Convening

Summary

On December 17, 2020, RESOLVE held a roundtable discussion featuring 31 local development practitioners and external peacebuilders. The discussion revolved around two main themes: key challenges in local actors’ work in the peacebuilding and prevention space, and approaches to negotiate the gaps between external concepts and frameworks and local practices, politics, and perceptions of security.

Although one of the fundamental tenets of peacebuilding and peace processes is that peace is internally derived, and must be considered legitimate by internal actors, external actors are still grappling with the challenge of understanding and integrating the local into a conceptual framework largely driven by external policy and funding priorities. This conundrum also exists at the intersection of peacebuilding and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) work. To turn the lens and elevate the perspectives of local practitioners, RESOLVE launched a research and convening initiative, Learning from Local Peacebuilding Approaches, deepening our engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa.