Conciliation Resources's blog

There are significant challenges to peace prospects In East and Central Africa. With the African Union and United Nations’ recent joint declaration to launch a regional military strategy against the Lord’s Resistance Army, added to public attention focusing on calls for an escalation of force, we share our local partners' concerns that the response must centre on the protection of civilians. Lessons must be learnt from the past.

Approaching two million people throughout the South Caucasus lost their homes as a result of ethnic mobilisation, confrontation and conflict through the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their fate remains a key challenge for both the Nagorny Karabakh and Georgian–Abkhaz peace processes. Through film projects, TV discussions, and policy papers, Conciliation Resources and our partners in the Synergy network have recently been bringing new thinking to bear on these issues. At the heart of these activities are the peacebuilding perspectives of local people.

In the aftermath of the February 2012 London Conference on Somalia, Sally Healy – Accord 21 editor and a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute – offers her personal assessment of the conference, its likely impact and the complex challenges ahead. Featuring insight from Mohamed Abdi Aynte, Mark Bradbury, Al-Hadi and Ken Menkhaus, this comment piece, concludes that "There are no risk-free options for Somalia. It is ever more obvious that Somalis, not foreigners, have to lead on the solutions."

Good, clear communication is vital to peacebuilding. It is important for us to share lessons from our own and partners’ peacebuilding experience in order to contribute to improving practice and policies, and help people understand the work we do and the difference their support for it makes. Over the past few months Conciliation Resources has been looking at how we share these lessons more effectively and developing our communications to provide readily accessible information on peacebuilding. We'd value your feedback.