Towards Building Peace Infrastructures at the Local Level in Southern Ethiopia: Actors, their Potentials and Limits
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Date
2020-03
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AAU
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the contributions and limitations of local peace infrastructures in
communal conflict transformation in southern Ethiopia. The research is conceived and justified
against the backdrop of the growing contemporary emphasis on the need to proactively rely on
local peace infrastructures to mitigate and transform violent communal conflicts that ravage a
plethora of grassroots communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further justifications of the
instrumental power of local peace infrastructures are based on the recognition that grassrootsbased
communal conflicts are essentially driven by local contents and actors, and therefore the
most effective sustainable remedies for these conflicts would be achieved by having relevant local
actors as key drivers of any conflict mediation, resolution and peacebuilding initiatives. Over the
past 20 – 30 years, local peace infrastructures have proved quite effective in resolving varying
levels of violent conflicts and building peace in many African countries. Some of the most
outstanding success stories have been recorded by the Local Peace Committees (LPCs) known as
‘Local Peace Council’ in Ghana, and ‘Village Peace and Development Committees’ in Kenya.
Many regional and international civil society organisations have mounted strong advocacy
campaigns aimed at replicating the success stories of Ghana and Kenya elsewhere in Sub-Saharan
Africa where violent communal conflicts are rife.
The fieldwork data collection was carried out in the profoundly multi-ethnic and heterogenous
Ethiopia’s southern region (Southern Nations, Nationalities' and Peoples' Regional State –
SNNPRS) which has seen series of violent communal conflicts in the past two decades and where
leading initiatives have been taken to establish local peace infrastructures to prevent and resolve
recurrent communal violence. The study was specifically initiated with a motivation to bridge the
gaps between constructive potential of local peace infrastructures and risk of their manipulation by
those who monopolize power. Hence, the familiar local peace infrastructures, namely, state
initiated local peace committees and customary elders as well as their respective rival or critical
local peace infrastructures were selected and empirically analyzed.
The study employed a mix of qualititative methods using a comparative case study strategy as a
research design especially to facilitate collection of necessary data and conduct analyses. Relevant
data therefore were collected from both primary and secondary sources using data collection
methods such as interviews, focus groups discussion, observations and informal consultations.
Over 95 participants (key informants and FGDs members) comprising local authorities, elders,
women, young people, members of various local peace actors offered information in face-to-face
interviews and dialogues.
The study found that local peace infrastructures that were co-owned by the primary conflict parties
delivered essential contributions to communal conflict transformation while at the same time
indicating a potential for further impact if some of their limits were addressed. The councils of
elders and state initiated peace committees specifically in the frontier areas between the Sidama
and Oromo have been serving as essential platform for local peace-building even though they have
limited potentials to deal with conflicts arising in the asymmetric contexts. In the asymmetric
contexts where women and social and community groups have been exposed to violent attacks and
discriminations by those who monopolize power, the use of critical engagement by the victims
offered a better platform for non-violent change as evident in Wondo Genet and Konso. The study
generally found that the prevailing violence, power asymmetry between conflict parties and
ineffective organizational characteristics of local peace actors limit their peace potentials. Based on
the findings and analyses thereof, the study suggests a necessity to adapt context-specific
mechanisms, invest adequate time and financial resources and offer legal supports to enrich
potentials of local peace actors to deal with actual and potentially violent communal conflicts.
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Keywords
local peace infrastructures,communal conflict transformation,Southern Ethiopia,Peace Infrastructures,