, and effectiveness of national dialogues for managing political transitions and building sustainable peace. The objective of this report is to contribute to a better understanding of the common features and characteristics of National Dialogues. It further explores the various political and procedural factors as well as conditions that have enabled or constrained such initiatives to reach agreements and sustain their implementation in the long term. Based on a comparative analysis of 17 cases of National Dialogues held between 1990 and 2014, this study is an output of the National Dialogue research project (2015–2017) of the Inclusive Peace & Transition Initiative (IPTI) at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Some of the key findings are that National Dialogues have been used as an instrument to resolve political crises and pave the way for political transitions and sustainable peace; they have often been used by national elites as a tool to gain or reclaim political legitimacy, which has limited their potential for transformative change; and procedures for preparing, conducting, and implementing National Dialogues, in particular selection and decision-making rules, play a decisive role in whether processes are perceived as representative and legitimate. While most National Dialogues reached an agreement, only half of these agreements were implemented and when National Dialogues resulted in sustainable transitions, there was generally a favorable consensus among elites, in addition to international support and public buy-in. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12749 | Worldwide |
| Global Food Security Index | Economist Intelligence Unit | Food Security Data | The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) considers the issues of food affordability, availability, quality and safety, and natural resources and resilience across a set of 113 countries. The index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model constructed from 58 unique indicators that measure the drivers of food security across both developing and developed countries. | https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/ | Worldwide |
| Land and Conflict: Toolkit for Preventing and Managing Land and Natural Resources Conflict | United Nations Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action | Natural Resources, Land Tenure, Conflict Prevention | Because the management of land and natural resources is one of the most critical challenges facing developing countries today, this field guide is intended to help build the capacity of national stakeholders, the UN system and the European Union prevent land and natural resources from contributing to violent conflict. This guide focuses on critical concepts related to land and natural resource tenure, strategies for addressing land grievances and conflict, a framework for international action, appropriate conflict management tools and approaches, and post-conflict strategies. 14 cases studies are also included. The guide focuses on the exploitation of high-value natural resources, including oil, gas, minerals and timber which has often been cited as a key factor in triggering, escalating or sustaining violent conflicts around the globe. Furthermore, increasing competition over diminishing renewable resources, such as land and water, are on the rise. This is being further aggravated by environmental degradation, population growth and climate change. The mismanagement of land and natural resources is contributing to new conflicts and obstructing the peaceful resolution of existing ones. Land and natural resource issues are almost never the sole cause of conflict. Land conflicts commonly become violent when linked to wider processes of political exclusion, social discrimination, economic marginalization, and a perception that peaceful action is no longer a viable strategy for change. Land issues readily lend themselves to conflict because land is an important economic asset and source of livelihoods and it is also closely linked to community identity, history and culture. Addressing land grievances and conflicts is fundamental to creating sustainable peace, so international assistance should prioritize the early and sustained engagement in land issues as part of a broader conflict prevention strategy. Such early attention can reduce the human, economic, social, environmental costs of conflict. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12717 | Worldwide |
| Crisis Management Beyond the Humanitarian-Development Nexus | Atsushi Hanatani, Oscar A. Gómez, Chigumi Kawaguchi | Humanitarian, Development | In addressing humanitarian crises, the international community has long understood the need to extend beyond providing immediate relief, and to engage with long-term recovery activities and the prevention of similar crises in the future. However, this continuum from short-term relief to rehabilitation and development has often proved difficult to achieve. This book aims to shed light on the continuum of humanitarian crisis management, particularly from the viewpoint of major bilateral donors and agencies. Focusing on cases of armed conflicts and disasters, the authors describe the evolution of approaches and lessons learnt in practice when moving from emergency relief to recovery and prevention of future crises. Drawing on an extensive research project conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute, this book compares how a range of international organizations, bilateral cooperation agencies, NGOs, and research institutes have approached the continuum in international humanitarian crisis management. The book draws on six humanitarian crises case studies, each resulting from armed conflict or natural disasters: Timor-Leste, South Sudan, the Syrian crisis, Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, and Typhoon Yolanda. The book concludes by proposing a common conceptual framework designed to appeal to different stakeholders involved in crisis management. Following on from the World Humanitarian Summit, where a new way of working on the humanitarian-development nexus was highlighted as one of five major priority trends, this book is a timely contribution to the debate which should interest researchers of humanitarian studies, conflict and peace studies, and disaster risk-management. | https://mars.gmu.edu/handle/1920/12173 | Worldwide |
