What makes a peace organization sustainable?
As noted in my previous post, during the coming weeks I will be travelling in the Balkans focusing on civil society development from an organization development perspective. I will be looking at peace and human rights organizations, that have grown from an initiative into a mature and sustainable organization.
The issue has been on my mind for a long time. In recent years there have been several studies over the impact of civil society development initiatives and support programmes. Here are some examples:
- The upcoming publication evaluation of the civil peace service programme carried out for the German federal ministry for economic cooperation (link as soon as published)
- The Hivos Vision Paper on Civil society building
- Thania Paffenholz, Civil Society and Peace building
- Martina Fischer, Civil Society in Conflict Transformation: Ambivalence, Potentials and Challenges
- The evaluation of the EU CARDS programme, carried out in 2006.
But I still think there is still space for an independent view, especially when focused on the perspective from the local organizations involved. For now, I will address the question in the title by starting from a Balkan perspective. My contacts in Belgrade, Mitrovica, Prishtina and Prizren have been developing over the last 15 years, both professionally and privately. And besides research, I’m really looking forward to meet some of my old friends and colleagues from the scene.
Here’s a first list of the issues I want to take a closer look at:
General challenges
- What problems and challenges were faced in becoming sustainable?
- What has been done to overcome these challenges?
- What own resources were used in that process?
Donor and other support
- What kind of outside support was used over the years?
- What turned out to be helpful?
- And what was contra-productive?
The organization’s context
- What changes in the organization’s context played an important role?
- What structures/culture in society were supportive?
- What was less helpful?
Internal changes
- To what extent did products and services change over the years?
- To what extent did structure, people and functions change over the years?
- To what extent did identity and strategy change over the years?
- What role did donor organizations play in these changes?
Feel free to look at my approach and comment. I will incorporate your thoughts into the conversations and interviews. Any suggestions for additional focal points?
Note: For insiders in the Balkan peacebuilding scene, it will be more or less clear what organizations I want to look at. Nevertheless I will only publish my findings in a general way. I will not focus or comment on specific organizations, unless allowed by the organization itself.
