Innovators Hive Launch Dear friends and colleagues, We are excited to announce the launch of Innovators Hive an online library and community space dedicated to driving innovations that strengthen local leadership in the peacebuilding and development sectors. Innovators Hive was developed out of a desire to see increased connection, sharing and learning between the many initiatives, projects, practices and people driving change for local leadership. Explore an ...

Leadership Transition: Meet the team We at Conducive Space for Peace (CSP) took a step back over the past 6 months to restructure the organisation and to re-strategize our work to align with the values we aim to embody and the radical shifts taking place around us. As part of this reflection, we are happy to announce that as of January 2023, the leadership has transitioned with Sweta Velpillay taking on the role as Co-Director, Organisational Leadership. Mie Ro ...

invitation to Learning Series: Innovative Practices in Changing the International System – Challenges and Opportunities Are you a champion of innovation and eager to be a part of a dynamic community driving positive change in the international peace and development landscape? If so, we are thrilled to extend a warm invitation for our upcoming Learning Series. In this first session Innovative Practices in Changing the international system – Challenges and O ...

Invitation to Workshop – Applying MEL Practices to Advance Local Leadership and Equitable Partnerships Are you working with MEL in your organisation, and are you keen to know more about what you can do to promote local leadership and equitable partnership in your work with other like-minded individuals? Please join us at our upcoming workshop: Applying MEL Practices to Advance Local Leadership and Equitable Partnerships, on Thursday, June 22, from 9.30-15.30 at ...

Podcast Launch – Unpacking the Chain of Influence Framework Our first podcast has been launched! We invite you to join the conversation where CSP Director, Mie Roesdahl, presents our publication ‘Chain of Influence: Framework for Systems Change’ and alongside colleagues discusses avenues for international organisations to pursue change within and between international organisations in order to enable a more conducive space for local leadership. We also hear fro ...

We are pleased to invite you to – Danish International NGOs Enabling Local Leadership – our workshop series on global trends and promising practices for systems change which will be held in Copenhagen in August and September 2022. With the global context for development assistance evolving rapidly and momentum for change to better provide support to locally-led initiatives gaining ground, the need to re-examine approaches to aid initiatives is ever more pressing. Innovation an ...

Religious leaders mitigating violence prior to Kenya’s conflict-prone elections   Sheikh Mwinyi Ali smiles to the religious leaders gathered in the Swalihina Mosque and concludes the meeting among the Muslim and Christian leaders in Mombasa. “The glass is now full, and if we keep pouring the water, it will spillover and we will waste resources”. They have been talking since 8am in the morning and it is now 1pm and prayer time. Some have to attend a funeral. Th ...

Annual Meeting 2021 Conducive Space for Peace invites you to join the 2021 Annual Meeting on November 23 at Suomisvej 4, Frederiksberg  See invitation in Danish below We are delighted to invite you to the Annual General Meeting from 15:30 to 17:00 CET on 23 November. The meeting will be held in-person at CSP’s Copenhagen office (Suomisvej 4) and virtually, with members, employees and board members of CSP participating. During the first part of the meeting, th ...

New CSP Systems Change Brief In an effort to expand the community of likeminded peers interested in systems change for locally-led peacebuilding and development, Conducive Space for Peace has just released its new monthly systems change brief. In the first brief, CSP Director Mie Roesdahl shares her personal reflections as well as  the latest thought development of Conducive Space for Peace and its partners regarding the momentum for change which is currently building glo ...

Interactive Roundtable: Systems Change for Local Peacebuilding Conducive Space for Peace (CSP) and The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP) are pleased to invite you to the upcoming roundtable, Seizing the Moment and Pursuing Systems Change for Locally-Led Peacebuilding taking place on Wednesday, June 30th at 16:00-17:30 CET. The world is challenged by some of the highest ever recorded rates of conflict in history and a rapidly evolving geopolitical context. The peace ...

Conversations with John Paul Lederach: “Add a pair of wings to a pepper pod, you would make a dragon fly” Inspired by the natural wonders and how it holds complexity and simplicity in close encounters, we have  pondered on systems change in the global peacebuilding system – and recently consolidated our thinking in the piece “The Dragonfly Model: Systems Change to Strengthen Support for Locally-Led Peacebuilding ”. With many years of combined experience within the ...

With a world in flux: Embarking on a collective systems change journey 23 percent of the world’s population currently lives in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, with violent conflicts reaching a higher rate globally than at any time in the past 30 years. This leaves us questioning whether the current ways of working in supporting peacebuilding is fit for purpose. Our new report, A Global System in Flux: Pursuing Systems Change for Locally-Led Peacebuilding, c ...

The Pioneering Peace Report: A call for ation to advance local peacebuilders’ digital inclusion By Christian Cito, Programme Advisor, CSP The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably impacted our lives and continues to exert significant pressure on how we interact as humans. For local peacebuilders in fragile contexts, the pandemic has also severely disrupted locally-led peacebuilding, short-circuiting needed funding to support community-level peacebuilding efforts, and ...

Pioneering Peace: Digital Inclusion and Adaptation in Response to COVID-19 COVID-19 has had a drastic impact on the way people live, creating an unprecedented reliance on technology as our lives have shifted to the virtual world. Local peacebuilders, who often must rely on vital face-to-face interactions, therefore faced a unique challenge at the start of the pandemic. In April 2020, Shift Power for Peace – a collaborative initiative between Conducive Space for Pe ...

