My experience working in the ‘social impact’ sector over the past decades has led to a belief that there are no such thing as ‘best practices’ (although there may be ‘good practices’) or ‘one right way’ to do something. Rather the most effective approaches come from learning from a variety of sources and adopting a customized approach that works best in a local situation. Increasingly we have the resources (with the internet being a huge help in making resources more accessible around the globe) to learn from others in order to customize our own approaches. Unfortunately, however, there often still is a sense that we have to do things in one way because it has worked elsewhere. Rather than looking at this ability to ‘pick and choose’ and customize as an important process we often see it presented as a false dichotomy – go with the small, local for sustainability, or scale because it leads to greater impact and effectiveness.

Projects can be locally-led and in alliance with others to ‘scale’ or at least iterate and share learnings to implement ideas elsewhere. I have been encouraged by some recent approaches I have seen to try and combine these approaches – Wiser Earth and Helping Babies Breathe are two examples of projects that keep the focus on the local, with an international framework to help local entities draw the benefits of learning from their peers in often wide-ranging and fluid communities of practice. When I work with organizations that are looking to share (or ‘scale’) good ideas, I encourage them to try and limit what needs to be ‘core’ , so as to allow greater leeway for what can be customized locally.

Think globally and act locally continues to be a useful mantra if we can continue to move in the direction of determining the role each partner will play in an effective partnership. It is not partnerships we should do away with, but outmoded ideas of who should be playing what role and how those roles will be played.

This article was also published on the Local First blog. Local First is an approach to international development that prioritises the views and leadership of people and organisations in the countries affected, over those of outsiders from the international community.

But how we advocate for this is also important.

In this particular article, I would certainly agree with Dunning, in her role at the Adolescent Girls’ Advocacy and Leadership Initiative, that grassroots leaders are powerful actors that are reaching marginalized girls and unlocking their potential. We certainly both think that that the time to place local expertise at the center of international assistance has come.

However, we need to be careful to not characterize people as merely data providers.Dunning writes, “These community leaders are the best data source we have as we develop, implement, and evaluate programs in the social sector…All too often, we miss the most crucial data points, the ones that are directly in front of our faces – the knowledge, expertise, ideas, and experience of community-based leaders.”

By making the argument that local leaders have something we (organizations) need from them (information), we don’t yet overcome the centrality and the hierarchy with which aid organizations portray themselves in the global development equation. It’s something I’ve inadvertently and unconsciously done at times, and have subsequently and rightly been called out on.

Not only is it time to get beyond aid-driven development, those of working to make aid more locally responsive and empowering have to be very thoughtful about the Gates-led “more measurement” bandwagon. There’s much value in big data, and it may be tempting to position local leaders’ expertise within this paradigm. However, our sector needs to be more cognizant that international organizations’ obsession with results is a product of a Western, male, educated, elite tradition, which if unchecked, can become dangerously derivative.

There’s a big, big world out there, full of people that relate to “data” very differently than us do-gooders, and probably much less desperately.

As holders of fundamental human rights, equal in dignity and rights, we are all free to receive and impart information and ideas, and to drive our own futures. There is tremendous value in organizations doing more listening and it will lead to better outcomes.

Not because it yields more data, but because it is the right thing to do.

This article was also published on the Local First blog. Local First is an approach to international development that prioritises the views and leadership of people and organisations in the countries affected, over those of outsiders from the international community.

Women in Darfur march against gender violence. (Image credit: Albert Gonzalez Farran / UNAMID)

While wars take humanity to task without discrimination, it is the women who are known to be the worst sufferers of conflict. Though it is often easier to believe that it is those that serve in armies that suffer most, war inflicts greatest sufferings on women.

Women are forced to provide for their families against all kinds of adversities, as the responsibility of being a breadwinner falls on them with their men being at the battlefield. They are made to find a means to live in the face of a stark threat to their existence. If they don’t make a means to find a livelihood, hunger kills women and their families. If she makes her way out to run the gauntlet of war, sexual violence looms over her head like a sword waiting to drop. The bodies of women become battlegrounds. Combatants and non-combatants exploit women sexually.

In my last post, I spoke about how sexual violence is an element that subsists in a peacetime-wartime continuum. However, the occurrence is multiplied many times in a conflict setting. What is it that makes sexual violence so common on every warfront, and after?

Rape and sexual violence at the micro level can be a product of lustful intentions, mental disorders or depravity, as criminology offers. However, at the macro level – where the cases are not individual instances, but a collective of several individual instances that happen at dizzying speed, it is about dominance.

