There is a growing awareness among researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners regarding the importance of increased coordination among numerous post-conflict peacebuilding processes and the consequent need for conceptual clarity as a precondition for coordinated, holistic peacebuilding interventions. Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), and Mine Action are among the very first entry points in post-conflict reconstruction, however, despite sharing similarities they form part of distinct communities of practice, and the nexus between the two remains widely unaddressed academically and in practice. This research aims to address this disconnection. A particular window of opportunity is identified through the difficulties that DDR reintegration generates.  In particular, this study proposes the reintegration of ex-combatants through mine action. The author suggests that DDR can only enable sustainable long-term results if it is part of a wider set of security promotion strategies with devoted attention to community security which is argued to be achieved through mine action. Using a qualitative single case idea analyses the research argues that the adoption of a bottom-up approach provides an alternative understanding of ex-combatant reintegration. The results suggest that Humanitarian Demining, Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) and Victim assistance (VA) can pave the way for reintegration and reconciliation between ex-combatants and local communities in the case of Colombia.

A growing body of scholarship has explored the link between climate change, natural resources and conflict. While considerable interest has been shown in examining how and under what circumstances climate change may increase a country’s risks of conflict, research exploring climate change response initiatives in fragile and conflict-affected contexts remains limited. Drawing from political ecology and ecological security literature, I understand climate resilience to be an intrinsic part of peace. This study explores and empirically tests if climate funding, through natural resource management practices, contributes to social cohesion and reduced environmental stress and, hence, peace. By doing a quantitative subnational analysis based on Colombia, I use a Fixed Effects regression model to test two hypotheses. While statistical evidence shows a positive and statistically significant relationship between climate change funding and negative peace, not enough evidence is found to support the second hypothesis linking it to environmental sustainability (as indicator of positive peace).

The level of brutality and violence against children abducted and forcefully conscripted by the Lord¿s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda pricked the conscience of humanity. The suffering of the people in northern Uganda was described by Jan Egeland, the former United Nations Under- Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, as ¿the biggest forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world¿. This study is primarily concerned with the plight of child soldiers in northern Uganda and how their effective reintegration and rehabilitation (RR) could lead to successful peacebuilding. The study is premised on the hypothesis that ¿the promotion of the RR of former child soldiers by providing psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources may contribute to conditions of peace and stability in northern Uganda.¿ The main contribution of this research is that it explores the relevance of psychosocial support based on the traditional and indigenous resources to the RR of child soldiers and peacebuilding of war-torn societies. Psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources as an element of peacebuilding has been the neglected element of peacebuilding by the liberal peacebuilding interventions in most war-torn societies. For example, while traditional and indigenous resources in northern Uganda have been instrumental in the RR of former child soldiers, most scholars and policy makers have largely paid attention to the usual official government and United Nations structured top-down interventions that emphasize Western approaches of peacebuilding. More so, the official approaches have tended to marginalize the plight of former child soldiers in the reconstruction and peacebuilding of northern Uganda. Yet, failing to pay sufficient attention to effective RR of child soldiers could undermine the peace dividends already achieved in northern Uganda. The study also analyses the limitations of psychosocial support based on traditional and indigenous resources in the RR of former child soldiers. It further examines why Western approaches of psychosocial support in the RR of child soldiers have remained in use in spite of the criticisms levelled against them. The study examines other peacebuilding interventions, both official and unofficial, that have been implemented in northern Uganda. In terms of key findings, the study establishes that traditional and indigenous resources are still popular and have been widely used in northern Uganda in the RR of child soldiers. Majority of former child soldiers who were interviewed observed that they found traditional and indigenous resources more helpful than the Western models of psychosocial support. However, it was also established that there is a significant section of former child soldiers who found Western models more relevant in their RR processes. Based on these findings, the study recommends an integrative and holistic model of psychosocial support that blends good elements from both traditional and indigenous resources and Western approaches with greater emphasis on the former. / Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)

