Building What Kind of Peace? Outcomes of a UN Peacebuilding Project in Darfur

• In Event: New Directions in Understanding Peacekeeping

Abstract

Local-level peacebuilding interventions are increasingly common in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. These projects often claim to produce holistic peace by targeting a range of potential drivers of conflict, including components to support local conflict resolution institutions, service provision, and livelihood activities. However, both theoretical and empirical linkages between such interventions and actual conflict outcomes remain murky. This paper provides new evidence through an investigation of a United Nations Peacebuilding Fund project in East Darfur. We measure the project's effects on a range of conflict and other outcomes via original household survey data including 3,512 individuals from 2,376 households in East Darfur. Our endline data was collected in early 2023, approximately six weeks before the start of the war between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. We employ a difference-in-difference style design, with control villages carefully selected to match the characteristics of intervention villages, complementing our quantitative work with data from in-depth interviews. Our results show that the project reduced the number of land conflicts, increased residents' perceptions of the effectiveness of "peace committees," and led to higher school enrollment and attendance. But it also had no effect on residents' perceptions of their personal safety or the overall likelihood of a conflict affecting their village. The outbreak of war six weeks later suggests that village residents' perceptions on the latter point were correct. These findings show the promise and limitations of such peacebuilding projects, as well as the sophisticated distinctions village residents draw between different types and sources of conflict.

Authors

• Paul Thissen, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)

• Sara Abdus Salam Ansari, Brown University