Differing perceptions of security between local communities and state security actors have important implications for local peacebuilding—namely, for how international, national, and local state and non-state actors can support peacebuilding in contexts with on-going violence by using the “‘local’ [as] a point of departure” for designing security and peacebuilding strategies.
Arms transfers and military aid from foreign countries (collectively referred to as foreign security assistance) is associated with poor human rights conditions, including violations of physical integrity rights such as torture, extrajudicial killings, disappearances, political imprisonment and executions, and genocide/politicide.
Countries with UN peacekeeping operations have more nonviolent protests than countries without UN peacekeepers, particularly if those peacekeeping missions include UN police (UNPOL)
Strategies for building sustainable peace after violent conflict tend to focus on two levels of leaders: national elites who negotiate peace agreements and community actors who oversee local mediation and reconciliation efforts
In most cases, local elites hold a negative view of the role of the diaspora in peacebuilding and, at best, view diaspora engagement as limited to economic development.
There are fairly evenly split views on the possibility of reconciliation with former combatants, as well as varied opinions (sometimes along gender, income, education level, and/or regional lines) on which activities would foster reconciliation and how willing respondents would be to come into close contact with former combatants.