Decades of experience building peace in societies affected by violent conflict shows that these efforts are more effective and sustainable when they are led by local people. Despite this experience, the global system of peacebuilding organisations and institutions that fund and administer peacebuilding programs still largely reflects the interests of international outsiders. In this episode, we talk with Mie Roesdahl of the Conducive Space for Peace and how to achieve transformation of the...

“Peace in the age of chaos” is the new book from the founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace and the Global Peace Index, Steve Killelea. In this podcast we explore a range of compelling themes emerging from Steve’s book, including the contribution that systems thinking and positive peace can make towards better peacebuilding strategies and why peace is a prerequisite for tackling other complex challenges of our times, such as climate change and building back from the pandemic. Steve...

Myanmar is in crisis. Six years on from the election of Myanmar's first civilian government in more than half a decade, the military has initiated a bold power grab. Hundreds have been detained, but the military may have underestimated how strongly their people would have reacted to having their rights trampled. Amidst a popular uprising that may well become the largest in the country's history, and with the military now with their back to the wall, there's much concern that popular...

The global pandemic brought on by the novel coronavirus has fundamentally transformed peacebuilding efforts, development initiatives and humanitarian response. This podcast episode, featuring Stephen Gray, Co-Founder and Director of Adapt, and Francis Zau Tu, Adapt's Programme Manager in Myanmar, discusses COVID-19’s implications for peacebuilding writ large and looks at Adapt’s work in Myanmar to understand how the pandemic has affected conflict dynamics and impacted peacebuilding. We...

Stephen Gray is the executive director and co-founder of Adapt Peacebuilding, and Ángela María Báez- Silvia Arias is Adapt’s program development manager in Colombia. Both are currently based in Colombia and involved in adaptive programming – an approach that challenges the status quo of linear planning models by proposing that development planning should be adaptive to changes in the political and socio-economic operating environment. As a peace-building organisation focusing on systems...

Desirée Nilsson is an Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden. Barbara Magalhães Teixeira is a research assistant at Uppsala University and has been working with Desirée on the inclusion of civil society actors in peace processes since 2018. Desirée's research focuses on conflict resolution and durable peace in civil wars, with a particular emphasis on multiparty dynamics. She holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict research from...

Cedric de Coning is a Senior Research Fellow in the Research Group on Peace, Conflict and Development at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and he is also a Senior Advisor for ACCORD (African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes). He has 30 years of experience in research, policy advice, training and education in the areas of conflict resolution, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace and conflict studies. Cedric has a Ph.D. in Applied Ethics from the...

Mercy Corps is a leading global humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding organisation. They work in country contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social, and political instabilities. Like Adapt Peacebuilding, Mercy Corps is putting adaptive management at the heart of their work, with a focus on their people management function. Adaptive management – defined as “an intentional approach to making decisions and adjustments in...

The focus of this episode is adaptive management, and Duncan Green. Duncan is a senior adviser for Oxfam amongst other things. We talk about what Adaptive Management is and how it applies to international development work and peacebuilding. Why are we talking about Adaptive Management and what is it? Adaptive Management is a form of organizing work and managing work in international development settings in which you focus on learning from your context and you adapting your programming to...

This episode was a guest contribution to The Peacebuilding Podcast on 12th October, 2018. Join us in conversation with Catherine Barnes. I first met Catherine at a dialog and facilitation retreat in rural Myanmar. I was struck by the degree of presence that she bought to her work, mentoring and accompanying an emerging generation of positive change makers in that fascinating yet troubled country. Catherine is a rare breed of scholar practitioner. Her work is deeply grounded in decades of...

This episode was a guest contribution to The Peacebuilding Podcast on 8th October, 2018. Join us in conversation with Graeme Simpson, US Director of the non-profit Interpeace, and lead author of the United Nation’s flagship Progress Report on Youth, Peace, and Security. The highly participatory process of producing this work has been as important as some of its findings. Hundreds of youth across dozens of countries were involved in developing recommendations that underscore, among many...