As men fight in war, there is a tendency towards wanting to break the enemy. Any victory is a victory: no matter how small, or how big it may be. A recent article revealed that a soldier came forth to say that they did whatever they wanted in war, and he himself had raped 53 women.

Sexual violence is deployed as a weapon of war because to the user, it is cheap, easy and extremely effective in achieving the target of breaking the enemy. When combatants rape by the dozen, it isn’t just about sexual urges, but about seeing the women of the enemy – sometimes just women – breaking before them, physically, emotionally and mentally. To them, that is a sadistic “victory”, or in more graphic terms, a way of “winning a war”. Rape and sexual violence in conflict is not about sex or lust, but about dominance, and about taking sexual violence in peacetime to a bigger scale.

And in many ways, using rape and sexual violence as weapons in war is a part of a strategic plan, like Gaddhafi’s ‘Viagra campaign’. Why is it so easy to deploy rape and sexual violence as part of campaign dynamics?

When a woman is subjected to sexual violence in any form, she suffers not only physical or psychological damage, but also suffers a stigma. Encumbered with the added trauma of humiliation, families turn these women out of their homes. When women are spurned from their own homes, the backbone of society is broken. Men refuse to marry women subject to sexual violence. Married men don’t want to welcome these women back into their lives, for in their eyes, they are “used goods”. These are not just by-products of sexual violence. These are planned and anticipated results.

In that sense, sexual violence is calculated, brutal and absolutely bereft of humanity. Using sexual violence as a modus operandi in warfare is driven by an unhealthy and hegemonic desire for power. War is about using tactics that drive fear, humiliation and destruction into the opponent society, to denigrate and erode the sanctity attached to the fabric of any peaceful society. The ulterior motive for it is that their conduct would invariably break down society entirely. Sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations, therefore, becomes for the warring factions, a preferred method that is used to reinforce gendered and political hierarchies.

A family law seminar for women, many of whom have no formal education and are rarely allowed outside of their homes

Curious, as it was only the previous day that the same discussion was held with the women of Zhari, and they sang a different song altogether. We think women have less access to the formal justice system, because the men do not allow us to go to such places as the district center, they recited in turn. They think it a disgrace for women to go to these places, said one. They say we are Afghans and our honor does not accept such a thing. Said another: there are women who cannot raise their voice because of unfair customs. If a man were to allow a woman to refer a case to the formal justice system, the other men would taunt him, saying look, here is the coward who let his wife out of the house. Concluded a third: workshops and discussion sessions should be arranged for Mullahs and men, so that they realise that going to the formal justice system is not such a disgrace.

Many of the women who complain about their lack of access to justice tend to be the wives of the same village elders who proclaim that women face no such lack.

Sadly, divergent accounts of local dispute resolution in Afghanistan is a rather common theme in the field reports of USAID’s local peacebuilding efforts in Afghanistan’s rural and generally insecure areas. Here I refer to the Rule of Law Stabilisation Programme – Informal Component (RLS-I), funded by USAID and implemented by Checchi and Company Consulting.

Survey data seconds that emotion. Six years of national polling by The Asia Foundation indicates that, while traditional, non-state dispute resolution is clearly preferred to Afghanistan’s fledgling state justice system, Afghan women have both a more positive view of state justice and a dimmer view of informal justice relative to their male counterparts.

RLS-I’s own evaluation data is more specific: in surveys of Afghans who submit to the mediation efforts of local elders of various sorts in order to have some conflict settled, female disputants assess their experience anywhere from 5-30% lower relative to males, on dimensions of due process, corruption either from external actors or from the mediators themselves, and the overall justice of the outcome.

It may be that the social desirability bias in our data comes from the men much more than the women, but this gender perception gap is consistent with a great and varied body of evidence pointing to lower access to justice for Afghan women, regardless of whether the mediator is a district judge or a village elder.

It’s not all bad. In fact, RLS-I receives a steady litany of anecdotes of women who, after receiving education and encouragement, feel emboldened to intervene and “de-escalate” petty village dramas before they turn into some horrific blend of a generational blood feud between neighbouring families and a daytime talk show love quadrangle.

More formally, RLS-I evaluation data suggests that an elder who passes through our full curriculum of seminars on legal rights and protections in Afghan constitutional law and Shari’ah improves his legal knowledge in the neighbourhood of 14%, while Afghans with local conflicts they’d like to settle peaceably improve their assessment of their experience with local elders by 31% for due process and 25% for overall justice of the outcome.

