Abstract
Keywords
Introduction 1
A century after independence, Afghanistan's dream of sustainable peace remains an illusion. No invasion, occupation, or negotiation has brought peace, development, or prosperity to this country with such a rich cultural history and fierce sense of independence from outside control. Decades of international peacebuilding have failed to account for—let alone address—the persistence of deep-rooted sources of internal conflict. Planned efforts to install a liberal peace through institutions and regulations often fail to recognize persistent conflicts at the local level that should be the primary focus (Franke et al., 2021).
Funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), we conducted a 10-month adaptive peacebuilding project in Afghanistan that effectively brought together conflicting parties to resolve community-level conflicts that, given the public focus on the national-level peace process, have been largely ignored. The need is not to build new local practices but to protect existing ones and to create space for hybrid practices where parties can safely share grievances and collaboratively develop locally tailored roadmaps for reconciliation.
Grounded in trauma-informed research (Wolterstorff, 2003; Herman, 2015) and research identifying the conditions necessary for sustainable multi-party agreements (Franke et al., 2021; Ostrom, 1990; Wilson et al., 2013), the purpose of the Community Dialogue on Peace and Reconciliation (CDPR) project was to address tensions at the local level in 10 communities in four provinces in Afghanistan (Bamyan, Herat, Nangarhar, and Parwan). For the project, we conducted a series of community-based structured dialogues during which participants developed solutions to community problems and conflicts. This briefing describes the process, details the project methodology and activities, and offers a few preliminary lessons learned from our project implementation.
Our Unique Approach: The Solution Accelerator
Combining adaptive peacebuilding with group-trauma healing, our unique Solution Accelerator approach is bottom-up and radically inclusive, focusing on community needs and priorities, and designed to build empathy, common understanding, and trust among and between peace and conflict stakeholders at the local level. In each target community, Solution Accelerators consisted of iterative rounds of prime actor interviews and increasingly inclusive structured dialogues. Prime actors are those individuals, organizations, and groups perceived by their peers—and not outside experts—as most influential in the life of the community, from civil society, the public and private sectors, local, county, national, regional, and international organizations, including spoilers. After anonymizing the data, we published key results in English and local languages after every round on a dedicated, password-protected web-based portal. The portal also served as a means for communicating results with the project communities and as a feedback mechanism for community members to comment on project activities and their effectiveness. During the Structured Dialogues, we also invited participants to review the results of the previous round(s) as another step toward building common understanding and trust. Participants worked through a series of structured steps to collaboratively decide on and implement solutions to problems and conflicts in their respective communities (Ostrom, 1990).
The CDPR Process
The effectiveness of any peacebuilding project lies in its ability to support existing community structures for designing, managing, and adapting culturally appropriate, locally led healing and reconciliation interventions. In repeated rounds of interviews, we learned about each prime actor's perception of problems and conflicts in the community and their commitment to resolving these issues. These interviews enabled us to identify additional prime actors to be included in subsequent structured dialogue sessions. With each round, the CDPR dialogue sessions became more inclusive and served to build trust (Franke et al., 2021).
Project Logistics
We selected our 10 target communities based on the existence of community conflict, accessibility, interest, and willingness among community members to participate in our project activities and the safety and security of our field staff. At the outset, we met with local leaders and confirmed their support for the project. When, following the Taliban takeover, the U.S. government issued a Stop-Work-Order in September 2021, we had successfully completed two rounds of interviews with a total of 480 participants and three rounds of Structured Dialogue with a total of 634 participants (see Table 1). The following section describes the rounds of interviews and CDPR sessions in detail and summarizes key results and lessons learned.
Prime Actor Participation.
Abbreviation: CDPR = Community Dialogue on Peace and Reconciliation.
Round 1 Interviews: Community Baseline Assessment (CBA) Survey
Using a modified Delphi method 2 to identify the most influential local and external stakeholders from government, businesses, and civil society in each community, we conducted interviews with each to analyze their conflict-related perspectives, grievances, and threat perceptions. This initial CBA enabled us to evaluate each community's capacity to address threats, problems, and conflicts that obstruct peace and development at the local level. Specifically, the CBA survey asked interview participants to name their “best wishes and hopes” and their “worst fears and worries” for the future of their community, using the well-established Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Cantril, 1966; Di Napoli & Arcidiacono, 2013) to measure life satisfaction in their community “five years ago,” “today,” and “five years from now.” We also asked interviewees what they thought were “the biggest problems or conflicts” in their community and why, and to name who they thought were the most influential individuals, groups, or organizations in the community. We used this information to identify participants for the first CDPR session in each community.
Overall, respondents in 9-of-10 communities were fairly optimistic about the future of their community, showing higher “future” than “present,” or “past” scores. Hopes, fears, and perceived problems mirrored each other in most communities, all of which seemed to suffer from a lack of aid projects and development opportunities. Participants wished for increased educational and employment opportunities, help with alleviating poverty, and improved infrastructure, including asphalting roads or cementing riverbeds and building schools or health clinics. Respondents in various communities also mentioned power imbalances between traditional leaders and regular members of the community and criticized a lack of opportunities for youth to engage productively in their community. Respondents across communities recognized deteriorating social relations and unity, mentioning those as important drivers of conflict. In general, feelings of insecurity and hopes for peace were prevalent in all communities.