| Aid Worker Security Database | Humanitarian Outcomes | Aid Worker Security Data | The Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) records major incidents of violence against aid workers, with incident reports from 1997 through the present. Initiated in 2005, to date the AWSD remains the sole comprehensive global source of these data, providing the evidence base for analysis of the changing security environment for civilian aid operations. | https://aidworkersecurity.org/ | Worldwide |
| Improving International Support to Peace Processes: The Missing Piece | OECD | Peace Processes, Multi-Track Diplomacy, Inclusive Peacebuilding | Peace processes hold the promise of re-starting non-violent efforts towards creating more equitable, resilient and developed societies. Yet, such processes are politically and psychologically complex, as well as high-risk. Many fail and such failure is harmful, as it reduces confidence and increases cynicism amongst parties to a conflict, citizens and international partners alike. International support can help a peace process to succeed but its nature and quality matter greatly. “The Missing Piece” identifies seven recommendations to improve the quality of support that states and international organizations provide to peace processes. It does this through a thorough analysis of: the characteristics of today’s violent conflicts, the factors that influence the success and failure of a peace process and the current strengths & weaknesses of international support. | https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/9789264179844-en.pdf?expires=1651771544&id=id&accname=ocid41016750&checksum=7B9783E19C7B55059CDAA78B31B9FC5E | Worldwide |
| Peoples Under Threat | Minority Rights Group International | Genocide and Attrocity Risk Data | The Peoples under Threat ranking highlights countries most at risk of genocide and mass killing. The ranking is created by compiling data on the known antecedents to genocide or mass political killing. | https://peoplesunderthreat.org/ | Worldwide |
| Rapid Assessment of Conflict Prevention | Christopher Cramer, Jonathan Goodhand, Robert Morris, Helena Pérez-Niño, Benjamin Petrini and Joshua Rogers | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Peace Processes, Conflict Prevention | This Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) has found that there is only a weak body of evidence published between 2010 and 2015 on conflict prevention and violence mitigation: there is no medium- to large-scale body of evidence on specific interventions with clear findings on ‘what works’ grounded in moderate or high quality research (as assessed in terms of the principles and indicators of good evidence adopted in the REA). While there is only a limited extent to which the search uncovered ‘what works’, there were some clear signals about ‘what doesn’t work’. 27 studies had clear findings that interventions had been ‘ineffective’ and six of these were high quality studies. The best of these studies highlighted the dangers of ignoring political drivers of conflict, the need to consider the distortionary effects of different aid modalities, and the specific design features that may render some forms of intervention (e.g. CDD) more vulnerable to attack than others. The REA suggests that there remains a large gap between the demand for evidence by policymakers/practitioners and the supply of research by researchers and evaluators in the field of conflict prevention and mitigation. The stubbornness of this gap raises questions about how policymakers can help researchers to overcome barriers to supply and provide incentives for improving the body of evidence about what works. | https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/58245e85ed915d7ad500001a/effectiveness-conflict-prevention-interventions1.pdf | Worldwide |
| Global Internal Displacement Database (GIDD) | Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre | Humanitarian Data | The Displacement Data tab is a portal through which you can view the published figures from our annual flagship reports. These are the figures that have been able to validate through internal quality assurance and external peer review. The Global Displacement Risk Model is a tool for exploring and visualising disaster-related displacement risk metrics such as how many people are likely to be displaced per country per year, or over five- or ten-year period. It also enables users to assess the likelihood of the occurrence of specific displacement events, for instance a cyclone that displaces 100,000 people or an earthquake that displaces 50,000 people. | https://www.internal-displacement.org/database | Worldwide |
| Peace Accords Matrix | University of Notre Dame, Kroc Institute | Peace Accords Data | The PAM database is a unique source of qualitative and quantitative longitudinal data on the implementation of 34 Comprehensive Peace Agreements (CPAs) negotiated between 1989 and 2012. Drawing on this world class, peer-reviewed database, PAM researchers have developed a quantitative methodology to track the progress of peace accord implementation. The PAM database serves as a valuable tool for analysis, which the Kroc Institute uses to support the negotiation and implementation of peace accords, including the implementation of the Colombian peace accord. | https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/ | Worldwide |
| International Aid Transparency Initiative Data | International Aid Transparency Initiative | Humanitarian & Development Data | Data published to IATI covers information about organisations and their development or humanitarian work, including finances, location, sector, results, conditions and supporting documents. | https://iatistandard.org/en/iati-tools-and-resources/ | Worldwide |
