This practice note presents an evaluation of the Peace Reconciliation Activity (PRA) implemented by Catholic Relief Services in Somalia. Data was gathered through 216 household surveys, 24 focus group discussions, and 16 key informant interviews. We used an embedded Developmental Evaluation framework, conducted within a convergent mixed-methods design. This framework enabled us to capture iterative learning, stakeholder feedback, and adopt and document adaptive changes throughout the implementation process. The PRA sought to rebuild trust, inclusion, and social cohesion across four fragile and conflict-affected districts — Barawe, Afgoye, Jowhar, and Warsheikh — where decades of recurring inter-clan violence, displacement, and trauma had fractured civic life, undermined resilience and created intergroup mistrust. We examined whether the PRA had strengthened pathways to peacebuilding, social cohesion, and inclusion. Community members developed practical peacebuilding competencies — learning negotiation, empathy, and respect for diverse clans — while engaging in collective reconciliation efforts. Connector projects such as water preservation were co-created to address shared resource conflicts. Village-level Natural Resource Management and Disaster Risk Reduction committees, along with hybrid peace platforms at the district level, played pivotal roles in preventing disputes, resolving grievances, and promoting equitable access to land and resources. The Social Capital Index increased, although bridging ties remained weaker than bonding ties, particularly among older adults and men. Mutual trust and empathy improved while grievance resolution improved considerably from the previous year. Community-based grievance systems, intergenerational dialogue, and gender inclusion emerged as key enablers of peace outcomes. In conclusion, trauma-informed, inclusive peacebuilding, when rooted in real-time data and local agency, can reinforce cohesion in fragile environments.
Since the 2010s, security assistance to Africa has exploded while global democracy trends – including in Africa – have been in steady decline. How are these two empirical facts connected? This paper analyzes the relationship between US security partnerships and democracy trends in Africa from 2005 to 2020. Overall, our findings are mixed. There is either no significant relationship or a weakly negative relationship between many US security cooperative activities and democratic quality in Africa. We did find, however, that US military assistance can have a negative impact on two specific aspects of democracy: protection of freedoms and civil liberties and accountability and transparency.
As institutional stakeholders in post-conflict security sector reform initiatives, the study of police officers can shed significant light on key questions about the durability and connections between democratic policing and peacebuilding. The article presents Northern Ireland as a case study to explore engagement of police officers in transitional justice and police reform processes after the Troubles (1968-1998). Semi-structured interviews with 19 retired officers who served both as members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) show how they have experienced disillusionment and dissatisfaction with specific outcomes of the political transition. Their reflections on the roles and responsibilities that officers maintain in implementing democratic policing principles reveal a response that extends beyond simple rejection or acceptance of police reform mandates. Their narratives also highlight that a holistic and pragmatic approach to (in)security to guide post-conflict engagement with community stakeholders would help overcome perceived resistance to institutional reforms.
This article re-examines the notion of "intercommunity conflict", commonly used to characterize recent confrontations (from 2015 onwards) between armed men/groups from Fulani and Dogon communities in central Mali, particularly in the Mopti and Bandiagara regions. The violence arising from these tensions easily lends itself to facile oppositions between Dogon victims and Fulani executioners, or vice versa, giving thus the impression that ethnic groups are substantial entities to which common interests can be attributed. Yet there is ample evidence of collaboration between Dogons and "Fulani jihadists", even though they are supposed to be antagonists, calling into question the misleading intercommunity characterization of the conflict. transformation of the conflict tends to show that ethnicity actually matters less than the interests that individuals or groups, even supposed opponents, can obtain from each other. The article is based on sixty individual interviews conducted during multiple field missions in T & eacute;nenkou, Mopti, and Bandiagara during 2023 and 2024.
