Reflecting on Bottom-up Peacebuilding Methodologies in Myanmar (Peace News)
Adapt Peacebuilding and the Relief Action Network for IDPs and Refugees (RANIR) have pioneered a civil society-led peacebuilding process in Myanmar, utilizing an adaptive peacebuilding methodology called Systemic Action Research (SAR). This approach allows local participants to determine the topics to be worked on, outcomes expected, who can participate, and when activities should be completed. The SAR approach has been implemented in the armed conflict in Myanmar’s north between the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) and its allies and the Myanmar military. The SAR approach includes training in systemic inquiry, a process of participatory data collection and analysis. The process identified three priority peacebuilding topics: drug abuse, the right of return for refugees and internally displaced people, and social cohesion between host communities and internally displaced people. More than 17,000 people were directly involved in the process, and the potential of seeing peacebuilding as a process of social mobilization has been demonstrated.
Negative Peace in the US: What Can Black Lives Matter Teach International Peacebuilders?
A false sense of invincibility and exceptionalism are pervasive throughout the West: we are misguided into thinking that wealth and well established institutions preclude us from the societal and developmental challenges we implement interventions to try to address around the world. As a result, Western peacebuilding practitioners often wind up so focused on the challenges of poverty and conflict “over there” that we forget to consider the similar challenges we face “over here.” Meanwhile, in the US, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement is highlighting the widespread presence of oppressive systems that are stalling development for large contingents of the population.
Social Polarisation and the Weaponization of Social Media (Mercy Corps)
Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for communication, connection, community and, unfortunately, conflict. It’s created new, highly accessible channels for spreading disinformation, sowing divisiveness and contributing to real-world harm in the form of violence, persecution and exploitation. The impact social media has on real-world communities is complex and rapidly evolving. It stretches across international borders and challenges traditional humanitarian aid, development and peacebuilding models. This new paradigm requires a new approach. Mercy Corps has partnered with Do No Digital Harm and Adapt Peacebuilding on a landscape assessment to examine how social media has been used to drive or incite violence and to lay the foundation for effective, collaborative programming and initiatives to respond quickly and help protect already fragile communities.
Peacebuilding, Prevention, and Sustaining Peace: Q&A with Susanna Campbell
Prevention and sustaining peace have been central themes at the United Nations (UN) over the past two years, consistently emphasized by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The Nelson Mandela Peace Summit held during the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly was yet another example of efforts to highlight the need for more focus on preventative approaches to conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and other topics—ending with the adoption of a political declaration and a reaffirmation by member states of the goals that Nelson Mandela worked for. Yet, despite these summits and debates, there is still a challenge in linking debates at the international level with on-the-ground actors and experience.
Five things to consider when developing monitoring and evaluation systems for adaptive programmes
International development is slowly waking up to the realisation that existing programming frameworks, often driven by the need for accountability, due not hold true in sight of the true complexity of local dynamics and do not deliver neither for beneficiaries, nor implementing organisations, nor the donors themselves. The truth is: we often do not know the solution to an existing problem and, as such, it is difficult to predict if and how a project will work out. Enter adaptive programming, where we design, test and evaluate different programming strategies to find out what works (best).
PROJECT: Conflict Sensitivity Training for Myanmar Police Force
The Myanmar Police Force (MPF) has faced considerable challenges in responding to new priorities and operating realities in Myanmar during the country’s democratic reforms. Communal violence has sadly been a feature of Myanmar’s transition, particularly in 2012 and 2013, when several episodes of spontaneous violence erupted in various parts of the country, causing significant death, destruction of property, and displacement of affected populations. Tensions remain between communities in some parts of the country. The MPF is often at the front line of efforts to manage conflicts before they turn violent, or keep the peace and support justice and reconciliation after tensions boil over.
BLOG POST: Understanding the dynamics of polarization in Colombia
A brief reflection about polarization and its effects by Sergio Guarín León, Fundación Ideas Para La Paz, Colombia.
Common confusions
1. In all societies there are groups that have opposing positions on the way public affairs should be conducted. These positions are explained by the interests, needs and fears of individuals, as well as by their interpretation of reality, the information they have access to and their own experiences.
2. Social life implies the constant clash between these positions, which is known as conflict. The conflict is not negative per se and its management is an essential part of the public debate. When a society can manage the conflict peacefully improvements happen frequently or at least, awareness, new decisions and movements are generated.
PROJECT: Systemic Conflict Analysis, Kachin State
Myanmar’s civil war is five decades old. Since 2011 hundreds have since been killed and more than one hundred thousand displaced in northern Kachin state, threatening the country’s entire peace and reform process. In 2012 Adapt conducted a systemic conflict assessment of this conflict as part of a fellowship from Columbia University. Based upon key informant interviews and a chronology of events methodology, the research revealed non-linear dynamics which render the Kachin conflict intractable. The authors continue to work with affected communities, who are beginning to realise their aspirations for a political process to address the war’s underlying causes. For more about Adapt’s work in Kachin, check out the Peacebuiling Programs page.
PROJECT: Adapt develops new methods for creative planning in international development
Adapt Peacebuilding is supporting the NGO Christian Aid Ireland to institute adaptive programming approaches in its human rights, governance, gender and peacebuilding work in seven countries. Adaptive programming approaches recognise that its difficult if not impossible to know which strategies are likely to be effective in complex environments, and prioritises learning and reflection to improve strategies in close to real time.
BLOG POST: The Untapped Potential of Visual Arts and Innovative Education for Peace
In this blog, Peace Direct intern Celia Carbajosa spoke to leading social entrepreneur, activist and Rotary Peace Fellow Maria Gabriela Arenas- or ‘Gaby’ as she goes by- about an approach to violence which she thinks is largely overlooked: that of visual arts and innovative education. Gaby is the founder of TAAP (“Taller de Aprendizaje para las Artes y el Pensamiento”), a foundation based on promoting peaceful living and learning through creative workshops. TAPP uses drawings, photography, videos, textiles, sculptures and other tools to stimulate children, parents and the wider community to change how they think about violence and come up with communal solutions to eradicate it.
