When elections are contested, institutions are weak, and public trust is low, everyday life can feel precarious for citizens in fragile democracies. In charged moments like these, it can be easy for societies to succumb to fear and violence. That’s why dedicated peacebuilders are crucial to lead initiatives that restore legitimacy and safety for all.
Peacebuilding involves the processes and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships. It’s not a phase or condition, but a dynamic continuum of socially constructed transformations.
According to the United Nations, “peacebuilding measures and addresses core issues that affect the functioning of society and the State and seek to enhance the capacity of the State to carry out its core functions effectively and legitimately.”
In practice, peacebuilders prioritize things like inclusive dialogue, justice and accountability mechanisms, community safety, equitable services, conflict prevention and civic participation so that people feel both protected and represented in their institutions.
Unrest affects every layer of society and can lead to:
Peacebuilding is essential in fragile democracies to rebuild trust and legitimacy while addressing root causes to prevent history from repeating itself.
Let’s look at two recent conflicts in the world and how peacebuilders leveraged practical approaches to reduce harm and make societal progress.
Kenya’s 2007-2008 post-election violence shocked the nation, with more than 1,300 people killed and over half a million internally displaced. The town of Eldoret saw some of the worst electoral violence, with dozens of people burned alive in a church that they fled to for refuge. The victims were mostly Kikuyu, in an area predominantly occupied by the Kalenjin, who consider the area their ancestral homeland.
The Kikuyu largely supported presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU), while the Kalenjin largely supported Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). After an unusually prolonged period of counting the votes, Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in, despite opposition protests.
Supporters of both the PNU and ODM parties, as well as the security services, committed crimes against humanity, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted six individuals, including President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In August 2022, Kenya’s presidential election was largely peaceful compared to prior cycles due to various strategies. For example, after a majority of survey respondents said they find it difficult to distinguish between real and fake news online, Kenya launched a “National Action Plan Against Hate Speech.”
A consortium consisting of individuals from the government, media platforms, artificial intelligence startups and more, worked together to build an early warning system that detected toxic political content online in multiple languages and flagged it to social media platforms to mitigate disinformation and inflammation.
In 2022, Sri Lanka started experiencing a severe economic collapse—fuel and food shortages, power outages, and inflation—on top of unresolved grievances from the country’s civil war. Mass protests over corruption and shortages led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigning and the declaration of a nationwide state of emergency.
Alongside national debates, community-level peacebuilding played a significant role in reducing everyday tensions that can escalate during national crises. For instance, volunteer peacebuilders ran Community Mediation Boards to settle civil disputes through facilitated dialogue to ease court burden. These trained mediators focus on finding a win-win solution that is acceptable to both parties, without deciding who is right or wrong.
While these local efforts cannot solve macroeconomic problems, they help communities rebuild trust and offer accessible ways to resolve everyday conflict while broader political reforms are underway.
While peacebuilding strategies vary across contexts, at its core, it involves creating fair processes and holding institutions accountable to transform conflict into sustainable, peaceful relationships. In fragile democracies, these efforts are the difference between spirals of fear and shared safety.
At the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, the MA in Peace and Justice program prepares students to lead peacebuilding initiatives in governments, NGOs, and communities around the world through a rigorous curriculum and fieldwork.
Students learn from faculty who are active peace practitioners themselves while honing several skills, such as:
If you’re driven to make a real-world impact, we invite you to learn more about peace work and join our community of changemakers today!