Citizens who receive our outreach material are 15% more likely to affirm that giving away girls in marriage is illegal and un-Islamic, and exhibit a 9% boost in general knowledge of their legal rights to boot. There is some indication that RLS-I might even help narrow the gender justice gap, but that remains to be seen.

RLS-I strengthens informal justice against Taliban justice encroachment and nudges the informal toward a slowly-expanding state justice system, all while addressing and mitigating the women’s rights concerns associated with a male-dominated forum. The situation is grim in places and more hopeful in others, but we’ll keep trying to make it more hopeful everywhere. That’s all peacebuilding is sometimes.

Q: Hon PM, How did you find yourself becoming one of the delegates representing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Juba Peace Talks?

“In early 2006, when news about the LRA peace talks had just begun, there was a civil society consultation here in Arua. Now, Arua is one of the districts affected by the LRA conflicts and they wanted to hear our views. As PM of Lugbwara chiefdom, I was invited to make a presentation.

“In that forum, I made very strong statements and a passionate appeal for peace talks. In West Nile we knew that Kony would be worried about what would happen to him, in case he decides to come back home, and so we needed confidence building. As an elder I knew the costs of war and the background to the conflict.

“So in my statement I gave assurance to Kony. I pleaded for peace and volunteered to give land to Kony for his resettlement in West Nile in case he fears returning to Acholiland. We were all speaking language of forgiveness, for Kony is our son. The children he abducted and those in the UPDF killing each other are our sons and daughters.

“So we wanted an end to the insurgency and for that, we as West Nilers could not leave our brothers in Acholi to suffer alone. We are historically brothers. I also called upon the ICC to drop its arrest warrant to facilitate peace talks and use the money meant for flying Kony and his commanders to The Hague to compensate the victims in IDP camps at the time.

“So, it happened that LRA representatives were in the meeting and when they briefed Joseph Kony about what the people in West Nile said, Kony said he wanted a representative from West Nile in the talks and so the delegates nominated me and Kony agreed.

“That’s how I became an LRA delegate to the talks.”

Q: What was your immediate reaction when you received that phone call?

“You know, it was one of those very unusual phone calls that require a long pause after the word hello.

“It was 7.00pm and I was having dinner with my family and the phone rang. When I answered hello, the next question was; “are you able to speak?” I answered yes of course but the caller insisted, “are you alone?” I said, well, give me a minute and I move out of the house.

“‘Okay, this is the LRA Delegation in Juba. My name is Martin Ojul. Also online, I have with me my colleagues and I think it was either Dr. Matsanga or Jame Obita and Chrispus Ayena who is Senior Counsel to LRA Leader Joseph Kony’. Mr. Ayena especially introduced himself.

“‘Now, you have been nominated to join the LRA peace team in Juba, what say you?’

“After a long pause, I said ‘yes, of course, I want to be part of any peace team.’ What followed was a long conversation on confidentiality and security.”

Q: How easy was it? And how did people react to the news?

“But we were talking about the LRA and Joseph Kony here.

“I knew a lot about this group and the conflict but I had no dealings or any connection with them before. I also knew they were wanted by the ICC. But, anyway I said yes. And there were a lot of backlashes.

“Immediately, the news broke out-over BBC and local radio stations announcing the composition of the LRA team, I started receiving phone calls. My friends and relatives and colleagues were all calling to confirm whether it was me and asking for how long I had been dealing with the LRA. My attempt to explain did not yield much.

“But it is understandable, because many of these people calling were genuinely worried for me and they kept asking, “are you sure you are safe?” Even security operatives were calling my friends to find out more about me. In fact a group of strange people; suspected security operatives visited my home and interviewed my mother and they were asking too many questions about my background and past dealings.

“That night I took a bus to Kampala and met with the then Minster for Internal Affairs, and leader of the Government Delegation to the Juba Peace Talks, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda. He had already been briefed by the mediator Dr. Riek Machar but I still explained the circumstances surrounding my appointment and its aftermath.

“He asked me to be calm and assured me of full government protection. He said, it was good that a genuine person like me had been appointed to the team and that we should be frank and offer Kony unbiased opinions to facilitate the peace process. He asked me what help I needed. I told him, I don’t even have a passport. He said no problem, explained the needed requirement like photos and within forty five minutes I had a passport in my hands.”

