Briefing Paper

Creating an Enabling Peacebuilding Environment: How Can External Actors Contribute to Resilience?

“Peacebuilding theory and practice has evolved over 20 years in response to highly complex and fluid factors and contexts. Over this period, peacebuilding has developed several salient features, including its reliance on implementation in the long term, the interdependence of various actors and the multidimensional nature of processes. Current post-conflict situations indicate that in practice, peacebuilding needs to become even more innovative, flexible and responsive to the requirements of local actors and contexts, while remaining sensitive to the potential for unintended consequences and doing harm.This Policy & Practice Brief (PPB) departs from the premise that the creation of an enabling peacebuilding environment cannot be achieved through application of standardised prescriptions. An enabling environment is achieved as a result of actors’ ability to stimulate the development of social institutions that are sufficiently resilient. This PPB thus aims to analyse how certain approaches can foster and strengthen the creation of enabling peacebuilding environments and provide recommendations as to how external actors can support these processes while avoiding pitfalls, focusing particularly on the concepts of fragility and resilience.”