Workshop reflections from Barry Knight, Centris UK, and consultant to the Foundations for Peace Network.
“It’s great that this session managed to get peace out of the closet”, said a senior funder to me at the end of a workshop organized by Foundations for Peace at the European Foundation Centre conference in Belfast on 7th June 2012.
Speakers included Ambika Satkunanathan, Chair of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Karen Yarza, Executive Director of the Fundacion Comunitaria de la Frontera Norte in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The moderator was Monina O’Prey from the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. Other members of Foundations for Peace (from Bangladesh, Colombia, India, Serbia, Nepal and Northern Ireland) contributed to the discussion by facilitating round table discussion during the workshop.
Although the two speakers came from different parts of the world in very different circumstances, both told a similar story of rampant, destructive, and mindless violence. Both described how their Foundations were trying to pick up the pieces and to find some vestige of normality in situations where life has been totally disrupted, the rule of law consistently broken and civil society distorted in the process.
Both speakers described what small indigenous activist foundations could do to mend the relationships in such a setting. Although they lacked the resources of some of the bigger international Foundations, they could nevertheless use their local knowledge and relationships with different communities to address vital issues, such as human rights,the participation of women and minorities, and engagement with young people. A key role is to find safe space to challenge dominant narratives and to bring in people normally excluded from traditional peace processes.
Small grants were commonly used to develop inclusive processes that could address imbalances of power and bring in to account issues that might be unpopular with certain interests, but which are nevertheless vital for peace. The foundations had an important role in building the capacity of local community groups and work with official agencies that don’t have local knowledge or contacts. An overarching conclusion from the discussion was that long-lasting peace and social justice has to come from within.
Small foundations building peace working in this way typically face three main challenges:visibility, impact, and legitimacy. Such foundations often have to work quietly below the radar, so they cannot always promote what they do. This means that the work is often invisible, lacks readily measurable outputs or outcomes, and is sometimes questioned by outsiders as self interested or partisan.
In the workshop discussion, however, it became clear that, since peace can only emerge from within, it is vital to have forces working within societies to complement the efforts of external agencies such as international non-governmental organisations. These agencies may have bigger resources, but rarely comprehend the layers of complexity that only local people can understand. The truth is that much international funding is paternalistic, because it often pursues agendas that are driven by particular and specific social and economic performance indications without respect for and understanding of local realities.
The workshop concluded that there needed to be more partnerships between indigenous foundations and international funders – bringing together the resources of external agencies with the knowledge of internal indigenous foundations could improve chances of success in peacebuilding efforts. In terms of learning for the bigger foundations, this was a workshop worth attending and I hope to see more of this at future events.
Showcasing successful and inspiring examples of international funding for autochthonous initiatives at future EFC conferences would mean that lessons learned could be shared.
– Barry Knight, Rapporteur
(Originally posted on the Foundations for Peace Network Website: http://www.foundationsforpeace.org/newsletter/philanthropic-intervention…)