Development and Peacebuilding

We aim to connect with organizations, researchers, and students interested in ensuring development programmes are separate from political agendas. We believe the absorption of development agencies into departments of foreign affairs redirects aid from the poorest of the poor to the strategic and commercial interests of the donors. Our focus is on maintaining the integrity of aid and ensuring it reaches those who need it most.

Official Development Assistance (ODA) has specific eligibility criteria focused on social and economic development. It does not include political, military or police action, or anything to do with nuclear activities. Years of development gains can be wiped out by violent conflict, but there were few options for development agencies to engage. In a milestone moment in 1997, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) provided new guidelines which recognised that violent conflict was a major impediment to socio-economic development, and that ODA could be used for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. "Helping strengthen the capacity of a society to manage conflict without violence must be seen as a foundation for sustainable development."  This new policy opened up the doors for development agencies to work on the root causes of conflict and use their longer-term staying power in communities to make sustainable change.