1. Peacebuilding from below:
the case of Zimbabwe
Presented by: Sheunesu Hove

2. Lecture Objectives
• Analyse some key aspects related to conceptions of
building peace from below
• Briefly present causes of conflict from the social
perspective
• Consider peacebuilding and the social and analyse
some the advantages and limitations of local
peacebuilding
• Present a case study of local initiatives on national
dialogue, reconciliation and social cohesion justice and
healing and discuss its main implications for
peacebuilding
• Consider some criticisms of the social in peacebuilding

3. Building peace from below: the
social
 Redistribution: disparities between the poor and the
wealthy and the
 Malfunctioning of distribution mechanisms: welfare
entitlements, education, health
 Capacity building: access to productive engagement
and community development
 Mitigation of conflict: people being productively
engaged in the society in which they seek to build
 In the liberal peace theory literature, the social is
referred to as a peacebuilding mechanism. What this
actually represents is a negotiation process between a
government and its citizens of the social contract (see
Mary, 1999; Barash, 2000; Paris, 2004; Richmond, 2005).

4. The social as insurance against
recurrence of conflict
 The social does have an impact on avoiding conflict
recurrence
 Military expenditure does not have much effect on
whether or not conflict is going to recur
 Total global military expenditure has increased by 49% in
real terms since 2000, reaching US$1.5 trillion in 2009
(Stepanova, 2009; Perlo-Freedman et al., 2010).
 Post-conflict countries that keep on spending up big on
military expenditure are not securing themselves against
the conflict re-emerging.
 Qualitative analysis of government expenditure in post-
conflict environments does point to the fact that the
social is a very good insurance policy against conflict
recurrence.

5. What does the social do?
There are a number of interpretations about what civil society can
do.
 Some people say civil society help foster political participation;
 some say it can provide voice to particular interest groups that
might be marginalised; and
 some say it might in fact be powerful and it provides a way of
them exercising that power over a political process.
 It doesn't necessarily discriminate in favour of the marginalised
society.
 Civil society also contains groups and associations that are
actually very powerful within a particular society.
 Civil society can do a number of different things. Just to give
you an idea, the table shown below was collected by UNESCO
and the economic and social Council of United Nations. They
have a database now that has a huge number of what they
call civil society organisations (CSOs). They include local
government, academic institutions, and think tanks and in
some cases they include a whole range of organisations. But
by far the majority are classified as non-government
organisations.

6. Size of sector (Integrated Civil Society
Organisations, UN-20617 NGOs)
By Region By Field of Activity
Africa 6340 Economic and Social 10582
Asia 4434 Financing for Development 1766
Europe 4395 Gender/Advancement of Women 5508
North America 3841 Population 1842
Oceania 652 Public Administration 1942
Latin America and the Caribbean 2706 Social Development 6625
Not Specified 4936 Statistics 1286
Sustainable Development 7489
Peace and Development in Africa 40
Conflict Resolution in Africa 31
NEPAD 33

9. Land Reforms in the 1980s -
progress
 In 1980, 17 million hectares or 42% of Zimbabwe's land, including 75% of
prime land, was owned by white farmers
 Lancaster Agreement to a willing buyer - willing seller scheme
 About half of the funding for this program came from foreign donors
 Zimbabwean government to pay first and then apply for reimbursement.
 A quarter of this, or 1300 farms, was acquired by the government in a
period ten years
 8 million hectares for resettlement and resettle 162 000 families in the first
five years
 The most distasteful clause regarded land. The settlement said that in the
first ten years, the Zimbabwean government would only be able to get
white-owned land by buying it from willing sellers at market price using
hard currency that could then be taken out of the country.
 From 1990 to 1997, only 0.8 million more hectares were acquired, and 19
000 more families resettled. Yet the restrictions of Lancaster had been
lifted

10. There are bigger problems in
Zimbabwe than land reform
 What most black Zimbabweans worry about are
rising prices, unemployment and possible famine,
not land.
 In a survey by the Helen Suzman Foundation in late
2000, only 6% of them thought that land was the
most important issue facing the country.
 Inflation was well over 110% in mid-2002, and in 2008
it was 500 000%.
 One Zimbabwean dollar was worth sixty-seven US
cents in late 1979. In 1999, one US dollar was worth
Z$40.
 In August 2008, the figure was about Z$7b.