| Can Emerging Technologies Lead a Revival of Conflict Early Warning/Early Action? Lessons from the Field | Branka Panic | Early Warning, Conflict Prevention, Technology | The early warning/early action (EWEA) community has been working for decades on analytics to help prevent conflict. The field has evolved significantly since its inception in the 1970s and 80s. The systems have served with variable success to predict conflict trends, alert communities to risk, inform decision makers, provide inputs to action strategies, and initiate a response to violent conflict. Present systems must now address the increasingly complex and protracted nature of conflicts in which factors previously considered peripheral have become core elements in conflict dynamics. This report starts by surveying the data-driven techniques with the greatest potential to revolutionize the field, along with emerging trends in data and modeling. Then, it reviews contextual thematic issues most likely to shape EWEA (such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change), and concludes with recommendations for engaging emerging technologies in EWEA's future development. | https://cic.nyu.edu/publications/can-emerging-technologies-lead-revival-conflict-early-warningearly-action-lessons-field | Worldwide |
| The Correlates of War Project | Correlates of War Project | Conflict Data | COW seeks to facilitate the collection, dissemination, and use of accurate and reliable quantitative data in international relations. Key principles of the project include a commitment to standard scientific principles of replication, data reliability, documentation, review, and the transparency of data collection procedures. More specifically, we are committed to the free public release of data sets to the research community, to release data in a timely manner after data collection is completed, to provide version numbers for data set and replication tracking, to provide appropriate dataset documentation, and to attempt to update, document, and distribute follow-on versions of datasets where possible. | https://correlatesofwar.org/ | Worldwide |
| Financing Peace:Inhancing Adaptation, Maximising Impact | Sebastian Kratzer | Financing peace, Funding peacebuilding | To explore the trends in financing peace processes, Conciliation Resources, the European Institute of Peace, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and swisspeace convened a joint online event on 11 February 2021. It brought together peace practitioners with government and philanthropic donors toexplore current practice in funding peacemaking (more narrowly focused on engaging belligerents and securing security arrangements and political agreements) and peacebuilding (directed at long-term, often intergenerational change to support peace). The event highlighted an appetite to discuss these issues, with over 170 people joining the conversation from across the sector and the globe. | https://www.c-r.org/learning-hub/financing-peace-enhancing-adaptation-maximising-impact | Worldwide |
| Evaluation of Sida’s Support to Peacebuilding in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts | Erik Bryld, Julian Brett, Nadia Masri-Pedersen, Cécile Collin | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Conflict Prevention, Human Rights | This report presents a synthesis of the findings from the evaluation of Sida’s support to peacebuilding in conflict and post-conflict contexts since the early 1990s. It has been commissioned by Sida and undertaken by Tana Copenhagen. The evaluation assesses Sida’s approach and support to peacebuilding at the strategic level and seeks to identify what has worked well and what has worked less well. To do so, it draws from four country evaluations of Sida’s support to peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Rwanda and Somalia. The evaluation finds that Sida’s support has been relevant to the general context in the four countries. While Sida has played an important role in supporting processes that have contributed to positive change and has managed to identify and utilise opportunities to support peacebuilding, underlying conflict factors remain and continue to undermine sustainable peace. The alignment of Swedish strategies and underlying Sida documentation to specific peacebuilding needs has been weak because, with some exceptions, it has failed to target sufficiently the key root causes of conflict. The report includes recommendations to strengthen Sida’s peacebuilding engagement. | https://cdn.sida.se/publications/files/sida62210en-evaluation-of-sidas-support-to-peacebuilding-in-conflict-and-post-conflict-contexts-synthesis-report.pdf | Worldwide |
| Evidence Based Peacemaking: What We Need to Know; What We Need to Share; What We Need to Learn | Better Evidence Project | Design, Monitoring and Evaluation (DM&E), Training, Problem-Solving Workshop | This session is a discussion about what we know and don’t know, the next steps towards strengthening evidence-based peacebuilding, and where gaps remain. As a community of practice, how can we more effectively share what we are learning? At a minimum, evidence-based peacebuilding must result from meaningful input from, and collaboration with, practitioners and organizations in conflict-affected societies. How can scholars and researchers contribute to that? Search for Common Ground has developed a Global Impact Framework, in consultation with organizations and practitioners in the field, intended to bring together the lived experience of those living and working in conflict and to align measures that help people understand where they are most influential in transforming conflict. In doing so, Search for Common Ground and the Better Evidence Project, through its forthcoming Resource Center, are reframing the conversation about evidence related to peace and conflict in a way that can foster cross-fertilization and inform better learning and decision-making at all levels, while also incorporating local actors and needs as well as bridging theory and practice. | https://bep.carterschool.gmu.edu/evidence-based-peacemaking-what-we-need-to-know-what-we-need-to-share-what-we-need-to-learn/ | Worldwide |
