IFG 9: Sustainable Regional Peacebuilding

MIASA CC-BY-4.0: Poster IFG 9
MIASA’s ninth Interdisciplinary Fellow Group (IFG 9) focused on sustainable regional peace-building in West Africa. African regional organizations like the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS are increasingly important actors in resolving conflicts and building peace in Africa. According to their policy frameworks, they aim to do so in a sustainable way, preventing future conflicts and creating the conditions for long-term peaceful societal coexistence. Their practice, however, has so far predominantly focused on immediate and short-term effects. IFG 9 therefore explored two related questions:
What does sustainable peacebuilding mean for different actors involved in regional peacebuilding?
What are enabling and constraining factors for (more) sustainable peacebuilding by African regional organizations?
In the field of peacebuilding, “sustainability” has become a ubiquitous term, but there is no coherent body of literature on its analytical value for understanding peace(building). IFG 9 explored different understandings of “sustainable peacebuilding” and how they relate to (critiques of) the liberal peace, especially African and decolonial approaches to peace.
If sustainable peacebuilding is about addressing root causes to conflicts and transforming conflictual relationships into cooperative ones, political context factors are crucial. One aspect the group discussed was therefore how democracy is perceived to matter for sustainable peace(building), with specific emphasis on ECOWAS.
African regional peacebuilding increasingly takes place in contexts of active violence. The IFG reflected on what that means for both the conceptualization of peacebuilding – regarding the relationship between violence and peace – and with regard to peacebuilding practice.
Period: 15 August to 15 December 2023
Conveners: Dr. Antonia Witt, Dr. Linda Darkwa
Members: Prof. Christof Hartmann, Prof. Tony Karbo, Dr. Chido Mutangadura
Joint visits: Ghana National Peace Council, Accra Initiative, Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration
Conference: “Sustainable Regional Peacebuilding in Africa: Practices and Disconnects”, 27-28 November 2023
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teammiasa (February 15, 2024). IFG 9: Sustainable Regional Peacebuilding. Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa - Blog. Retrieved March 26, 2025 from https://miasa.hypotheses.org/2253