CDPR 1 Sessions
Based on the results of the CBA, we revised the list of prime actors and invited those identified by interviewees as most influential during Round 1 interviews. During CDPR 1, participants reviewed the results of the CBA, including the peer assessments of prime actors, key hopes, fears, and problems/conflicts. Each half-day CDPR 1 session tasked participants to choose the community problem or conflict they wanted to address first. CDPR 1 did what it was designed to do: build empathy and trust among participants to where they could collaboratively agree on problems or conflicts to address in their community. CDPR 1 effectively raised awareness about what some participants referred to as “ignored” conflicts, that is, conflicts everybody knew about but were taboo to discuss publicly. Although participants discussed fundamental problems in their communities—from access to fresh water and electricity to lacking the infrastructure to drug addiction—many believed that solving these problems was the primary responsibility of the government, requiring long-term funding. Across communities, we found a lack of trust in government and disappointment with the government's inability to address insecurity, destitution, and unemployment. Frustrated with a lack of government responsiveness and developmental assistance on top of four decades of instability and little confidence in what the future might bring, participants in 9-of-10 communities successfully chose conflicts to address during CDPR 1. Small successes like these help to build confidence and pave the way for communities to tackle larger problems and conflicts down the road.
Round 2 Interviews
Based on the results of CDPR 1, we asked prime actors during Round 2 interviews what they liked best about their community, how they perceived the influence of previously identified prime actors, and what additional influential actors should be included in the CDPR process. Round 2 interviews validated perceptions about the nature and history of the community conflicts identified during CDPR 1 and reassessed prime actor rankings in terms of commitment to and influence in solving those conflicts.
CDPR 2 Sessions
The goal of CDPR 2 was to find solutions to the conflicts/problems identified during CDPR 1. Based on the results of the Round 2 interviews and the CDPR 1 sessions, we included additional actors perceived as influential by their peers. CDPR 2 participants again reflected on the positive aspects of their community and reviewed the conflict they had agreed to address during CDPR 1. Specifically, we wanted to find out the extent to which participants agreed on the start and cause(s) of the conflict and on the effects a solution or lack thereof would have on the community. The results of the CDPR 2 sessions indicated that our progressively inclusive approach succeeded in building trust among local actors. CDPR 2 participants in each community effectively agreed on courses of action to address their self-identified conflicts.
CDPR 3 Sessions
During CDPR 3, participants continued work on crafting agreements, finding ways to ensure compliance, and coordinating their efforts with other actors working on the same problem. Based on CDPR 2 results, we once again revised and expanded the list of prime actors. Reflecting this even more inclusive list of actors and the outcomes of the CDPR 2 sessions, we tailored the CDPR 3 agendas to the needs, interests, and self-identified conflicts in each community with the explicit intent for participants to define the actions needed to actually implement the agreed-upon solution. As intended, the CDPR process became more inclusive and self-paced, reflecting the needs of and progress in each community. Some communities agreed to and implemented solutions right away (see below), while others required additional dialogue sessions.
Overall, the CDPR 3 results indicate that our approach was successful in building trust among the most influential and committed local actors. CDPR participants in each community effectively identified specific problems and conflicts and agreed on courses of action to take to address those conflicts.
Findings and Lessons Learned
Despite the abrupt end to our CDPR project, we started seeing some positive results and encouraging lessons and we also detected some shortcomings and challenges. Overall, participants were hopeful about the future of their communities. Hopes, fears, and perceived problems mirrored each other in most communities. Participants voiced frustrations with trust in and governance by traditional leaders, lack of government attention to their problems, and a lack of opportunities for women, girls, and youth to engage productively in their community. This, in turn, prompted participants to perceive growing disunity and social conflict as potential drivers of conflict.
Like many developing countries, Afghanistan is a patriarchal society characterized by the disproportionate and unfair representation of women. Women and girls have limited access to education, health care, and formal employment and, as a result, have far fewer opportunities than men. This reality is reflected in our project data. Although we were able to increase female participation in each dialogue session, recruiting female participants proved difficult. With the takeover by the Taliban and its commitment to strictly follow Sharia Law, we fear increasing limitations and restrictions for women's participation in development, governance, and decision-making processes.
The central purpose of the CDPR project was to strengthen local capacity for recognizing important community tensions, identifying local drivers of conflict and influential prime actors, and for designing effective and sustainable conflict resolution mechanisms. The adaptive bottom-up Solution Accelerator approach is designed to be progressively inclusive, focusing on community needs and priorities and to build empathy, common understanding, and trust. This process takes time, patience, and continued involvement to empower communities to address their own problems and conflicts. Our CDPR 3 data indicate that our target communities moved closer to agreeing on and implementing community-based solutions to their most pressing problems.
A First Success Story
For 12 years, residents in one community had not been able to provide electricity to a boys’ high school. During CDPR 1, participants agreed to address the school electricity conflict. Already during CDPR 2, participants reached an agreement that solved the conflict: participating community elders collected funds and bought and installed solar panels at the school, bringing neighbors together and creating a fertile environment for the community to (re-)unite, work together, and address existing and future problems.
It takes time, patience, and continued commitment to use the Solution Accelerator process for creating broad-based, inclusive self-governing agreements that empower communities to address their own problems and conflicts and to create locally sustainable peacebuilding and reconciliation processes. Eventually, agreements in one area (e.g., water resources and supply, electricity, schooling, opportunities for women) will spill over into other areas. The more communities adopt and implement a collaborative and inclusive process across problem/conflict areas, the more robust and sustainable peacebuilding and reconciliation will be in those communities.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the United States Institute of Peace (grant no. 95314421P1QA00124).