Brazil-Ethiopia Exchanges in Peacekeeping Training   Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Giovanna Kuele, in Addis Ababa   How can states that contribute troops, police, and civilians to peacekeeping operations learn from one another about training for such deployments?  Although TCCs/PCCs have historically operated in a relatively…

Harnessing Trust for Conflict Prevention in Colombia   Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá, Colombia   Christmas preparations are in full swing at the church offices in San Vicente del Caguán, in the department of Caquetá.  Groups of children sit cross-legged on…

The UN’s Pre-DDR Experiment   Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Giovanna Kuele, Instituto Igarapé Half of the 4.7 million people in the Central African Republic (CAR) currently depend on humanitarian assistance for basic needs, and a full one-fourth of the population has been forcibly displaced. Armed…

Current regional mediation efforts in Burundi still provide limited results   Gustavo de Carvalho and Priyal Singh In early December 2017, a new round of talks, led by the East African Community (EAC), was initiated in Arusha, with the aim of reaching an agreement to…

Notes from Colombia Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in Agua Bonita, Colombia Nested among the lush green mountains of Caquetá, in the Amazonía region of Colombia, around 200 ex-combatants from the FARC guerrilla group are building a socialist community in the same area where they laid down…

Lessons from Colombia’s FARC Peace Process Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in Caquetá (Colombia) Humanitarian demining is often presented as a technical component of post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding, a painstaking and slow process necessary to avoid the human suffering caused by anti-personnel mines, improvised explosive devices, and…

Burundi’s ongoing political instability highlights the stark divide between global conflict prevention rhetoric and practice   Priyal Singh   Since the announcement by  Burundian President, Pierre Nkurunziza, to run for a controversial third term in early 2015, political instability across the country – marked by…

East Timor Initiatives in Guinea-Bissau   Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in Bissau   Can conflict-affected states effectively support one another in overcoming recurring instability and promoting development and sustaining peace?  Timor-Leste’s growing cooperation with Guinea-Bissau suggests that, although incipient, fragile-to-fragile (F2F) cooperation may become a promising…

Social Technologies for Peacebuilding?     Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in Bissau   South-South Cooperation (SSC) often adopts a discourse that is strongly centered on development and that keeps security at arm’s length. However, many SSC partners increasingly undertake cooperation initiatives in conflict-affected or politically unstable…

What Role in Peacebuilding?   Adriana Erthal Abdenur, in Bissau     Far from a novelty, South-South Cooperation (SSC) has been in place for half a century in parts of the developing world, including Portuguese-language countries in Africa.  A number of SSC development partners are…