Recognising water as a central relational location of the asymmetric Israel- Palestinian conflict, this study critically analyses the peacebuilding significance of Israeli, transboundary water and peace practitioner discourses. Anchored in a theoretically-constructed framework of hydropolitical peacebuilding, it discursively analyses the historical, officially-sanctioned, as well as academic and civil society water and peace relations of Israelis and Palestinians. It responds to the question: How are Israeli water and peace practitioners discursively practicing hydropolitical peacebuilding in the Middle East? In doing so, this study has drawn upon a methodology of interpretive practice, combining ethnography, foucauldian discourse analysis and narrative inquiry. This study discursively traces Israel¿s development into a hydrohegemonic state in the Jordan River Basin, from the late-19th century to 2011. Recognising conflict as a power-laden social system, it makes visible the construction, production and circulation of Israel¿s power in the basin. It examines key narrative elements invoked by Israel to justify its evolving asymmetric, hydrohegemonic relations. Leveraging the hydropolitical peacebuilding framework, itself constituted of equality, partnership, equity and shared ii sustainability, this study also examines the discursive practices of Israeli transboundary water and peace practitioners in relationship with Palestinians. In so doing, it makes visible their hydrohegemony, hydropolitical peacebuilding, and hydrohegemonic residues. This study¿s conclusions re-affirm earlier findings, notably that environmental and hydropolitical cooperation neither inherently nor necessarily constitute peacebuilding practice. This work also suggests that hydropolitical peacebuilding may discursively be recognised in water and peace practices that engage, critique, resist, desist from, and practice alternative relational formations to hydrohegemony in asymmetric conflicts. / British Council/Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Fonds québecois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC).

Based on the narratives of young people this research explores the rise in youth violence in Kenya¿s secondary school system and wider society and the potential for peacebuilding to address youth violence. Of particular concern is the gradual change in the profiles, patterns and intensity of the conflict, as evidenced by the increase in the number of youth militias. This increase is often attributed to unemployment and poverty ¿ yet, to date, no systematic research has been produced on the extent to which the youth participation in violence occurs through choice or coercion, or indeed both. Worryingly, a significant number of young people involved in this violence are secondary school students. The findings of this research indicate that despite responses to youth violence in the school and wider Kenyan society, the violence is unabated. Notably, approaches continue to be top-down, generic, superficial and ineffectual. By marginalising the narratives of the youth who participate in and/or observe the violence, current institutional policies and approaches are decontextualised - from both the particular and the wider Kenyan context. This leaves intact the root causes of the violence. This research raises important questions concerning generic, top-down, quick-fix, outmoded cultural paradigms, hierarchical and questionable homogeneous pedagogical approaches to peacebuilding in both the schools and wider Kenyan context. In attempt to address these deficiencies the research seeks to find out approaches to peacebuilding and the Kenyan education systems that can respond to youth violence. This research proffers three key dimensions that can be incorporated in order to ensure effective and sustainable peace: experiences, worldviews and attitudes of the actors. The research, which utilises a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006), was conducted in fourteen secondary schools in Nairobi and the Rift Valley provinces ¿ two provinces that have been at the centre of youth violence and militia activities. These provinces were also selected in order to reflect the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic character, and the different types of schools in Kenya.