Q: So what happened next?

“Well, the joke in Juba was that after I left the Ministry of Internal Affairs there was a rumor that Joseph Kony himself had just met with the Minister and he was given a diplomatic passport in 10 mins. Of course that was a joke. After that, arrangement was made for me to join the LRA peace team in Juba. In Juba preparation was in high gear and there was a lot of excitement and determination to get a peace deal that would finally end the LRA insurgency.”

Q: Let’s talk about the negotiation in Juba itself, how serious was it? Was there any realistic chance or people were taken for a ride?

“The LRA team was determined to get a good deal to end the insurgency. The mediator was serious about ending the conflict and the government team too, demonstrated every will to negotiate in good faith.

“But, let’s face it, this conflict has been around for over twenty years, and there was no way it could have been negotiated in a hurry. Time was not on our side. There was too much expectation but very little patience. Understandably people wanted a quick solution, but peacemaking cannot be rushed. ”

Q: What is your last word to Ugandans and the LRA?

“Peace is the only way! Lets us make peace, we must talk. Museveni and Kony should understand that, history will change them equally. The two of them bear equal responsibility for what happened in northern Uganda and what is going on in DR Congo, CAR and South Sudan as an outcome of the continuation of this insurgency. We cannot sit and watch. We cannot afford to do nothing. We must negotiate an end this rebellion. Thank you very much.”

Images provided by the National Memory and Peace Documentation Centre, Kitgum. An initiative of the Refugee Law Project and Kitgum District Local Government.

LERN has collected over 2,000 reports during the three years it has been in operation. The organisation has now brought that data together and published a report analysing conflict trends in the country.

Insight on Conflict’s local correspondent recently gave an excellent overview of the workings of the project.

Image credit: UN Photo/Stuart Price

There is no doubt that war affects women and men differently. Whenever there has been conflict, women and children have been known to receive the hard end of the stick. Women and children are often the most vulnerable and prone to being hit the hardest.

Throughout history we see examples of terrible abuses against women and children. From the 1.1 million children killed during the Holocaust. To the many women and children raped or killed during the Rwandan Genocide.

Women who survive these atrocities often have to live with the vivid and terrifying images of rape, war and death for the rest of their lives. Women also suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, stigmatization and sometimes unwanted pregnancies. They are faced with the daunting task of keeping families together after displacement, providing food, clothing and shelter in what is in most instances, destroyed infrastructure, for their children and their families.

The current conflict situation in Somalia is another example of the crimes committed women and children during war. According to Human Rights Watch, internally displaced people in Somalia are suffering sexual violence in the form of gang rape and other forms of abuse in Mogadishu’s refugee camps. Human Rights Watch reports that the abuse takes place at the hands of armed groups, including government forces. The rape is gruesome and degrading. A 23-year-old woman who was 9 months pregnant was gang raped by 3 men in army uniforms. Women suffer quietly as they fear stigma, reprisal and even execution.

Veteran Editor at the African Woman and Child Features, Jane Godia said in an interview with Gender Governance Kenya that “While women remain a minority of combatants and perpetrators of war, they increasingly suffer the greatest harm.” She added, “Parties in conflict situations often rape women, sometimes using systematic rape as a tactic of war.”

The effects of war continuefor years after the fighting ends. Many women are left widowed and many children are orphaned. Women struggle to sustain livelihoods for their children after conflict.

It is therefore of great importance that women begin to play a significant role in curbing the effects of violence; not only for themselves, but their families and communities at large. To a great extent, women need to be actively included and involved in the formal aspects of the peace process so that they can stand up for their rights and rally for peace at a national level. The interlinkages between women’s development, peace, security and human rights cannot be denied.

Still women continue to be absent from formal peace negotiations especially in Africa. For example, despite the relentless grassroots efforts of the women of Sierra Leone to end civil war, they were left out in the final negotiations of the Lome Peace Accord of 1999 held in Togo, Lome.

Women are seen as victims of conflict that need to be protected and kept safe rather than agents of change for peace. Because of such views and sentiments, the elimination of violence against women in conflict prone areas continues to pose challenges.

Strides and efforts continue to be made to bring women to the forefront as agents of peace and positive political change. The UN Security Council recognizes women’s inclusion strengthens prospects of sustainable peace. In October 2000, the resolution 1325 was adopted which recognizes the role of women in strengthening their participation in decision-making, ending sexual violence and impunity and providing an accountability system.

