Impact
The impact of peacebuilding can be hard to measure, yet we know our work has impact on people’s lives and on the drivers of conflict that prevent peace.
Building peace involves people coming together to discuss their differences, to resolve conflict by talking rather than fighting. This requires changes in people’s attitudes and behaviours, both of which are difficult to do and take a long time. Such changes are also difficult to measure, and often don’t appear until long after our projects have ended. Yet we know our work has impact on people’s lives and on the drivers of conflict that otherwise prevent peace.
We work closely with community members, local partners and governments, and regularly discuss with them what worked and what we could do better. Knowing whether and how our programmes are making a difference is key for us to understand our contribution to peace. This knowledge helps us to improve our programming as we learn and adapt to achieve sustained impact for peacebuilding and policy influence.
Our impact
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, we supported mechanisms for addressing local conflicts before they escalate. This included 271 community members participating in dialogue sessions to tackle issues such as land disputes and gender and ethnic discrimination. Thanks to the effectiveness of these conflict-resolution structures, local leaders reported a reduction in both the number of small-scale conflicts between communities and the time taken to address these disputes.
Following the discovery of oil in Turkana county in Kenya, we have been facilitating dialogue between the oil company, local and national authorities, local civil society and community members. Previously community members have responded to grievances around oil sites with demonstrations and roadblocks. However, during a recent issue over water supply we saw a community engaging with the office of the Deputy County Commissioner who took the matter up with the oil company and other local administrators to find a lasting solution to the water crisis peacefully.
We established a network of forums in Nepal through which journalists received training on documenting human rights violations and could discuss the causes of self-censorship with colleagues, political parties, security agencies and HR defenders. This became a highly effective platform for multiple stakeholders to discuss and resolve media violence issues. The network successfully improved journalists’ freedom of expression in a context where this right is increasingly under threat.
We introduced participatory budgeting processes in Tunisia that enabled communities to define their own priorities for local development. It built trust between the marginalised youth and the municipal government and challenged the stereotypes of youth as terrorists and criminals. As a result, some participants were elected to the municipality and the president of one municipality observed a reduction in protests and demonstrations.
Our Living with Dignity project aimed to reduce rates of violence against women and girls in Tajikistan through behaviour and gender norm changes, and income generating activities. Overall, the number of women reporting emotional, physical or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) halved over 12 months. Severe emotional, sexual or physical IPV was reported by 64.5% of women at the start, falling to 12.2% of women by the end of the project.
Recent stories
Annual Report 2023
In 2023, we collaborated with 112 partners on 59 projects in 24 countries and territories, making the case for peacebuilding and supporting communities in the world’s most challenging contexts. We reflect on our key successes and lessons learned from this work in our annual report.