Kenya’s recent political history challenges conventional understanding of peace processes prevalent since the 1990s as linear and sequenced, and occurring in set phases – pre-negotiation, negotiation and implementation. Peace processes are complex, circular, uncertain and disorderly. Transition out of violent conflict encounters recurrent resistance by people invested in the status quo and requires ongoing efforts to (re-)negotiate the social and political contract.

In this short video, author Vlad Corbu introduces some of the key themes of this article:

Young people are a majority in many countries affected by violent conflict. Yet they are seldom included in peace processes. Following United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolutions 2250 (2015) and 2419 (2018) on Youth, Peace and Security, the UN commissioned a global policy paper called We are here: an integrated approach to youth-inclusive peace processes (2019) – one of the contributors is also an author of this Accord article. The policy paper proposes three ways to understand young people’s involvement in peace processes – ‘in’, ‘around’ and ‘outside’ the peace ‘room’.

In recent years there has been a rapid growth of information and communication technologies and digitisation of elements of both armed conflict and peace processes. Digital tools are increasingly being deployed for political analysis, providing significant opportunities for innovation, promising to transform conventional approaches to analysis that often require a physical presence in conflict-affected contexts.

Social media has transformed the tools available to conflict parties, civil society, peace practitioners and the public at large to engage in both peace and war efforts. It has created opportunities in the early phases of peace processes, including assisting with data collection and analysis, bolstering peace messaging and diversifying dialogue. But it also brings risks. Violent conflicts have become increasingly complex and protracted, and harder to prevent or resolve. Information and communications technology, including social media, have added to this complexity in new ways.

Examples of informal and localised peacemaking have emerged from within the chaos of the Syrian civil war and violent reign of the Islamic State (IS), and from outside formal peace initiatives. A model of inclusive, grassroots democracy has been instituted in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which includes Manbij, an Arab-majority city. The AANES has achieved remarkable stability and prioritised women’s equality.

In an era when peace processes are increasingly stalled or have collapsed, and where links between formal and informal dialogue are more vital to foster, peace secretariats can help build confidence, establish communication channels, and build skills and capabilities among conflict parties to prepare common ground for formal discussion. Peace secretariats are typically locally owned, in line with the priorities of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States and the UN Sustaining Peace agenda.

In 2011, Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, asked Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to facilitate peace negotiations between the federal government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) after nearly 20 years of armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Somali region (also known as the Ogaden region). A Kenyan government facilitation team convened the first formal round of talks in Nairobi in September 2012 despite Meles’ death the month before.

The importance of civil society involvement in peace processes is increasingly recognised. Yet providing effective support to civil society can be challenging for bilateral and multilateral donors, United Nations (UN) agencies and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) alike. Space for civil society in conflict-affected societies is often, and increasingly, contested and constricted. In many conflicts, fractures within civil society mirror the societal fault lines that underpin the violence.