UN Women also supports projects that focus on increasing women’s participation in decision-making, promoting the use of gender perspectives in policy development, strengthening the protection of women affected by conflict, countering conflict-related sexual violence, amplifying calls for accountability and advancing the status of women in post-conflict settings.

However, more needs to be done to empower women. Women must begin to play a significant and major part in peace talks and post-conflict reconstruction and they should be empowered to be less of victims and onlookers and instead to take steps against gender violence.

Image credit: aWorldTourer

Understanding that dealing with the past is a key precondition for conflict prevention and the creation of the stable future for the country, the government of BiH has started the process of creating a state-level Transitional Justice Strategy.

The purpose of the Strategy is to form a sustainable platform for establishing facts about the past, providing redress for injustice and war related trauma, protecting individual and collective memory, reforming and regaining trust in institutions. All together the goal is to develop a “never again” mentality and conflict prevention.

A guiding principle in creation of the Strategy was openness for active participation of all interested citizens, civil society and institutions from all levels of governance, through an open and inclusive consultation process.

The Strategy covers non-judicial transitional justice mechanisms – truth seeking and truth telling, reparations, memorialization and institutional reforms. Together with related strategies – such as the War Crimes Strategy, the Gender Action Plan, and the Dayton Agreement – the Strategy represents a comprehensive plan to combat impunity, provide redress for injustice, establish facts about the past, regain trust of citizens towards institutions and deter future human rights violations.

Recommendations provided in the Transitional Justice Strategy are based on an analysis of transitional justice development in BiH, comparative practice, domestic legislation, international obligations and standards, as well as conclusions from consultations.

Truth seeking and truth telling

In this section, the Strategy defines solutions regarding pressing issues such as solving the fate of the missing persons, forming an investigative institutional mechanism for establishing facts about the past or establishing a credible database of victims of human rights violations and war crimes. At the end, the Strategy recognizes efforts of civil society in this field, and suggests measures for institutionalization of their activities and creation of coalition of civil society organisations for the purposes of advocacy work and continuing the dialogue process.

Solving the fate of missing persons

The Strategy recommends various activities that will contribute to speeding up the process of solving the fate of the missing persons, but which will also contribute to improving the status of the family of the missing persons

Some of the proposed activities are signing bilateral or multilateral agreements with neighbouring states, amending the Law on Missing Persons – particularly in relation to functioning of the Missing Persons Fund, institutional obligation to provide information on missing persons, method of exchange of information, and prevalence in application of the Law on Missing Persons – and amending internal regulations of the Missing Persons Institute (MPI) which will contribute to smoother functioning of the MPI.

A set of specific activities in this area relates to criminal justice, more precisely on amending of the BiH Criminal Procedure Code. For example conditioning plea bargaining with disclosing information about the missing persons and securing testifying of indicted in other process. The Stratefy also recommends amending the BiH Criminal Code with the purpose of prescribing enforced disappearance as an independent criminal act. At the end, the Strategy calls on providing support and building capacity of families of the missing persons and missing persons’ associations.

Investigative institutional mechanism for establishing facts about the past

The Strategy recommends establishing an investigative institutional mechanism for establishing facts about the past, but leaves exactly how it should function, powers it has, or its mandate, open for further consultation. However, participants in consultations for the creation of the S reached consensus that the future investigative body needs to:

• establish facts about the past and provide full descriptions of human rights violations;
• give findings on social, cultural, political and historical causes which led to human rights violations and their consequences;
• establish pattern of crimes;
• establish findings on institutional responsibility;
• establish a credible register on killed people;
• create a platform for public hearings of the victims and other participants in the conflict; and
• publish a public report with recommendations for reparations, memorialization, and institutional reforms.

Reparations

When looking at the issue of reparations, the Strategy had two distinct approaches:

• Victims centred approach through activities that consider recognition of victims’ suffering, regaining of their dignity and re-socialization through redress for past injustice; and
• Development approach embodied in providing measures for the creation of new legislation, or amending existing laws, establishment of new institutions and building capacity of the current institutions which are mandated to provide services to victims but, also, to people in need in general.

The Strategy, in this segment, deals particularly with compensations and rehabilitation – psychosocial support, employment and organising socio-cultural and sport activities. Similar to the truth seeking and truth telling part, the Strategy recognizes efforts of civil society in this field and also suggests measures for institutionalization of their programs, the creation of a coalition of civil society organisations which are active in the area and defines recommendations in relation to providing support for the implementation of activities of this kind.