Trotz ihrer zunehmenden wissenschaftlichen und praktischen Bedeutung sind die Zusammenhänge zwischen Umwelt und Friedenskonsolidierung (engl. peacebuilding) noch wenig erforscht. Während in der Forschungsliteratur mehrere Möglichkeiten identifiziert werden, wie gemeinsam genutzte natürliche Ressourcen als Katalysatoren für den Frieden zwischen Konfliktparteien fungieren können, gibt es kaum empirische Belege für eine direkte Verbindung zwischen Umweltkooperation und nachhaltigem Frieden. Diese Dissertation untersucht umweltbezogene Friedenskonsolidierung (engl. environmental peacebuilding) und vertieft das theoretische Verständnis des Phänomens durch eine systematische Übersicht des Forschungsstands sowie zwei empirische Fallstudien. Auf diese Weise trägt die vorliegende Arbeit zur dringend benötigten konzeptionellen Schärfung und gleichzeitig zu einem empirisch fundierten Verständnis von Environmental Peacebuilding bei. Die Dissertation ist kumulativ aufgebaut und besteht aus drei Forschungsarbeiten. Das erste Paper befasst sich mit den Bausteinen des Environmental Peacebuilding und nimmt eine Bestandsaufnahme des Phänomens vor. Es schlägt Wege und Möglichkeiten vor, wie der Fokus von Umweltkonflikten auf Umweltkooperation und Frieden verlagert werden kann. Die beiden Fallstudien basieren auf qualitativen Methoden und untersuchen, wie Environmental Peacebuilding in zwei unterschiedlichen Kontexten, dem Nahen Osten und Westafrika, abläuft. Mit diesen beiden Arbeiten leistet die Dissertation einen empirischen Beitrag zur Environmental-Peacebuilding-Forschung und schließt eklatante Forschungslücken insbesondere hinsichtlich der Rolle von lokalen Gemeinschaften und privaten Akteuren im Environmental Peacebuilding. / Despite their increasing prominence in both research and practice, the interlinkages between the biophysical environment and peacebuilding remain under-researched. While the literature identifies several mechanisms through which shared natural resources can function as catalysts for peace between conflicting parties, empirical evidence asserting a direct link between environmental cooperation and sustainable peace remains scarce. This dissertation examines environmental peacebuilding. It does so by providing a better theoretical understanding of the phenomenon through a literature review and two empirical case studies. In so doing, this dissertation provides much needed conceptual clarity as well as empirical evidence on environmental peacebuilding. This dissertation is cumulative and consists of three research papers. The first paper deals with the building blocks of environmental peacebuilding and takes stock of the phenomenon. It proposes a coherent framework through which focus can be shifted from environmental conflicts to environmental cooperation and peace thereby also adding to the ‘how’ of environmental peacebuilding. The two case studies are based on qualitative methods. They explore how environmental peacebuilding unrolls in two different contexts, the Middle East and West Africa. With these two papers, this dissertation contributes empirical evidence to the environmental peacebuilding literature and fills gaps in the research, especially concerning the role of local communities and private actors in environmental peacebuilding processes.

Gender inequality has during the past decades become an increasingly studied topic in the field of peace and conflict. However, there are still many gaps to fill. This thesis is an aim at explaining a phenomenon that has yet to be uncovered, namely the relation between conflict related gender inequality and women’s attitudes towards reconciliation processes that include truth-telling and reintegration of ex-combatants. The thesis builds upon prior qualitative and quantitative studies of gender inequality in relation to conflict, and its potential consequences, as well as trauma-related psychology. Using a direct and structured comparative method of comparison between Rwanda and Sri Lanka, it is found that gender inequality both during and after conflict affect women’s attitudes towards peacebuilding negatively.

This thesis examines how, and the extent to which, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord of Bangladesh contributed to transform conflicting relations of the parties, and communities living in the CHT. This case study research has combined two methods: (i) key informant interviews and (ii) consultation of wider secondary literature, reports of accord signing parties, international organizations, NGOs and other stakeholders, newspaper articles, working papers etc. We have developed a process-oriented analytical framework through reviewing eight widely studied peace agreements and their following conflict transformation processes. This theme-based distinctive framework has guided us to conduct a comprehensive analyse of the CHT case. We argue that the 1997 CHT Accord, developed as a part of an internal strategic conflict management and negotiation process, and stipulated for limited territorial power-sharing and localized proportional power-sharing of communities, to a considerable extent helped to transform parties’ conflicting relations, and the conflict itself, despite the Accord’s limited nature and partial implementation. The post-accord immediate implementation of some key provisions helped to build confidence of the parties and engaged them in decision-making process. This restrained them not to return to violence, although an incremental accord implementation process helped to address some complexities but created contradictions and dubious relations between them over some issues. The accord considerably contributed to improve socio-economic conditions of CHT people. Nevertheless, it shifted the dynamics of original conflict towards an intra-ethnic dimension, whereas the inter-community relations remained highly polarized due to inadequate attention paid by relevant stakeholders to bridge their gaps for peace. / Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

