Executive Summary

This report summarises the key findings from two collaborative projects on NGO capacity buildingfor conflict reduction and peacebuilding undertaken by International Alert (IA) and the Instituto deEnseñanza para el Desarrollo Sostenible (IEPADES) in Guatemala, and the Centre for ConflictResearch (CCR) in Kenya, funded by DfID-CHAD and IA. The work particularly focussed on thedevelopment and validation of practical tools for conflict-sensitive development planning andmonitoring. In both countries, the project included an assessment of the roles NGOs have playedin promoting peace and justice in these countries, a facilitated self-assessment of the currentprogramming practices by a selected group of NGOs, and the development and testing ofinnovative conflict analysis and planning methodologies for NGOs. Beyond this, the NGOconsultations in both countries provided a wealth of lessons on the challenges of civil societypeacebuilding from an indigenous perspective. The aim of this report is to put the results andlearning from these projects into a wider perspective and to identify possible ways forward forsupporting and developing the capacity of local peace actors.

1. Methodology and Key Concepts

Chapter one provides an outline of the methodology and key concepts used in the development of this programme. The aim was to develop tools for Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) that reflected the needs of local peacebuilding organisations and corresponded to their political and cultural context. For each country, this required mapping the peacebuilding community, identifying capacity building needs, drafting a relevant PCIA tool, and testing and validating it with selected local peacebuilding and development NGOs. It became clear during the course of the research, however, that supporting NGO peacebuilding requires a broader and more political approach than just providing and developing tools. Therefore, this report pays particular attentionto the political context and the challenges of capacity building.

One important approach to the programme was also to ascertain how development actors inKenya and Guatemala understand key terms such as development, conflict, peace andpeacebuilding. This exercise, critical for an analysis of their practice, demonstrated thatstakeholders have different understandings of their meaning. Each society has its own key termsto discuss matters of peace and conflict, which have been shaped by their specific historical,political, economic, social and religious context. PCIA can be a useful tool for formulating aparticipatory peacebuilding strategy as far as it is sensitive to different local visions of peace.

2. The contribution of civil society to peacebuilding in Kenya and Guatemala

Chapter two provides the context for the report by giving an overview of the Kenyan andGuatemalan conflicts, outlining the role of the international community and the development of civilsociety in each country, including the role of NGOs in peacebuilding.

Cycles of violence and peace: Until the Peace Accords were signed between 1994 and 1996,Guatemala had suffered thirty-six years of civil war characterised by state bias towards theinterest of the elite, a lack of impunity and rule of law, and poverty and discrimination, particularlyagainst the indigenous population. Although there has been no return to armed violence, thedemocratisation of society remains incomplete, significant social and economic problemscontinue, and criminal and domestic violence have escalated. Conversely, in Kenya, after years ofrelative political stability and prosperity until the 1980s, the consequences of single-party rule andmismanagement of the economy became increasingly felt and there has been a marked increasein violence since the first multi-party elections in 1992. Ethnic clashes, land and water conflicts,cattle rustling and criminality remain prevalent across the country.

The role of the international community: The role of the international community in Kenya andGuatemala are similar to the extent that there have been generous aid contributions towardspoverty-reduction and socio-economic initiatives in both countries at different times over the pastfew decades. However, while this may have an indirect contribution to peacebuilding, there hasbeen a lack of commitment in both countries towards any international political engagement at thenational or local level in pushing for political reform or supporting peacebuilding initiatives.

The role of civil society: Since the transition from civil war to the new post-war situation inGuatemala, and the beginning of democratisation process in Kenya, new political and socialspace has opened for civil society. Civil society in Kenya and Guatemala is both large and active,however, the nature and background to its emergence in each country is based on very differenthistorical, political, economic and social contexts. Nevertheless, while traditional developmentactivities are still prominent, in both countries civil society organisations have played an importantrole in peacebuilding processes at the local and national levels.

NGOs in Kenya and Guatemala do also, despite their differences in nature or focus, face similarchallenges. There are still limited numbers of NGOs in Kenya and Guatemala that representbroad-based social constituencies; dependence on low and unreliable resources from the donorcommunity for advocacy, justice, peacebuilding and political reform remains a major challenge,and the lack of freedom from government pressure or control is a common, albeit different,experience for both Kenyan and Guatemalan NGOs.