Compensations

By supporting the adoption of the Framework Law on Victims of Torture and Civilian Victims of War, the Strategy tries to overcome existing discriminatory practices, and lack of sustainability, embodied in different legislative approaches to civilian victims of war and war veterans

The proposed law, which is in line with recommendations of different human rights bodies, defines crucial notions such as civilian victims of war or victims of torture. It also outlines basic rights that victims should enjoy, as well how these rights should be attained.

Rehabilitation

In terms of rehabilitation, the Strategy develops measures regarding:

• Psychosocial support to victims and people in need through creating a sustainable referral system and strengthening existing institutions mandated to provide services of this kind, as well as amendment of relevant laws and policies;
• Employment of victims and disabled people for the purpose of achieving their economic independence and self-sufficiency;
• Creating programs for psychological strengthening and re-socialization of victims and disabled people through their inclusion in various social, cultural and sport activities.

A very important measure here is connecting a recommended referral system with existing mechanisms for providing psychosocial support to victims and witnesses in (pre)judicial activities and processes.

Memorialization

The Strategy recommends a creative approach regarding protection of individual and collective memory. Namely, it proposes creation of “sites of conscience”, through which emotional and pedagogical aspects of memorials will be secured and strengthened.

The key objectives of the proposed approach are citizens’ participation, pluralism of ideas, protection of democratic values, and fostering culture of dialogue for the purpose of developing societal, institutional and legislative potential for human rights protection, as well as for conflict prevention.

However, in order to define an appropriate approach for BiH the Strategy proposes initiating an open and inclusive consultation process to get recommendations on how to organize such projects. At the end, the Strategy recognizes the efforts of civil society in this field and suggests measures for institutionalization of their programs.

Institutional reforms

With the purpose of regaining trust towards institutions and conflict prevention, the Strategy defines solutions which refer to vetting public officials and broad institutional transformation.

In terms of vetting, the Strategy calls for adoption of specific framework legislation that would regulate standards and approaches to the whole screening process. However, the Strategy defines neither the scope of vetting nor institutions where this administrative process should be organized, but instead calls for initiating an open and inclusive consultation process.

When it comes to broad institutional transformation, the Strategy specifically provides measures for:

• Building accountability of institutions through redeveloping internal and external monitoring mechanisms and census and identification;

• Institutional independence; and

• Building institutions which will be responsive to citizens’ needs.

The Strategy develops recommendations in respect of application process, the relationship between relevant institutions and BiH Ombudsman (or others) which, according to the Strategy, should ex officio monitor their work, then institutional codes of conduct as well as civil servants’ training programs for the purpose of providing service in more professional way. The Strategy also proposes measures for providing information to citizens on civil servants which also citizens to deliver their opinion on civil servants’ professional and moral suitability for implementing institutional mandate. In order to create more responsive institutions, the Strategy recommends creation of a coalition of civil society organisations which would monitor functioning of institutions and vetting process, but also build closer relations between institutions and citizens.

The police force, controlled by Zanu-PF, intimidate supporters of rival political parties. Photo courtesy of Sokwanele – Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean political scene has always been dominated by a history of politically motivated violence, dating back further than the disastrous 2008 presidential elections that left thousands of innocent civilians for dead. The violent clashes were between the then ruling political party The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu- PF), led by President Robert Mugabe, and its major rival, The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) political party, led by current Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Before the 2008 presidential election, Zimbabwe had witnessed a host of deadly violent clashes between its war veterans and Zimbabwean white commercial farmers over the issue of illegal land repossession.

Beginning in 2000, Zimbabwe’s land repossession initiative saw white farmers being forcefully removed from their legally owned farms by the Zimbabwean government in the guise of empowering the black majority of landless Zimbabweans.  Instead, the farms were channelled towards influential Zimbabwean government ministers and their immediate relations. Efforts to settle the land issue in a peaceful and amicable manner between the white Zimbabwean commercial farmers, with the aid of the Southern African Development committee (SADC), and the Zimbabwean government,  fell on deaf ears as the Zanu- PF government continued to repossess the farms in a violent and military style that left many innocent people dead.

The Zimbabwean government later went on to implement ‘Murambatsvina‘, meaning ‘against all illegal squatter houses’, on the Zimbabwean black majority in urban cities such as Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru and Kwekwe, through police intimidation tactics. However, the plight of these ordinary Zimbabwean civilians was never publicised, as the police, at the behest of the Zanu- PF, forced themselves into people’s properties. These citizens were then beaten up mercilessly and coerced into destroying all existing shelters that were unapproved by local government councils.

