Civil society inclusion in peace processes has been recognised to be crucial in achieving sustainable peace. The author first reviews the existing academic literature on this, before looking at how civil society, and especially civil society in non-western contexts and armed conflicts can be conceptualised. The variety of approaches and the limitations of Western actor-based concepts in non-Western contexts explains the choice of a function-based model of civil society being chosen to analyse it in the context of international peacebuilding efforts. Its involvement in formal peace processes and negotiations meanwhile is analysed using nine models of inclusion.  The case that is chosen for this exploration is Afghanistan. As a multi-facetted country with a long history of armed conflict and foreign involvement, the developments in the past two decades provide an interesting case study. The inductive desk research, using secondary data, is guided by the questions; which concept of civil society has informed the peace building process in Afghanistan in the past twenty years, how civil society in Afghanistan can be conceptualized and how this has affected the peace building process.  The findings paint a distinct picture of a country that has been shaped by armed conflict, tracing its roots back to the early days of modern Afghanistan and contrasting existing societal and political structures with Western concepts of civil society and state building. Civil society involvement is being analysed using exemplary stages of peace processes and external peace building efforts.  The research concludes that civil society inclusion has been limited by Western concepts of civil society being unfittingly applied to far more complex local realities, thereby excluding relevant actors and limiting the legitimacy and ownership of the peace process, with the prospect of peace being a long way off.

Women living in northern Nigeria face a herculean challenge of overcoming direct and indirect violence. These include domestic violence, political instability, social inequality, and the threat of Boko Haram. Boko Haram is an extremist militant group that has been known to kidnap, rape, and torture women and young girls as means of terrorizing the Nigerian community. Northern Nigerian women have also faced challenges within their own community as they are barred from participating in public activities, are under-represented in government, forced into early marriages, and are often victims of domestic violence. This study examines the lived experiences of women peacebuilders living in northern Nigeria as they negotiate regional conflicts and manage the peacebuilding process. Seven northern Nigerian females between the ages of 30 to 60 were recruited to participate in this study. All came from diverse backgrounds but shared a commonality of peace building and conflict management within their respective communities. The goal of this study was to better understand the meaning of these experiences and to uncover how these women handle these daily challenges. Feminist standpoint and structural violence theories provide the theoretical framework to dissect the essence of their experiences. The study adopted Clark Moustaka’s approach towards conducting transcendental phenomenological research methods and procedure. The results of the study will inform project design and policy formulation and serve as a source for future research and interventions by development agencies and other stakeholders interested in peace within the region.