3. Building Civil Society Capacity for Peace: conclusions & recommendations

Based on the mapping exercises and NGO consultations, chapter three presents the mainlessons learned and conclusions on the challenges of building NGO capacity for peacebuilding inKenya and Guatemala, and offers recommendations for future action.

Defining peacebuilding and gaining consensus

Both country case studies in Kenya and Guatemala point to the importance of establishing broad-basedpolitical dialogue, accompanied by an open public debate on the issues involved inpeacebuilding. This is critical for building a common understanding of peacebuilding and gainingownership of the difficult tasks ahead.

Recommendations:

Enhancing programme effectiveness

Unclear mandates regarding peacebuilding, a lack of appropriate institutional structures toimplement such work, the absence of access to tools to support analysis and planning capacity,and the difficulties in recruiting qualified staff were problems common to the NGOs in both Kenyaand Guatemala.

Recommendations:

Strengthening advocacy capacity

In both Kenya and Guatemala NGOs called for building better capacity in policy research, policyformulation, coalition-building and political advocacy. NGOs find in difficult to combine field-leveldevelopment work with political advocacy in a politically repressive environment, as they riskjeopardising their ability to continue working with communities. Civil society actors are thereforelooking for new ways to build political pressure at higher levels.Recommendations:

Engaging with donors

In both Kenya and Guatemala, the area of peacebuilding has been subject to rapidly changing,and sometimes contradictory, funding trends. Funds come and go as political events, and as thestatus of peacebuilding as a buzz-word, changes. Both Guatemalan and Kenya NGOs reported that funding for peacebuilding activities was increasingly short-term, output-orientated and project-based,providing little space for investment in capacity building.

Recommendations:

4. PCIA as a peacebuilding tool

Having examined the political context and priorities for enhancing NGO peacebuilding capacity,chapter four explores the potential of Peace and Conflict Assessment as a capacity building tool.At present, many organisations still face difficulties in building a systematic perspective on conflictor translating their in-depth knowledge of the conflict into long-term peacebuilding strategies. As aconflict analysis and planning tool, PCIA can play an important role in developing skills andcapacity in this area. In particular, PCIA can contribute to enhancing NGO impact in the followingways:

Lessons learned in using PCIA

Country-specific approaches: The issue of developing a generic PCIA tool versus customisingPCIA to the specific external environment and internal capacities and procedures of individualorganisations, was best addressed by moving away from the idea of PCIA as a single methodology. Instead, a more user-friendly approach was applied by providing a structured set ofplanning and evaluation tools, which organisations can select from and put together according totheir own priorities. This can enhance flexibility and adaptability to different contexts.

Focussing conflict analysis: To overcome the problem of organisations spending too much time onunwieldy macro-level analysis of little programming value it was recommended to include criteria inthe PCIA toolbox. This helps organisations clarify the focus and level of conflict analysis inaccordance to their specific planning needs and helps deal with the tension between simplicityand accuracy of the tool. This must involve supporting organisations in taking informed decisionson priorities rather than arriving at a shopping list of potential peacebuilding activities.

Project-cycle approach: In order to reflect the need for on-going monitoring, review and redesign ofactivities with stakeholder participation, a comprehensive PCIA toolbox should contain guidanceon which parts of the analysis could be periodically reviewed and on how to structure such asprocess. In response to this, the report provides a sample framework of key principles andquestions to ask throughout the project cycle.

Impact assessment: To overcome the challenge of balancing an elicitive and prescriptive approachto indicator development the final tools used in Kenya and Guatemala provided locally relevantguiding questions for eliciting conflict/peace indicators from communities, while also givingindicative indicator lists adapted to the specific country situation. NGOs appreciated that thisapproach provided additional perspectives on the conflict, while allowing them to use their owncriteria for finally making programming decisions.

5. Conclusion

PCIA has a critical and empowering potential, which has not yet been fully realised. At present, itis mostly used for top-down planning, management and control processes, yet many possibilitiesstill remain unexplored. PCIA skills should be handed over to Southern civil society organisationsas part of capacity building in management and advocacy. Improving these skills wherebySouthern organisations have stronger channels for influencing policy-making circles, is an areawhere Northern partner organisations can play an important complementary role.

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