Life and Peace Institute

LPI has been a long-time partner to Sweden in its Global, regional and various bilateral strategies. It has supported locally driven peacebuilding initiatives in Ethiopia since 1991 through partnerships with communities including traditional leaders, civil society organizations and Universities. LPI's Addis Ababa Office oversees both for the Horn of Africa Programme (HARP) and the Ethiopia Programme. This contribution supports LPI's Ethiopia Programme. The five years implementation of the Ethiopia programme between 2017 - 2022 consists of a range of projects and activities. These have included, but are not limited to, the Sustained Dialogue, Conflict-Sensitive Land Administration (CSLA), the Listening Tour and Peaceful University Communities among others. Overall the programme has seen various achievements among which the major ones can be summarised as follows: - Three of the target Universities administrations' understanding of conflict dynamics has improved. These universities are namely Debre Berhan, Metu and Hawassa Universities which resides in Amhara, Oromia and Sidama regions respectively. This was on the back of involvement in a participatory and in-depth assessment of drivers of conflicts in and around the universities, and participation in training. The administrations then set up committees to design and establish appropriate Conflict Early Warning and Rapid Response (CEWRR) mechanisms in their institutions. The administrators also identified gendered conflict early warning indicators. - Again the three Universities (Debre Berhan, Metu and Hawassa Universities) and the communities living around these universities, previously caught up in a cycle of blame, systematically engaged in problem solving dialogue. Previously on the one hand, community members blamed universities for neglecting their social responsibility to the local community. This perception fueled resentment towards the universities among community residents. Conversely, the Universities felt that the communities were ungrateful for the support and resources the universities had provided to them over the years. Through the support of this programme, the universities have held various dialogue sessions with the community representatives structured to tackle identified conflict issues and get to mutually agreeable solutions. Issues identification was informed by a conflict assessment supported by LPI. The overall collaboration and relationship between the three universities and their neighbouring communities are improving as showcased by the joint peace and cooperation agreement signed by representatives of each universities and their respective neighbouring communities. The implementation of these agreements will be followed up by the cooperation partner. - Ethnically and religiously diverse students from the above three universities (Debre Berhan, Metu and Hawassa Universities) grow in knowledge and skills in peer mediation, active listening, problem-solving, and communication. Their confidence has developed through their willingness to mediate between disputing peers and reach mutually agreeable solutions on issues that trigger violence. Furthermore, due to the ease of obtaining information from peer mediators while maintaining confidentiality and trust, peer mediation contributes to the university's CEWRR system. As a result, students are represented as part of the university's conflict resolution mechanism. - Youth who are often side-lined from conflict management and peace-building initiatives, have become active peace actors in their specific communities. In 2022, the trained SNAP cohort rolled-out a contextualized SNAP Training in nine locations across five regional states in Ethiopia (Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Dire Dawa and Sidama with 207 (112 make, 95 female) participants. This resulted in transfer of knowledge and skills to diverse youth about non-violence and peace building, as well as changing the perception of youth by communities and local government actors as main players of peace building initiatives. The SNAP cohort in collaboration with their newly trained youth in 2022 organized different grass-root peacebuilding actions such as youth-security dialogues, peace conferences, art for peace events, establishment of peace clubs. Some of the activities were even broadcasted by local media which amplified their work and recognized the role of youth in the promotion of non-violence and sustainable peace. In September 2022, three SNAP cohort members were invited by United State Institute of Peace (USIP) and participated in the Global SNAP convening in Turkey and shared their experiences. - Local partners in the peace building sector grew in their capacity to engage in knowledge production (and evidence generation) processes; they were sensitized on women inclusion in participatory research and facilitating community dialogues, gender sensitive conflict analysis, as well as monitoring and reporting on progresses. In December 2022, Advocacy Center for Democracy and Development secured its first funding from OTI to implement a peacebuilding project in Oromia Special Zone and North Shewa Zone of Amhara Regional State. Others such as Biftu Birra and Andimta have also expanded their operational areas to Hawassa city and Buno Bedelle zone, respectively. Both have become partners with LPI as they qualified for funding opportunities, as a result of their capacity being strengthened through this intervention. - The collaborative and trust-based partnership that LPI established with the MoP has contributed to the latter opening-up its doors for more collaboration and support with peace building CSOs, while previously the relationship between CSOs and the government has been strained, where the government was suspicious of CSOs work in the country. MoP, a key policy actor in the peacebuilding sector, has gained a better understanding on the positive roles CSOs can play in supporting evidence-based and inclusive peacebuilding initiatives in the country, and it has forged a better relationship/partnership with LPI and other peacebuilding CSOs. MoP involved various CSOs among other stakeholders in the designing of its current program interventions. LPI through the Ethiopia Programme supported the MoP with its national level conflict assessment study and social capital for peace assessment, demonstrating the Ministrys renewed focus on conflict analysis alongside peace analysis. The assessment findings will serve as a knowledge base and benchmark for the Ministrys peacebuilding and conflict resolution interventions. Furthermore, LPI has been one of the few international organizations which has been invited by the MoP to provide inputs to its 10-year peacebuilding programme, which speaks volume of important role the cooperation partner is playing in the peace sector.

The goal of the proposed intervention is to contribute to reducing negative relational social patterns and support a culture of trust and collaboration between otherwise segregated or conflicted social groups (could be based on ethnicity, religion, residential areas... etc, people that normally do not meet and engage in dialogue) by facilitating dialogue, research and collaborative action on local level and engaging relevant decision-makers and policy implementers to enhance structural conditions for peace.