For Immediate Release

Contact: Paula Burke, 202-429-4778
Steven Ruder, 202-429-3825

(Washington)—In A Crucial Link: Local Peace Committees and National Peacebuilding, a new volume published by the U.S. Institute of Peace, Andries Odendaal contends that local peacebuilding is a necessary aspect of a national peacebuilding strategy. Peace forged at the national level can be strengthened by community-level peacebuilding efforts, and investment at the local level lays the foundation for social cohesion and effective governance.

Odendaal draws on extensive field experience in 11 countries—including contexts as divergent as South Africa, Ghana, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, and Nepal—to research the connections between local and national peace processes, in particular as “infrastructures for peace,” where ties between local peace committees (LPCs) and national peace agreements have been formalized. LPCs provide a forum for the collective local leadership of a community to facilitate dialogue and build consensus, and infrastructures for peace connect them to national peacebuilding processes and facilitate support and resources.

“Peace, for communities, invariably means more than the settlement of the major national issues,” explains Odendaal. Local conflicts do not necessarily replicate the dominant sources of conflict at the national level; they have their own histories, conditions, and complexities. Sustainable national peace requires sufficient ownership at the local level, and local peace committees (LPCs) act as a building block for national agreements by providing a community forum for engagement and dialogue.

“LPCs have sufficiently demonstrated their potential to prevent or reduce violence in post-agreement contexts and promote social reconstruction,” says the author. “Peace infrastructures can legitimize these committees’ efforts by ensuring sufficient political legitimacy for local peacebuilding; allocating responsibility and leadership to a broad range of individuals; providing specialist support for dialogue, mediation, and violence prevention; and ensuring sufficient linkage between stakeholders and resources.”

Such efforts are still vulnerable to national and international political conditions, complex relations with public institutions, and fluctuations in international support. Despite these challenges, Odendaal praises the contributions of LPCs to peacebuilding. “This approach creates the political space for local peacebuilding and leverages the collective resources of a society in the pursuit of the stated peace objectives. More importantly, it goes about its task in a manner that strengthens the legitimacy of the peacebuilding agenda.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andries Odendaal is a senior associate at the Centre for Mediation in Africa at the University of Pretoria and an independent conflict transformation specialist. Among his previous positions, he was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace from 2009–10 and a senior trainer and program coordinator at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town. He was a regional coordinator of the Eastern Cape Peace Committee in South Africa (1993–94) and has also served on the expert roster of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recover of the UN Development Programme.

ABOUT THE UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan conflict management center created by Congress to prevent and mitigate international conflict through nonviolent means. USIP saves lives, increases the government’s ability to deal with conflicts before they escalate, reduces government costs, and enhances national security. USIP is headquartered in Washington, DC. To learn more, visit www.usip.org.

A Crucial Link: Local Peace Committees and National Peacebuilding
United States Institute of Peace Press
September 2013 • 192 pp. • 6 x 9 • $19.95 (paper) • ISBN: 978-1-60127-181-5

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