“In the face of destruction, we are compelled to create.” (William Cleveland, 2008, Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World’s Frontlines) The arts offer unique tools to address intractable conflicts and can help divided communities to creatively engage in constructive dialogues for healing and reconciliation. For our 2020 annual meeting in December, Conducive Space for Peace invited two amazing women peacebuilders from two different conflict contexts to share their experiences ...

Welcome to the CSP Annual Meeting 2020 We are honoured to invite you to our annual meeting on December 2 at 15.30-17.00 CET by virtual participation through Zoom. During the last months, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the potential of engaging in virtual spaces, while we simultaneously have had to acknowledge its limitations. This has however not discouraged us, and we have had many wonderful experiences, among others one meeting in which women peacebuilders from 7 different co ...

Shifting power for peace in times of COVID-19 By Conducive Space for Peace, Humanity United and Peace Direct At the end of September, Peace Direct, Humanity United and Conducive Space for Peace held a second consultation on COVID-19 and local peacebuilding. Almost 100 peacebuilders from 67 countries joined the consultation over two days, discussing the impact of the pandemic on conflict and peacebuilding, changes in funding, and engagement between the internationa ...

UNSCR: 2535: Unpacking the latest UN Security Council Resolution on YPSOn July 14th, 2020, the United Nations unanimously passed UNSCR 2535, an international policy framework advocating for greater youth participation in peacebuilding processes and humanitarian responses. To help unpack this resolution and its implications for youth-led peacebuilding, on July 25th CSP in collaboration with Peacemaker360 organized a live-streamed panel discussion with three young pe ...

Event Briefing note: HLPF 2020 Side-Event on Impact of Covid-19 on Local PeacebuildingEvent held 16 July 2020 Overview Peaceful, just and inclusive societies (SDG16+) are central to achieving progress on all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The COVID-19 pandemic presenting serious implications for conflict prevention and peacebuilding work globally, the 2020 High-Level Political Forum presented an important opportunity to reflect on challenges and opportuniti ...

Women Peacebuilders on the Frontlines of the Covid-19 Crisis During the Nordic Women Mediator’s meeting conducted on June 3rd and 4th 2020, Mie Roesdahl of Conducive Space for Peace is leading a group session on Women Peacebuilders on the Frontlines of the Covid-19 Crisis. Two wise, experienced and innovative women peacebuilders, Nomfundo Walaza of South Africa and Comfort Attah of Nigeria are sharing their insights with the Nordic women mediators and discussing w ...

Bridging the Gap webinar series to be launched for young, aspiring peacebuilders Are you a young person reaching the end of your studies or in the beginning of your career with a wish to learn more about the peacebuilding field? Then join us at Conducive Space for Peace as we launch our new webinar series “Bridging the Gap”! Bridging the Gap is about creating translocal and -national connections with other aspiring peacebuilders, filling in knowledge gaps and crea ...

Shift Power for Peace Launches Digital Inclusion Initiative for Local Peacebuilders Calling fellow local peacebuilders! Kindly consider taking 5 minutes to help us in Conducive Space for Peace by filling in this survey on how COVID-19 is affecting funding for local peacebuilding. We want to ask you: What changes in funding do you experience as a consequence of the pandemic? Your responses in this survey will provide us with a strong basis for conveying messages to ...

Shift Power for Peace Launches Digital Inclusion Initiative for Local Peacebuilders Are you working to build peace in your community, in a fragile or conflict-affected country? Has your work been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?    Would access to digital tools, online courses for digital peacebuilding, or a network of local peacebuilders help you continue, adapt or develop your working during this time of global restrictions and lockdown?   In the face of the CO ...

Local peacebuilders in the frontlines of COVID-19 responses As fears of the pandemic spreading in the Global South continue to expose vulnerabilities of local peacebuilding, by early April 2020 Peace Direct, Humanity United, and CSP conducted online consultations with 400 local peacebuilders from 60 countries to gage the impact of the pandemic on local peacebuilding. Subsequently, a report detailing the findings and recommendations of the online consultations was r ...

Online platform for local peacebuilders is now launched! Over the last few weeks, Conducive Space for Peace and Peace Direct have conducted a series of online consultations to get input from peacebuilders around the world on the implications of the Corona crisis on their lives, organisations and peacebuilding efforts. During these consultations, the participants expressed the need to create a platform for sharing, learning, innovating among local peacebuilders and ...

Responding to COVID-19: Voices from Local Peacebuilders The spread of the novel COVID-19 virus in more than 135 countries has drastically disrupted people’s ways of life and has paralyzed world economies—exerting formidable pressures on governments and healthcare systems struggling to curb the daily increases of new cases. Italy, Spain, Iran, and the US are still the most hit by the pandemic. The alarming death rates in these three countries have sent a warning signal to ...

COVID-19 and its implications for local peacebuildingIt is time for the peacebuilding community to join efforts in addressing the COVID-19 crisis. Let us especially support local peacebuilders in the Global South to better prepare for the spread of the pandemic and deal with it’s impacts in their communities. By Mie Roesdahl While the Covid-19 virus demands all our focus at this time, especially because it is predicted to have devastating consequences for countries ...

Scattered fruit trees and flowers are struggling in the heat of the beginning dry season of Montes de Maria as we walk on the narrow path to the house of Narciso and Manuela. This region of Montes de Maria was one of the hardest hit by violence in the end of the 90s.