Country: World Source: Africa Center for Strategic Studies Please refer to the attached file. Community-based conflict mitigation initiatives have been demonstrated to markedly reduce the triggers of societal conflict in Africa. Their wider application can reshape the local threat landscape. Highlights Much societal violence in Africa is triggered by competition over land and water access, boundary disputes, and ethno-religious mistrust at the community level that when stoked can lead to broader conflict. Security force responses to societal conflicts are addressing the symptoms of these tensions and risk escalating violence if they are perceived as helping one side over another. Community-based conflict mediation and negotiation training has been shown to reduce incidents of violence and distrust, mitigating the root causes of these societal conflicts by helping communities develop skills for non-violent conflict resolution. An expanded effort to equip communities with mediation capacities and institutionalize these initiatives at the national level can reshape the threat landscape by reducing the number communities that are vulnerable to the mobilization to violence. More than a dozen African countries are experiencing active armed conflict, contributing to tens of thousands of fatalities annually. These conflicts have been devastating for their societies, contributing to the displacement of a record-high 46 million people (about half the global total) and the roughly 167 million people on the continent facing acute food insecurity. 1 Many of these African conflicts have a strong societal basis—where ethnic, religious, or geographic differences are exploited for political gain. At times, violent extremist groups polarize these intercommunal tensions to mobilize recruitment and foster disillusionment and distrust. Heavily securitized responses to intercommunal conflict, however, may not only fail to address the underlying drivers or triggers to this violence but can also validate the grievance-based narratives of spoilers and exacerbate the problem by feeding the perception that security actors are supporting one side over another. The focus of much conflict resolution is structured around national peace processes, including elite negotiations and peace agreements between armed belligerents. As a result, community-level peacebuilding is persistently underprioritized, creating an imbalance that undermines conflict mitigation and prevention. This is so despite the fact that most people experience violence in their communities. In fact, it is at the community level that grievances are voiced, disputes flare, and trust in institutions is either built or eroded. Given the intercommunal dimension of many African conflicts, accordingly, peace processes are insufficient if they do not also engage in community-level peacebuilding.
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