| Rule Of Law And Sustaining Peace: Towards More Impactful, Effective Conflict Prevention | Adam Day, Jessica Caus | Rule of Law, Peacekeeping, Conflict Prevention | The present report is based upon eight in-depth case studies conducted by UNU-CPR, in close consultation with relevant UN peace operations, agencies and field offices. The cases were selected to cover a range of settings, from countries hosting UN peacekeeping operations (Central African Republic [CAR], Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC] and Mali) or special political missions (Colombia, Afghanistan and Lebanon), to non-mission settings (Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and reflect the breadth of the UN’s rule of law work. While not comprehensive, the cases offer insights into both the types of rule of law interventions and the ways in which country contexts may enable or inhibit the UN’s ability to have a strong impact on conflict prevention. The report not only offers consolidated lessons from the eight case studies, but is also designed to provide an actionable framework for rule of law policymakers and practitioners across the UN system. As such, it is divided into the following chapters: (1) the logic of rule of law, describing the theory of change behind the UN’s interventions and some concepts to understand how the UN contributes to impact on the ground; (2) common challenges arising in the UN’s rule of law work across a range of settings; (3) lessons from the eight cases; and (4) a framework outlining key considerations for rethinking UN approach to rule of law assistance and strategies in the future. | https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:8342/RuleOfLaw_FullVolume.pdf | Worldwide |
| Dissolving conflict. Local peace agreements and armed conflict transitions | Jan Pospisil | Peace Processes, Locally-led Peacemaking Initiatives, Conflict Prevention | The lessening likelihood and the often-sobering outcomes of comprehensive national peace processes directed attention to local peacemaking in recent years. Difficult to distinguish and define, local peace agreements work on a broad range of issues and engage a multitude of diverse actors. Local peace agreements construct a world of peacemaking that contradicts an ordered and levelled understanding of conflict. Instead, they reveal hybrid conflictscapes that are enmeshed in ways analytically hard to distinguish. In such an environment, local peace agreements can employ various functions: they can connect and strategise relationships between actors, mitigate and manage conflict settings, or disconnect localities or communities from the broader conflict landscape. In doing so, they do not necessarily work towards a linear and sequenced resolution of a conflict but towards dissolving it by undermining the conflict’s logics and conditions. | https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Pospisil-2022-Dissolving-conflict.-Local-peace-agreements-and-armed-conflict-transitions.pdf | Worldwide |
| Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) Basics: A Resource Manual | CDA Collaborative Learning Projects | Peacebuilding, Training, Facilitation | Building on this cumulative impact work, CDA has developed specific approaches to systems thinking and peacebuilding, including systemic conflict analysis, systems mapping, and the identification of leverage points for change as another means of expanding the peacebuilding effectiveness field.The experience and lessons gained through the years of RPP’s operation are the foundation of CDA’s current Peacebuilding Effectiveness practice area, which continues to promote learning in this field. CDA offers practical answers to the core questions about relevance and effectiveness in the peacebuilding field. This resource manual is helpful to guide macro-level decision-making on peacebuilding priorities within and across different agencies. It can be used at various levels - to guide the development of new peacebuilding strategies, programs, and projects and to help review existing initiatives. The RPP Basic Resource Manual includes various hints and tips for facilitators, relevant for those seeking practical guidance on how to use the RPP materials in workshop settings, in trainings, working with program teams etc. It also includes practical guidance on how to present the materials, as well as practical examples for workshop settings and work with multi-stakeholder groups. The resource is divided in six modules and combines background information with practical how guidance and exercise examples. | https://www.cdacollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Reflecting-on-Peace-Practice-RPP-Basics-A-Resource-Manual.pdf | Worldwide |
| Peace Agreements Database | The University of Edinburgh | Peace Agreements Data | The PA-X Peace Agreement Database (www.peaceagreements.org) is a database and repository of peace agreements from 1990 to date, current up until 1 June 2021. PA-X provides a comprehensive dataset of peace agreements from 1990 to mid-2021, capable of underpinning both quantitative and qualitative research. It aims to be accessible to: • mediators and parties in conflict seeking to understand how compromise can be crafted • civic actors seeking to influence on-going peace talks and proposals • social science researchers interested in understanding peace agreements quantitatively and qualitatively. | https://www.peaceagreements.org/ | Worldwide |
