New Report: Information Vital for Peacebuilding
Equipping communities with the tools to make informed decisions in times of crisis and to distinguish for themselves hateful or violent messages is an essential component of peacebuilding programs.
Launched in 2011, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Communication for Peacebuilding priority grant program (CfP) was designed to improve our understanding of and ability to leverage information and communication flows before, during, and following violent conflict.
Grants were given to three organizations: Internews in the Central African Republic, Radio la Benevolencija in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the World Policy Institute in Kenya. Each of the three projects differed in scope and methodology, but they all attempt to understand and impact communication flows to promote peacebuilding.
Internews was tasked with leading a learning group to share experiences, lessons learned and challenges. The findings of the learning group have been shared in a report entitled Communication for Peacebuilding Priority Grant Program Learning Group Report.
The report discusses the importance of providing communities with tools to make informed decisions in times of crises as well as the ability to distinguish for themselves hateful or violent speech; the potential usefulness and challenges of ICTs to promote strong communication flows that promote peacebuilding; the importance of community engagement and identifying local partners; and the need for stronger, more innovative approaches to monitoring and evaluation that focus on more big picture impacts than individual project outputs.
USIP has also featured the Internews project in Central Africa Republic on their website, “Strengthening Communication in the Central African Republic.”
Download or read the PDF report.
© 2013 Internews Network