With Zimbabwe’s forthcoming 2013 presidential elections coming up, violence has already begun to take hold. Despite there being a Government of National Unity formed in 2009, the intimidation of ordinary civilians by police occurs often, and prevents citizens from attending political rallies of rival political parties.

A demonstrable and very public anecdote of this violence can be found even on mainstream television, such as the incident witnessed on season 7 of the Big Brother Africa reality show, which was held last year 2012 in South Africa. The altercation involved two Zimbabwean representatives that took to blows following a series of arguments to the surprise of their fellow housemates.

Instead of the two Zimbabweans, Maneta and Rocki, rallying and supporting each other, they used the platform to constantly argue and involve themselves in violent outbursts The pair showed signs of hostility towards one another from day one of the show, despite being there for the same patriotic cause.

The essence of the matter here is that, for many Zimbabwean youths, the hostility and violence displayed by the state has become engrained at the citizen level; reflected in day-to-day exchanges between the people. The violence that the Zimbabwean contestants Maneta and Rocki exhibited appear to be symptoms of this state violence, for if children grow up in an environment where political leaders resort to the use of violence to settle conflicts and disputes, we must expect that their peers will emulate these violent tendencies.

If leaders such as President Mugabe and others of a similar vein could foster peaceful notions of settling disputes and disagreements, even at times when their opponents resort to violent tactics, it may be possible to engender a peace driven generation that can lead by example and pave the way for years to come.

Informal justice and the international community in Afghanistan

While much of the international community’s efforts to work with informal justice in Afghanistan may have been well intentioned, the foregoing critiques suggest that they have not always been well informed.

Informal justice and the international community in Afghanistan, from USIP, looks at the approaches, both international and Afghan-led, to supporting informal justice in Afghanistan. The report argues that international approaches have often been damaging, and presents guiding principles applicable to Afghanistan and beyond.

New technology and the prevention of violence and conflict

In the long run, however, the most effective approach to using new technologies for conflict prevention may well be the one needed in prevention more broadly: one that successfully balances both grassroots, decentralized efforts and the more rationalized and coordinated activities of governments and international organizations.

New technology and the prevention of violence and conflict is a collection of articles looking at the role of new technology in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The articles draw on a number of case studies, providing lessons for practitioners and identifying areas of further research. There is a 90 minute video of the launch event and subsequent discussion available to view online. Published by the International Peace Institute with support from UNDP and USAID.

Help or Hindrance? Results-orientation in conflict-affected situations

Methodological and organizational responses to make interventions in conflict-affected contexts more focused on results are often poorly adapted to grapple with the complexity of these environments.

Help or hindrance examines the impact of results-orientation, impact assessment, and value for money on peacebuilding. Based on two expert workshops organised by Swisspeace, it offers a counterweight to the recent increased focus on results, which, the paper argues, has led to too much emphasis on ‘upward accountability’ at the cost of general learning and accountability for communities.

Demobilisation in the DRC: Armed groups and the role of organisational control

The ex­-combatant interviews show that RCD­ Goma, the CNDP, and the Mai­ Mai groups mimicked the organization of a conventional national army. This meant that low­ level troops could be closely monitored, and also that the risks of being caught and punished for desertion were high.

Demobilisation in the DRC details how armed groups in DR Congo are able to control the demobilisation of individual combatants. The paper shows the mechanisms of organisational control used by armed groups to prevent “unauthorised” demobilisation, and presents possible ways of countering these disincentives. Published by the Small Arms Survey.

Violence against women in Syria: Breaking the silence

Risks of stigmatisation and rejection of survivors impose a culture of silence, preventing women reporting crimes of sexual violence. As a result, the vast majority of those in need of medical and psycho-social support do not have access to such services.

Violence against women in Syria draws on testimony from refugees fleeing the conflict to show the extent of violence against women in the Syrian conflict. The report gives accounts of the violence by all sides of the conflict, and the social stigma that prevents women speaking out. From the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

Pakistan Calling

Pakistan Calling is an innovative platform for filmmakers to show the links between civil and cultural organisations and communities in Pakistan and the UK. The films explore some of the many pressing social problems facing Pakistan, and highlights the inspiring stories of people and organisations tackling these issues.

From the Blog