11. Power, elections and violence
• Elections in Zimbabwe are synonymous with controversy
and are increasingly viewed as instruments of political
power
• The 1980 elections were marred by violence and
intimidation of the electorate by both the Rhodesian
Front and Patriotic Front movements
• The 1985 general election took place during the brutal
1982-1987 conflict in Matabeleland and parts of
Midlands (known as Gukurahundi)
• During the 1990 elections, the Zimbabwe United
Movement (ZUM) party was terrorised left, right and
centre, by ZANU-PF, frustrating it’s leadership by arresting
them and their supporters

12. • During the March 1996 presidential elections, three
candidates registered to contest the elections. However,
two of them withdrew from the elections citing violence,
intimidation and unfair electoral rules.
• The 2000 parliamentary elections and 2002 presidential
elections were held amid chaotic and violent farm
invasions by ZANU-PF supporters led by war veterans.
• The 29 March 2008 elections did not produce a clear
presidential winner necessitating a run-off election on
June 27 2008. The period leading to the run-off election
was marred by violence, intimidation and
disappearances of perceived political opponents,
rendering the election illegitimate.
•

13. Implications for peacebuilding
• It is widely recognized that violence in general stalls development and
political violence has significant repercussions on society, both in
economic and social terms.
• For more than two decades, political violence emanating from disputed
elections has systematically affected citizens’ lives in Zimbabwe.
Currently, there are about two and half million Zimbabweans in the
Diaspora as a direct or indirect effect of the politically-motivated
violence.
• The country suffers and will continue to suffer from brain drain for
decades to come.
• This has already affected many sectors of the economy as the politically-
motivated violence has been the driving force behind forced migration
of skilled and professional people.
• Unfortunately, the authorities seem to be preoccupied with their own
personal interests that they have not bothered to put in place a program
to encourage those in the Diaspora to invest back home.
• May be this could be self-defeating for the ruling elite as they have
shown no respect for property rights through the violent farm invasions
that killed the backbone of the economy, agriculture.

14. Local Initiatives :The Global
Political Agreement (GPA)
• Negotiations led by Southern African Development
Community started as early as 2005.
• South Africa was appointed mediator
• The GPA was signed on 15 September 2008 and
guaranteed by SADC and AU in February 2009.
• The GPA is a transitional document that contains a
reform agenda
• It has not be fully implemented as parties are involved in
political and ideological squabbles.
• There is now a draft constitution after three years of
intense negotiations between the main political parties
• The next elections are expected in June 2013

15. The Importance of Inclusive
Peacebuilding Approaches
• Most communities in Zimbabwe are convinced that the
GPA is for the political elite and at the grassroots they
perceive ZANU-PF as the ruling party.
• The GPA does not provide for grassroots based programs
to deal with issues of localised and personalised violence
as experienced by communities and it becomes difficult
for communities to find entry points.
• As elite led process, the GPA fails to accommodate the
traditional and cultural rituals necessary to reconcile
people and heal their wounds according to their local
beliefs and practices.
• Communities not happy with the GPA play spoilers’ role
to derail the process as they feel and believe that the
process is not in their best interest.

16. Challenges to overcome
• There is lack of ownership and sense of responsibility
by the communities who believe they were
excluded in process leading to the GPA.
• There is lack of information on the letter and spirit of
the GPA to the local communities.
• There is confusion about the GPA exacerbated by
the continuous political rhetoric and propaganda
by political parties.

17. Importance of the social in
peacebuilding
• The first one relates to those people who would
argue that peacebuilding is not fundamentally
about state building; it is really about relationships
between people. Unless you can have non-violent
relationships between people, no amount of state
building will actually solve the problems of conflict.
John Paul Lederach (1997) is probably the best
exponent of this kind of normative evaluation of the
role of civil society in peacebuilding. Others include
Thania Paffenholz, (2010).

18. • The second argument of principle support for the
engagement of civil society is that any of the
institutions of peacebuilding are only valid in so far
as their legitimacy is rooted in grassroots level
support. There are people who would argue that
where you have illiberal peace, the lack of
connection between governments and the people
will ultimately cause crises of legitimacy for those
regimes. Regimes like those of Lebanon,
Madagascar and Zimbabwe, just to name a few,
ultimately can't sustain an illiberal peace structure
without having the legitimation of a grassroots level
and that's where civil society comes in.

19. • The third argument about civil society engagement in
peacebuilding says that there is a specific capacity that
civil society can deliver to defuse inter-communal
conflict. In other words, such an argument comes from
people like Joseph Bock and Mary Anderson (1999) who
argue that the delivery of aid and the operations of civil
society can actually play a very critical role in getting
people to think beyond their communal identity and
reaching out to embrace other forms of identity and
inclusiveness. The assumption is that if aid is delivered in
the right kind of way with the right kind of structures, it
can actually support and strengthen the
interconnections between people rather than keeping
them as separate groups and that this is going to be
conducive to peace.

20. Limitations and challenges
• Quite often civil society organisations can be exclusive
rather than inclusive. A classic example that is usual
given in the literature is Sri Lanka where all of the non-
governmental organisations are very strictly organised
along ethnic lines. There used to be separate non-
governmental organisations dealing with the Sinhalese
population and separate non-governmental
organisations dealing with the Tamil population. These
are non-governmental organisations that may have
affiliations to large international non-governmental
organisations. Nevertheless they would still accept it that
that's the way in which it is going to operate in a country
like Sri Lanka.

