Conducting research to improve conflict prevention and peacebuilding programmes comes with its share of challenges. Ilona Howard, consortium manager for the Peace Research Partnership (PRP), outlines some of the ethical and practical challenges researchers face and what we can do to address them.

Ten years ago, on the 21 of October 2008, the first truck drivers and traders met on the Chakothi-Uri Bridge in Kashmir. The governments of India and Pakistan had just opened up the Line of Control (LoC) for limited trade as a measure aimed at building confidence between the different sides in Jammu and Kashmir. After six decades of violent conflict and the absence of any connection between the two sides, this marked a fundamental step for trust building and peacebuilding in the region.

Women mediators play a vital role in mediation and are often the bridge between communities, armed groups and conflict parties.

Conciliation Resources has long supported peacebuilding work in border regions that are deeply affected by conflict and often neglected, securitised or misgoverned.

From east and central Africa to the Caucasus and Kashmir, peacebuilding in borderlands involves going against the grain of official narratives about why violence persists, supporting the agendas of people who have been marginalised, and sustaining relationships across psychological and physical divides.

Recent developments in the Afghan peace process, most notably the announcement of peace talks between the Afghan Government and Taliban, are welcome in this long-running and violent conflict.

This article is written by Christine Bell and is taken from our latest Accord: 'Navigating inclusion in peace processes.'

There is an increasing recognition that the causes of conflict are gendered, and that applying a gender perspective in any analysis is essential to tackling conflict at its roots. There can be no one-size-fits-all approach to doing this, but here are some ‘good practice’ principles that can be applied to a gender-sensitive conflict analysis:

Commitments to undertake gender-sensitive conflict analysis have been included in a number of national action plans on Women, Peace and Security in recent years. Since the start of 2019, we’ve been running interviews and workshops with peacebuilding and policy professionals from around the world to better understand how this analysis is being undertaken.