What to expect from the homepage?

A page for people working in and on conflict.

A page that introduces key peacebuilding concepts.

A page that stimulates debate and encourages exchange.

A page that offers hands-on and tested advice.

A page that offers free easy-to-use resources.

What to expect from the courses?

Courses to build key conflict transformation and peacebuilding skills.

Courses developed and taught by experienced trainers.

Courses with a balanced mixture of input by the facilitator, background material for further studies and exercises for the students to apply the new insights.

There is a fee attached to the courses - early bird discounts will be available.

For more information visit The Peacebuilding Practitioner School!

Post by Bjoern Eser 

Season 3 of The Peacebuilding Practitioner podcast is available now - Digital Peacebuilding

The countdown is on. Only one week to go before season three of The Peacebuilding Practitioner podcast will be launched. A season packed with amazing interviews shedding light on a still developing aspect of our work that is both an immensely exciting and hope-inspiring force for good as well as a scary and potentially very destructive force layering additional complexity to conflict situations. read more

Post by Bjoern Eser 

500days of war in Ukraine

Welcome to another edition of ‘What’s on my book shelf?’ With the war of aggression by the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Ukraine nearing day 500, I thought I share the list of books - well, actually audiobooks - and podcasts I have used in recent months to gain a better understanding of the situation in the country, the history behind it, the main players, as well as listen to a variety of voices from a wide variety of backgrounds and with a wealth of experiences. read more

Post by Bjoern Eser 

Season 2 of The Peacebuilding Practitioner podcast is available now - Conflict Sensitive Journalism

Over the next eight weeks, Antonia Koop, the founder of PECOJON (The Peace and Conflict Journalism Network) will guide us through key aspects of conflict sensitive journalism and what it means to translate theory into media practice. Each episode is between 15 and 45 minutes long. So all in all, we are in for more than three hours of infotainment at its best. read more

Post by Antonia Koop 

Conflict Sensitive Journalism - Closing remarks to our mini series

In our short series on Conflict Sensitive Journalism we first looked at the origins of new journalistic models for covering conflict and compared their approaches and reasoning. In the second and third article we took a closer look at the practical implementation of these ideas and the tools Conflict Sensitive Journalism proposes to journalists covering conflict. Now in this final article I will take a step back again and look at journalism through the lens of democracy and peacebuilding, focusing on a question that I feel needs a lot more discussion: Who is responsible for improving the quality of conflict coverage in the media, who should get involved in this process and how? read more

Post by Antonia Koop 

Conflict Sensitive Journalism - A toolbox for high-quality conflict and crisis reporting (part 2)

The first part of our Conflict Sensitive Journalism (CSJ) Toolbox focussed on practical and technical elements that distinguish CSJ from traditional conflict reporting. This second part will look at those elements that represent principles behind those tools. All tools are no use as long as journalists don't review the fundamental assumptions that drive their reporting. Let's look at the next set of principles through this lens and go back to some very basic questions: for whom do we make news and what do they really need to know? read more

Post by Antonia Koop 

Conflict Sensitive Journalism - A toolbox for high-quality conflict and crisis reporting (part 1)

In the first post of this short series we took a look at the origins of Conflict Sensitive Journalism and how the concept relates to peace journalism and other approaches to reporting on conflict, crisis and war. In this second post we will explore what Conflict Sensitive Journalism requires in practice. read more

Post by Antonia Koop 

Conflict Sensitive Journalism - How we got here

Wile our last mini series focused on lobby and advocacy as a powerful tool to strengthen your peacebuilding work, today’s post is the first in a series of articles looking at journalism and its role in conflict settings. read more

Post by Bjoern Eser 

Building your campaigning toolbox

After having made the case for a strategic lobby and advocacy campaign in part I of this mini series, I walked your through the main steps of any successful campaign in part II. With these two steps safely under out belt, it is now time to look at practical ideas. This week’s post features a wide range of possible activities to be used during your campaign. A treasure chest filled with hands-on advice and plenty of background information. read more

Post by Bjoern Eser 

The art of campaigning

In last week’s article I build an argument for lobby and advocacy campaigns to increase the changes of peacebuilding projects to be successful. But not everything that comes dressed as a campaign is a campaign. In order to develop its full potential and lend significant weight to your work, a lobby and advocacy campaign needs to be done right. While many of the details of a campaign depend on the situation you are working in, the issue you are working on and the people you are working with, most successful campaigns have key issues in common. Here are 11 simple steps to a successful lobby and advocacy campaign. read more

Post by Bjoern Eser 

Lobby and advocacy campaigns

Are you working on peacebuilding and conflict transformation? Are you active in a highly complex environment? Do you often have the feeling that the power balance is not in your favour? That much of your direct peacebuilding and conflict transformation work is barely scratching the surface when it comes to influencing the underlying dynamics? If that is the case then you could benefit from a lobby and advocacy campaign complementing your peacebuilding and conflict transformation work. read more

Post by Bryn Higgs 

Leadership for peacebuilding needs to inspire

The discussion so far, on power and violence, and power and nonviolence, necessitates that we briefly consider leadership. If we have established that peace work must address power, and must do so non-violently by taking up power itself, then the issues of leadership naturally arise. We can now make a few observations of the kind of leadership that might be effective and appropriate. read more

Post by Bryn Higgs 

Power and non-violence

Following from the last blog post on power and violence, we can start from a shared view that peacebuilding challenges the abuse of power. We have noted that technical implementation of programmes, or the dissemination of information, awareness raising or negotiating an accommodation between two violent opponents may all contribute to peacebuilding, but if they do not address issues of power then they do not go to the source of violence. Today we look at non-violent power and how it can be a radical tool through which power can be dramatically redistributed to the many, from the few. read more

Post by Bryn Higgs

Power and violence

Conflict is all about power. So is peacebuilding. And peace work that fails to take account of power issues is hardly worthy of the name, nor is it likely to be successful. We’ve already made some comments about the need for locally rooted analysis as one essential foundation for any peacebuilding intervention, and based upon that presented the case for work that is strategic. The post on values hopefully signposted a second essential grounding for effective action. An understanding of power can reasonably be proposed as a third essential perspective for conflict work. But we need to unpack the idea that peacebuilding is about power at little more. This post reflects on power and violence - the issues we face in our work. read more

Post by Bryn Higgs

Value-based peacebuilding

Values are important to reflect upon in violent contexts for a number of reasons: because the conflict itself may in part reflect different values of opposing parties; because peacebuilders are better equipped if they have some self-awareness about their own values, those of their group, and of others; and because the choices made by peacebuilders can have profound impacts, to name but a few. Unless we understand the value-base of our work, we cannot be properly prepared for peacebuilding challenges that are likely to arise. read more