Berisso, Taddesse (Ass.pro)Teshome, Gizachew2020-09-072024-10-112020-09-072024-10-112020-03https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/22267The various levels of inter-communal violent conflicts in the Gambella regional state of Ethiopia have their root in the process of state formation, state-society interaction, sociopolitical, socioeconomic, sociocultural factors and state policies spanning over a century. The conflicts have intensified over the past 28 years. This is attributed mainly to the political transformation in Ethiopia in the early 1990 and the civil war in the Sudan and the South Sudan. In response to these violent conflicts that have occurred in the region, a number of attempts at peacebuilding were made at different times. This study investigates the conflict transformation efforts, their marked features and the processes and outcomes of the peacemaking activities as well as the challenges and prospects surrounding the overall process of peacebuilding in post-1991 Gambella. Following an interpretivist approach and using qualitative methods of inquiry, data gathered from members of the local community, experts and officials at regional and federal levels, were critically analyzed. The analysis is situated in the context of intra-state and inter-communal conflict, conflict transformation and peacebuilding within Ethiopia’s post-1991 sociopolitical conditions and current policy framing and understanding of conflict and peace, taking the case of Gambella. The study shows that the conflict transformation effort in Gambella is a reactive one, containing violence after its occurrence, and often transient. The activities are focused on giving short-term solutions, treating the symptoms rather than addressing the underlying problems. The use of compensation as a conflict settlement procedure, intervention schemes coming at variance along ethnic lines and levels of conflict in the region and apathy as well as the tendency of complicating issues with politics have been noted as the defining characteristics of the peacemaking schemes. The peacebuilding process in Gambella, it is argued, is not effective both in terms of its response to the immediate peacebuilding needs and in working on the broader, systemic issues that foster and enhance the containment of violence sustainably. The process has not created a mutually beneficial sense of interdependence among the communities and groups involved in conflict in the region and embedded peacemaking activities into institutions that reinforce and sustain them. No fair, coherent and systematic procedures implemented and/or used to guide the process. Actions are governed by arbitrary rules and decisions are made based on undue pressures or emotions, rather than on their merit. As such, the findings of this study revealed that the conflict transformation efforts have been less successful, if not a total failure. And a range of factors militated against the process of peacebuilding in post-1991 Gambella, not least, the approach adopted in building peace; the nature and/or manner of third-party interventions; the nature of the political opportunity structure; the nature of the conflicts and the socioeconomic conditions in the region; leadership problems; the spillovers from the neighboring South Sudan as well as weak normative and institutional frameworks.en-USConflict Transformation,Peacebuilding,GambellaThesis