The term ‘global peacelessness’ is used to describe the impact of persistently high rates of interpersonal violence throughout the world, and particularly violence against women (Flaherty, 2010). This violence is epidemic and constitutes a global health problem and pervasive human rights violation. Responses are critiqued as narrow in scope, reactive and lacking in coordination. The research presented in this thesis contributes to addressing this gap by exploring measures community citizens from diverse backgrounds defined as important to ending violence. Specifically, the research question asked ‘What do community members of Lunenburg County say about the structural and cultural influences on interpersonal violence?’ It links the field of peace studies with the interpersonal anti-violence field and the field of addiction. The meta-analysis that frames this dissertation asserts that grassroots community peacebuilding will involve defining and connecting measures at the local level that can lead to defining and challenging broad, oppressive cultural and structural factors linked to the persistence of violence at provincial, national, and international levels. Situating interpersonal violence within a peacebuilding framework provides a critical lens that moves from a narrow focus on individual responsibility to include a wider analysis of the origins of violence to include social, cultural, economic, and political factors and ultimately compel a collective community response. This emancipatory function of peacebuilding must include a focus on promotion of environments where boys and men, girls and women, can live safe and satisfying lives that include the development of skills that promote nonviolence and peace.

[pt] O objetivo deste trabalho é orientar agências das Nações Unidas, organizações não governamentais e órgãos governamentais engajados na manutenção da paz e da segurança internacional a refletirem acerca da relevância de abordar recursos naturais e mudanças climáticas nos mandatos de operações de paz. Para isso, o trabalho utiliza como ferramenta a análise do conflito em Darfur e do estabelecimento da Missão Conjunta da União Africana e da ONU em Darfur (UNAMID). Assim, o texto apresentará considerações acerca da evolução do conceito de paz e sua influência na alteração do perfil dos mandatos de operações de paz, bem como o crescente debate e publicações feitas no âmbito da ONU sobre os impactos dos recursos naturais e das mudanças climáticas sobre a segurança. Apesar de apresentarem maior engajamento, essas questões não são inseridas nos mandatos per se ou são subvalorizadas, sendo citadas tangencialmente. O conflito em Darfur tem como causa raiz a limitada disponibilidade de terras e a escassez de água em decorrência do clima local, sendo esses fatores exacerbados pelas mudanças climáticas e pelo aumento populacional. Todavia, o conflito local é, muitas vezes, caracterizado como um conflito étnico, de forma que as reais fontes de disputas nunca foram devidamente endereçadas pela UNAMID ao visar a manter, construir e sustentar a paz. Mandatos, resoluções e relatórios do Conselho de Segurança, da Assembleia Geral e do Secretário-Geral das Nações Unidas serão revisados para argumentar sobre a importância de considerar recursos naturais e mudanças climáticas na formulação de um mandato com o objetivo de alcançar a construção e sustentação da paz. / [en] This article aims to guide United Nations (UN) agencies, non-governmental organizations and government agencies engaged in the maintenance of international peace and security to reflect on the relevance of addressing natural resources and climate change in peacekeeping mandates, based on an analysis of the conflict in Darfur and the establishment of the United Nations - African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). To this end, it will present considerations about the evolution of the concept of peace and its influence in changing the profile of peace operations mandates, as well as the growing debate and publications at the UN level on the impacts of natural resources and climate change over security. Despite greater engagement, these issues are not included in the mandates per se or are undervalued, being marginally mentioned. The conflict in Darfur has its root causes in the limited availability of land and water scarcity due to the local climate, and these factors are exacerbated by climate change and population growth. Nevertheless, the local conflict is often characterized as an ethnic conflict, therefore the real sources of disputes have never been properly addressed by UNAMID in order to maintain, build and sustain peace. Mandates, resolutions and reports from the Security Council, the General Assembly and the United Nations Secretary-General will be reviewed to argue about the importance of considering natural resources and climate change when formulating a mandate with the aim of achieving peacebuilding and sustaining peace.