Local Mediation

Often, when the prospect of peace is moving forward at the national level, citizens continue to experience the impacts of conflict, particularly at the local level. This is very much the case in Nepal today – emerging from nearly a decade-long open civil war – as the Constituent Assembly struggles toward a peace process at the national level. These trying and tragic local-level impacts range from the resettlement of displaced people, disputes over private property, and recovery from trauma, to an increase in the culture of violence and vengeance. And given that even the most successful national efforts to peace can easily be derailed by local outbursts of discontent, chaos, and violence, a holistic and durable approach to peacebuilding must respond to post-conflict crises at the local level in order to consolidate peace at the national level. This requires a simultaneous and multifaceted focus on preventing, resolving, and containing conflict, as well as trauma recovery and a process for reconciliation…