Peacebuilding 2.0: Mapping the Boundaries of an Expanding Field

FIGURE 11 | Strategies of work of self-identified
peacebuilding organizations (subgroup A), survey 2
40 45 50 55 60 65
Capacity Building 60.7%
Networking and
Alliance Building
Catalytic or
Facilitation Role
Training
51%
51%
55%
Strategies and Approaches to Work: The
respondents use an impressive range of approaches
including civil society support, conflict analysis, and
conflict prevention. 53 Figure 11 shows the strategies of
work, which include capacity building, networking and
alliance building, training, and catalytic or facilitation
roles. 54 If this larger subgroup of respondents in the
second survey is heavily engaged in networking and
alliance building in particular, these capabilities can
and should be increasingly harnessed in support of the
peacebuilding field itself.
Organizational Projects: A content analysis of
the projects of self-identified peacebuilders 55 shows
that dialogue is the most commonly used keyword;
however, other peacebuilding processes are also
mentioned. This coincides with the finding that these
organizations consider their work peacebuilding
and therefore the projects they undertake reflect a
combination of traditional peacebuilding and related
areas of work.
53 See appendix 2, chart A2.18: Approaches to work of selfidentified
peacebuilders (subgroup A), survey 2.
54 See also appendix 2, chart A2.19: Strategies of work of
self-identified peacebuilders (subgroup A), survey 2.
55 As extracted from the organizations’ websites.
Organizational Challenges: Seventy percent
of the respondents considered inadequate financial
resources as the single largest challenge in working
in conflict contexts. While this starkly outweighed
all the other options, challenges such as diversity,
number, magnitude of regions and projects that require
attention, and foreign government political and policy
environment had high response rates. Other challenges
volunteered by respondents included xenophobia,
racism, sexism, and other forms of biases, as well as
issues of security for workers. 56
However, it is notable that very few of these
organizations identified lobbying or other tactics
to raise public awareness of the fundamental and
expansive purposes of their work, which was a more
common response from organizations that do not selfidentify
as peacebuilders.
Partnerships: When aggregated, the respondents
listed a total of 151 strategic partners. 57 These can be
classified into the following types:
• international organizations
(other than the United Nations);
• United Nations
• national governments;
• departments or ministries of national governments;
• think tanks/research institutes;
• universities;
56 See appendix 2, chart A2.20: Challenges facing selfidentified
peacebuilders (subgroup A) in conflict contexts,
survey 2.
57 The second survey asked respondents to list up to five
organizations they considered as strategic partners. A number
of respondents named the same partner organizations and
therefore the number 151 was derived after eliminating
duplication. There are problems of comparability since the
respondents used different levels of specificity. For example,
some listed merely “the UN” or “UN agencies” while others
specified, for example, UN Women or UNDP. For purposes of
this analysis, the United Nations and its agencies were treated
as one overarching organization, meaning that responses of
“UN” or any type of UN agency were counted as duplicates.
These responses, by far, accounted for the bulk of duplicates.
The rest of the responses revealed a wide variety of partner
organizations.
Alliance for Peacebuilding
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