Infrastructure for Peace is a new approach in peacebuilding which gained momentum after locally led and participatory peacebuilding practices tended to yield effective results in some countries beset by conflicts. It underpins the ideas of conflict transformation and stresses on under-girding the politically negotiated settlements at top level by peacebuilding efforts at the grassroots.
In 2010, governments, political parties, civil society and United Nations country representatives from 14 African countries in Kenya agreed upon a working definition of infrastructures for peace as a ‘dynamic network of interdependent structures, mechanisms, resources, values and skills which, through dialogue and consultation, contribute to conflict prevention and peacebuilding in a society’. [1]
Studies exemplify National Peace Council (Ghana), Department on Ethnic, Religious Policy and Civil Society Interaction (Kyrgyzstan) [2] and economical approaches in Guyana, Bolivia and Kenya and the United Nations Development Programme contributes to about 30 infrastructures for peace projects around the globe. [3]
Critical studies on the infrastructure for peace mainly see this as a fuzzy concept because peacebuilding cannot be guaranteed only by local efforts. Such local infrastructures are prone to suffer from political upheavals, [4] they still rely on external funding and cannot do well under strictly autocratic regimes. [5] New research works, which conflate infrastructures for peace with security sector reform have also suggested such architectures need to rise above local boundaries to negotiate on security issues because (in)security has transnational connections. [6]
Academic conferences, special editions of journals, issue-specific books and websites dedicated to this topic have begun to emerge including the UNE Peace Studies Conference (2015) on questioning 'peace formation' and 'peace infrastructure', Berghof Handbook [7] and a Journal of Peacebuilding and Development Special Edition in Vol. 7, No. 3.
Peacekeeping comprises activities, especially military ones, intended to create conditions that favor lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths, as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords, and colloquially known as the Dayton in ex-Yugoslav parlance, is the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, United States, finalised on 21 November 1995, and formally signed in Paris, on 14 December 1995. These accords put an end to the three-and-a-half-year-long Bosnian War, which was part of the much larger Yugoslav Wars.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
Peace and conflict studies or conflict analysis and resolution is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
The concepts of security sector governance and reform generally refer to a process in Western-based international development and democratization to amend the security sector of a state towards good governance and its principles, such as freedom of information and the rule of law.
Peacebuilding is an activity that aims to resolve injustice in nonviolent ways and to transform the cultural and structural conditions that generate deadly or destructive conflict. It revolves around developing constructive personal, group, and political relationships across ethnic, religious, class, national, and racial boundaries. The process includes violence prevention; conflict management, resolution, or transformation; and post-conflict reconciliation or trauma healing before, during, and after any given case of violence.
The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) is a member-led network of civil society organisations (CSOs) active in the field of conflict prevention and peacebuilding across the world. The network is organised around 15 regional networks of local organisations, each region having its own priorities, character and agenda. Each region is represented in an International Steering Group, which determines joint global priorities and actions. GPPAC was initiated through extensive consultations in 2003-4, and officially launched as part of a global conference in 2005 at the UN headquarters in New York.
Mohammed Abu-Nimer is an American expert on conflict resolution and dialogue for peace. He is a full professor at the American University School of International Service in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in Washington, DC, the largest school of international relations in the United States.
The capitalist peace, or capitalist peace theory, or commercial peace, posits that market openness contributes to more peaceful behavior among states, and that developed market-oriented economies are less likely to engage in conflict with one another. Along with the democratic peace theory and institutionalist arguments for peace, the commercial peace forms part of the Kantian tripod for peace. Prominent mechanisms for the commercial peace revolve around how capitalism, trade interdependence, and capital interdependence raise the costs of warfare, incentivize groups to lobby against war, make it harder for leaders to go to war, and reduce the economic benefits of conquest.
Environmental peacebuilding examines and advocates environmental protection and cooperation as a factor in creating more peaceful relations. Peacebuilding is both the theory and practice of identifying the conditions that can lead to a sustainable peace between past, current or potential future adversaries. At the most basic level, warfare devastates ecosystems and the livelihoods of those who depend on natural resources, and the anarchy of conflict situations leads to the uncontrolled, destructive exploitation of natural resources. Preventing these impacts allows for an easier movement to a sustainable peace. From a more positive perspective, environmental cooperation can be one of the places where hostile parties can sustain a dialogue, and sustainable development is a prerequisite for a sustainable peace.
The Cyprus Conflict Resolution Trainers Group was founded in 1994 by about 30 Cypriot peace pioneers. Because this group has introduced conflict resolution and structured dialogue concepts to a few thousand Cypriots, it is credited for the formation of an embryonic peace movement.
European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) is the independent civil society platform of European NGOs, NGO networks and think tanks which are committed to peacebuilding, and the prevention of violent conflict.
Global Peace System is a concept of global conflict resolution dependent on nonviolent processes to eradicate war. It relies upon a multi-strand approach to conflict resolution, incorporating broad social and political solutions. In contemporary peace and conflict studies, the concept of a global peace system has been evolving since the 1940s around the theory that there is a global infrastructure of peacebuilding and that there is a need for systems thinking in peacebuilding. The term "global peace system" was coined from the work of Robert Johansen, who explored the concept in 1978's Toward a Dependable Place.
Hizkias Assefa (1948) is a conflict mediator known widely in Africa for his non-aligned work as a consultant who has mediated in most major conflict situations in sub-Saharan Africa in the past 20 years, as well as in a dozen countries elsewhere. He is also a professor of conflict studies. Of Ethiopian origin, he is based in Nairobi, Kenya. He was one of the founding faculty members in 1994 of the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University.
Emmanuel Bombande is a conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and development professional from Accra, Ghana, and is the Chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
Climate security is a political and policy framework that looks at the impacts of climate on security. Climate security often refers to the national and international security risks induced, directly or indirectly, by changes in climate patterns. It is a concept that summons the idea that climate-related change amplifies existing risks in society that endangers the security of humans, ecosystems, economy, infrastructure and societies. Climate-related security risks have far-reaching implications for the way the world manages peace and security. Climate actions to adapt and mitigate impacts can also have a negative effect on human security if mishandled.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu is a Kenyan national serving since November 2020 as the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Zahra' Langhi is a feminist, Libyan exile, human rights activist, peace activist, and expert on gender, conflict resolution, and peace building.
Peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir includes confidence-building measures at a nation-state level between the governments of India and Pakistan, track two diplomacy, as well as initiatives by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), institutes and individuals. The purpose of peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir include conflict prevention and reduction of hostilities in the Kashmir Valley. Many countries such as Russia, United States and China have also played a de-escalatory role with regard to tensions in the region.
Florian Krampe is a German/Swedish political scientist and international relations scholar at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).[2] He is best known for his work on climate-related security risks, Environmental Peacebuilding, and the governance of natural resources after armed conflict. He also serves as Affiliated Researcher at the Research School for International Water Cooperation at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. Between 2020 and 2022 Krampe was cross appointed Specially Appointed Professor at the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability at Hiroshima University, Japan.
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