21. • Often the criticisms are that civil society is not a kind of
homogenous global civil society. There are lots and lots
of civil societies and so the civil society literature tends to
homogenise civil society and that's a dangerous
tendency. Also there are people who point out that civil
society can be bad civil society (Chambers and
Kopstein, 2001). The Ku Klux Klan is as much a part of civil
society as a civil rights movement. Therefore civil society
can mobilise people for purposes that are not peace
conducive, just as much as it can mobilise forces for
peace. A kind of normative assumption that civil society
is always going to be good and in some sense is
preferred to government is naïve.

22. • The other criticism which I find a bit more theoretical says that civil society
organisations can often be what is called bonding social capital rather
than bridging social capital. There are two aspects to that; one of those is
that bonding social capital is that form of social capital which gives
people a sense of identity and a sense of solidarity. For example if you
belong to a particular football club, that gives you a form of bonding
social capital and it gives you a sense of identity with that particular
group and a sense of solidarity. But it may not be bridging social capital.
It might mean that when you go to a soccer game your main interest is
to beat the opponent team. It is not actually a bridging form of social
capital; it is a bonding form of social capital.
• Bridging social capital is that social capital that enables people to move
from a particular group to extend out their networks. So bridging social
capital is about extending networks rather than bonding networks. In the
literature the argument is that you actually have to think about what kind
of social networks are being constituted by particular kinds of groups;
that you might have groups that are more likely to be bonding social
capital; and that might in fact not contribute extending peaceful
relations to other kinds groups. That is not to say that you should never
have groups that are constituted as bonding social capital. But it is to say
that you need to understand the subtleties of social capital building.

23. • Another criticism of course is that civil society can be
captured by local elites. Often what happens in particular
conflict situations or particular peacebuilding situations is that
non-governmental organisations will go in with a particular
program on, which may have as part of its objective the
development of community engagement and community
participation. But what they will find is that local elites operate
as a kind of gate-keeping to the community. And so they are
dealing with those local elites and they buy themselves,
sometimes and often unwittingly, into these forms of vertical
social capital. They might have started off with an ideological
intention to broaden social capital, but they find themselves in
a situation where they are actually contributing to the growth
of vertical social capital (Fuest, 2010). That is an example of
how vertical and horizontal social capital can work differently.

24. • Another criticism is that a lot of these ideas of civil society can be artificially
imposed by external Western actors; and when we take them into peacebuilding
situations in conflict zones, we are taking ideas based on highly individualistic
notions of what constitute civil society. These ideas tend to be based on the
assumption that every individual has the capacity and the right to choose to
belong to a number of voluntary associations. We don't tend to look at civil society
in terms of what are the rules and regulations that govern kinship structures; what
are the rules and regulations that govern participation; are young people actually
allowed to participate in certain types of organisations; do they have to reach a
certain stage of initiation into adulthood in order to be able to do that?
• The argument is that we bring a particular set of usually individualistic assumptions
into civil society. That argument can be extended by some of the writers like David
Chandler (2010), Vivienne Jabri (2010) and others. They argue that what is really
happening with the literature on civil society and peacebuilding is that we are
actually importing a kind of Foucaultian governmentality into the peacebuilding
effort. In other words, we are seeking to normalise social relations according to
principles of pastoral care and self-governing restraint. That is very much based on
Western liberal notions of how people behave. Chandler’s article is basically
looking at kind of ways and theories about the civilising mission. But part of his
argument is that what we are doing in this discourse is actually introducing these
principles of the conduct of governmentality and the conduct of persons.

25. • Another criticism is that in practice, while a lot of
NGOs talk about having relationship building and
civil society as part of their mandate, in practice
they are torn between that which can be quite a
lengthy process of deliberation and community
engagement; they are torn between that and the
imperatives of actually getting the job done; and
often since their funding is usually dependent on
annual reviews, getting the job done gets a higher
priority. The kind of civil society building that might
have taken place is actually put on one side.

26. Conclusion
• Peacebuilding activities have to be planned and
executed with the participation of all the stakeholders.
• They must be integrated and grounded in the local
culture and values, which form the moral fibre of the
society that binds all.
• Inclusive peacebuilding approaches should be premised
upon a functional governance system, fair justice
system, inclusive political processes, employment
opportunities, non-partisan media, cohesive social
policy, and professional state security apparatus.
• Unfortunately for Zimbabwe, the continued anarchic
situation in Zimbabwe has defied the existence of the
GPA mainly due to the fact that this agreement was a
result of a flawed process, an exclusive domain of the
political elite and had no resonance whatsoever to the
wishes and aspirations of the people.

27. Discussion questions
• How can we overcome some of the challenges
that the social faces in peacebuilding?
• In what ways can the interplay between the local
and the international be promoted in order to
achieve sustainable peace?
• How can we mitigate the tension between the local
and the state in peacebuilding processes?