Supporting societies and their governments to develop national infrastructures to mitigate and prevent violent conflict.
Business Plan for Peace works with governments that wish to develop an infrastructure that is right for their country and its people. We provide consultative advice and facilitation, as well as identifying sources of funding.
The first Architecture for Peace was developed by Nelson Mandela to prevent civil war in South Africa after he was released in 1989. It has now proved effective in other countries including Kenya and Ghana. In essence, an Architecture for Peace is a country wide process to enable the building of a sustainable structure at national, regional, city, town and village levels through which all relevant stakeholders co-operate in systematically building peace and preventing violent conflict.
This concept is critical for sustaining peace because it focuses on building capacities and structures within countries and regions that are at risk of conflict, as opposed to relying on external interventions. John Paul Lederach, respected scholar and practitioner, introduced the concept in 1997:
“I believe that the nature and characteristics of contemporary conflict suggest the need for a set of concepts and approaches that go beyond traditional statist diplomacy. Building peace in today’s conflicts calls for long-term commitment to establishing an infrastructure across the levels of society, an infrastructure that empowers the resources of reconciliation from within that society.”
