Citizen Peacebuilding is the Key to A New World Order

In 2016, Lamu County, a breezy coastal district in eastern Kenya, faced a crisis.

For years, al-Shabaab fighters had flooded the area. Violent extremists would launch from nearby Somalia, pose as fishermen, and use Lamu as an entry point into Kenya.

Determined to crack down, local authorities outlawed nighttime fishing in 2011, but this ban devastated the economy. Kenyan fishermen, struggling to make a living, became a prime target for al-Shabaab recruitment.

For many people, countering violent extremism feels overwhelming, requiring trillions of dollars, fighter jets, and high-stakes diplomacy. In this case, it took a more local approach. Judy Kimamo, who leads the Kenyan team of Search for Common Ground, facilitated dialogues between security officials and fishermen, partnered with religious groups to support grieving wives, and helped citizens to report security threats through a mobile app.

The breakthrough came with the creation of Mvuvi ID cards — “Mvuvi” comes from the Swahili word for fisherman — that enabled officials to verify local workers and pick out al-Shabaab fighters. In 2018, after seven years of economic hardship and growing resentment, Lamu authorities lifted the fishing ban.

Stories such as this one don’t make headlines, but they do make history. From climate change to violent conflict to pandemic disease, the world faces unprecedented threats. On their own, neither citizen-led efforts nor government measures can meet these challenges. When linked together, however, they can yield systemic change — as demonstrated by Judy and her team on the eastern coast of Kenya.

The integrated strategy of citizen and state action fits our historical moment. Out of the ashes of World War II came a multilateral system that succeeded for many years in preventing violent conflict. Anchored by familiar acronyms — the UN, the AU, the EU, and more — the post-World War II order relied on state sovereignty and deployed the limited but powerful tools of statecraft: diplomacy, economic sanctions, military force.

Notwithstanding awful violence in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and many other countries, global deaths from violent conflict fell to the lowest levels in recorded history. Relative peace enabled unprecedented progress. At the end of World War II, 12 countries had democratic governments; by the turn of the century, 87 countries did. Between 1945 and 2000, global rates of literacy rose from 49 percent to 82 percent. The mortality rate for children under five fell from roughly 20 percent to 4 percent.

While deeply flawed and dominated by Western powers, the multilateral system prevented wars, advanced human well-being, and ultimately ranked among the great achievements of political history.

Unfortunately, the 21st century complicates this optimism. War hasn’t ended, just changed forms. We have experienced the destruction of collapsing states — from Rwanda in 1994 to Syria in the 2010s — in which leaders turn on their people. What can the international system do in these cases? Well-intentioned reforms, such as the introduction of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, have yielded limited results. Indeed, external intervention in collapsing states can amplify faultlines, prolonging conflicts that have devastated millions of lives and destabilized regions. In 2017, Syria — which accounts for 0.2 percent of the global population — produced 29 percent of all conflict-related deaths and nearly 20 percent of all refugees, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the UN.

Further complicating matters is the rise of transnational violent groups. Before 2010, global deaths from terrorism had never reached 15,000 in a year. Since 2014, deaths from terrorism have averaged 36,000 per year. In some regions, such as the Northern Triangle of Latin America, gangs have so fully undermined state authorities as to trigger large-scale migration.

Boko Haram, MS-13, violent white nationalists, and many others operate outside the state system — none, after all, has a seat at the UN — yet can prevent states from providing security for citizens. In this way, political leaders face a maddening dilemma. Loosely-networked groups, responsible for violence across multiple countries, are practically impossible to defeat through military force yet resistant to negotiations.

In short, the political tools of the 20th century must adapt to 21st-century realities.

Globally, violent conflict drives 80 percent of all humanitarian needs and costs the world nearly $14 trillion per year — equal to the GDP of China. Failed interventions in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere drive home the urgency. We are not reaching the roots of violence, and we need a new paradigm.

Half of the answer lies in Lamu County. Citizen-led peacebuilding is an approach that privileges people on the frontlines of violent conflict, leveraging their powerful networks, influence, and non-official status. It is the mother in South Sudan who learns about unarmed civilian protection and guards her neighbors by standing in their doorway. It is the teacher in the South Side of Chicago who builds resilience through sports. It is the motorcyclist in Liberia, an ex-combatant from a civil war, who promotes civic engagement. Citizen-led peacebuilding manifests in countless people who are working hard in conflicts around the world — and whose efforts, when integrated with state-led efforts, can drive powerful change.

From Yemen to Mali, from Colombia to Eritrea, diplomacy is vital to bringing peace, but so is citizen-action. At a time when a tweet from a Hindu extremist in Kashmir can trigger nuclear tension, peace agreements endure only with public support.

With this urgency in mind, three steps can accelerate the integration of citizen peacebuilding and state diplomacy.

First, formal diplomatic processes must engage diverse stakeholders, especially the women and young people who are often responsible for peace but excluded from formal processes. A study by the International Peace Institute finds that peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years when women participate. Youth support is similarly critical, as revealed in Colombia in 2016 when activists helped to salvage a contentious peace process. The UN has signaled the importance of inclusion through Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 2250 on women and youth, respectively, but efforts have lagged to ensure dedicated resources and consistent action.

Second, citizen-led peacebuilding deserves steady funding. Currently, a sliver of development assistance goes to the citizen-led efforts that make peace possible. One study of international grantmaking finds that over five years and 1,000 foundations, the peace and security field received less than one percent of global grantmaking. Within that category, peacebuilding received less than four percent.

Third, as citizen-led peacebuilding develops as a field, we should collect and reflect on key lessons, particularly in how we can support dispersed citizen efforts to link with state policies and produce systemic change. Such findings would inform future peacebuilding tactics. They would also chart a pathway toward a new world order capable of handling modern conflict by better integrating state-led efforts with citizen peacebuilding.

In Lamu County, peacebuilders started by distributing 200 Mvuvi cards. That initial push was enough to address local grievances and, when paired with policy systems, trigger broad reform. By the end of 2019, Judy and her Search for Common Ground team aim to distribute over 3,000 cards.

The world still needs state-to-state diplomacy. Increasingly, it also needs citizen-led peacebuilding. When linked, these two forces can unleash enormous change and provide the foundation of a global system suitable for the challenges of the 21st century.

Shamil Idriss is the CEO of Search for Common Ground, the world’s largest dedicated peacebuilding organization.