Search results

This article examines the practicalities of grassroots peacebuilding and discusses challenges they present to vertical integration through a case study of the Northern Uganda Early Recovery Project and its Peace Rings approach. Exploring both direct and indirect vertical integration, the article examines factors that both facilitated and undermined vertical integration, the impact that accrued, as well as the potential for bottom-up approaches to enhance vertical integration. A key conclusion is that in assessing the character and quality of vertical integration, the linkages among various local-level actors are just as important as linkages across international, national, and local divides.

This article provides a critical reflection of World Vision's field practice with Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (PCIA) related frameworks drawing from experiences in Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda. It particularly discusses the value-added of PCIA and its contribution to programming quality. The article examines the uptake of PCIA findings to inform design, monitoring and evaluation, highlighting the importance of 'influencing' as an approach as well as the 'integrative power' of relationship and relationship-building. The article examines important challenges associated with the application of the conventional logical framework. It also discusses promising practices that derive from PCIA, including being informed by complex adaptive systems theories and the importance of community participation and engagement in PCIA processes. It concludes with a discussion of implications for effective PCIA micro- (project) and meso- (programme) level usability. The article suggests that minimum standards for PCIA processes, methodology and content are needed. It makes clear that 'influencing' and 'relationship-building' are core competencies for PCIA practice. It concludes that effective peacebuilding results are achieved when PCIA is internalised by practitioners as a worldview rather than simply deployed as a tool.