A look into the building blocks of peace in Zimbabwe

The history of today’s Zimbabwe has been marked by recurring patterns of violence and violations of human rights, frequently on a large scale. The social, political, and economic turmoil of the country has put its condition of peace in a precarious position. In 2004, the creation of informal peace committees signalled a shift in the dynamics of local peace interventions away from external elite interventions and toward a better appreciation of the potential of localized indigenous village and community informed solution-focused perspectives and initiatives.

Any conflict-affected society’s chances for establishing peace depends on its ability to create and put in place an inclusive peace infrastructure in response to the opportunities and obstacles presented by war. Prior to colonialism, many Zimbabwean villages had local peacebuilding programs like traditional courts in place for many years, but their ideas about peacebuilding are still rarely acknowledged or valued.

Dr Norman Chivasa, a post-doctoral fellow in the Peacebuilding programme at Durban University Technology, looked at data from the Seke district of Mashonaland East province, Zimbabwe to investigate how ward and village citizens perceive peacebuilding as they display (practice) local agency to reject top-down methods to peace and development. This study is a component of a larger attempt to understand more about how Zimbabwe’s common citizens contribute to fostering community peace through establishing ward and village peace committees.

Findings show that the failure of liberal peacebuilding in Zimbabwe demonstrates the necessity of a strong, innovative, and multifaceted solution that includes a variety of actors and institutions, both formal and informal, to address Zimbabwe’s peace difficulties. Furthermore, the NPRC, Zimbabwe’s new national peace strategy, is encouraged by citizens of the Seke district who believe that hybrid peacebuilding can address regional peace concerns.

It is evident that healing encompasses more than simply the past; it also considers how the past may impact the present and the future.