| Strengthening Locally-Led Peacebuilding: From Policy to Action | Liz Hume & Leslie Mitchell | Locally-led, conflict prevention, reccomendations | Locally-led peacebuilding (LLPB) is critical to preventing and managing violent conflict and building sustainable peace in conflict affected and fragile states. This policy brief outlines the importance of LLPB programming in building local individual and organizational ability to lead and partner with international organizations, identifies best practices for and challenges of donors and implementing international partners working to advance LLPB, and provides recommendations for its meaningful implementation. While this policy brief focuses on the peacebuilding sector, these recommendations are also applicable to international development and humanitarian assistance. | http://hdl.handle.net/1920/12784 | Worldwide |
| Humanitarian Aid Contributions | UN OCHA | Humanitarian Data | FTS is a centralized source of curated, continuously updated, fully downloadable data and information on humanitarian funding flows. Government donors, UN-administered funds, UN agencies, NGOs and other humanitarian actors and partners exchange data and information with FTS in order to provide: visibility of their financial contributions to humanitarian activities a timely and continuously updated picture of funding flows between donors (government and private) and operational humanitarian actors (UN agencies, the Red Cross Movement, NGOs and CSOs) timely monitoring of funding progress against humanitarian response plan (HRP) and appeal requirements. | https://fts.unocha.org/ | Worldwide |
| USIP CM-CRT Dataset | USIP Non-Violent Action Program | Non Violent Social Mobilization Data | The data, collected at the event level, provides a detailed look at how mobilization changes in the aftermath of successful nonviolent action campaigns and how those changes in mobilization interact with crucial secondary factors like government repression, dialogue and negotiation processes, and institutional change. Each event includes information on over 100 variables, capturing dozens of distinct concepts such as inclusivity, size, repression and foreign support. | https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/usip.nonviolent.action.program/viz/USIPCM-CRTDataset/Civic-MobilizationEvents | Worldwide |
| Peace Dividends And Beyond: Contributions Of Administrative And Social Services To Peacebuilding | Erin McCandless | Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Governance: Reforms, Inclusive Peacebuilding | In all societies – especially those emerging from violence – where administrative and social services are lacking or provided inequitably, the resulting void or imbalance is a common driver of conflict. In post-conflict settings, services can be controlled and manipulated, creating or exacerbating horizontal inequalities and fuelling discontent rather than offering a means to foster trust and better relations between state and society. Whether it is by national or international actors, by design or accident, administrative and social services can be delivered in ways that undermine peacebuilding efforts. Infrastructure and delivery systems are often severely damaged during violent conflict – systems that constitute very real, immediate needs for local people. As such, they are priorities that cannot be ignored in terms of the direct contributions they can make to peacebuilding and the early statebuilding efforts that underpin them. The report argues that there is significant evidence to include administrative and social services amongst the menu of choices available to directly support peacebuilding in any given context. Finding the appropriate balance among the many peacebuilding priorities in any setting should ultimately be a country-driven exercise – one that is inclusive of a wide range of stakeholders at different levels, especially historically marginalized groups. | https://www.un.org/peacebuilding/sites/www.un.org.peacebuilding/files/documents/peace_dividends.pdf | Worldwide |
| Crime and Conflict: The New Challenge for Peacebuiliding | Jessie Banfield | Organized crime, Fragility, Armed conflict, Drug trafficking | This report is offered as a contribution to the growing effort to understand the nexus between organised crime, armed violence and fragility, and to design effective responses. At the heart of the document is the hypothesis that an application of the approaches and overall lens of peacebuilding can enrich broader efforts to reduce and transform contemporary armed violence and fragility linked to organised crime. This approach has not been widely tested in practice, but when it has the results are promising. | https://www.international-alert.org/publications/crime-and-conflict/ | Worldwide |
| Promoting Conflict-Sensitive Business Activity during Peacebuilding | Jolyon Ford | Business and peace, Private sector and peacebuilding, Governance and regulation | This paper considers aspects of the relationship between policies promoting private sector investment and growth, and policies consolidating peace. It covers post-conflict transitions where external authorities play a major role. A core contemporary peacebuilding policy assumption is that stimulating economic recovery is vital to sustaining political settlements and social cohesion. Yet how do we respond when policies to stimulate investment and imperatives to consolidate peace lead to contradictory choices? The paper considers framing investment-promotion activities as quasi-regulatory in nature, given that external actors are shaping and influencing private sector impacts on peacebuilding. It reflects on ideas of ‘transitionalism’ as a distinctive policy mindset during exceptional recovery periods. It addresses three questions: (1) what is distinctive about transitional approaches to influencing the ways that business actors may impact peacebuilding (compared with ‘routine’ developmental settings)? (2) What is distinctive about promoting conflict-sensitive business activity and investment, and how might this require different priorities? (3) What is the proper balance in transitional policymaking between attracting investment to capital-starved settings,and requiring investment to be responsible? | https://www.swisspeace.ch/publications/working-papers/ | Worldwide |