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Book Review: Can Relationships Influence Peace?

By
Angelika Rettberg
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Portrait of Standing Men With Sport Equipment, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, photo by Harold Granados via Pexels.

The editors of Relational peace practices (Anna Jarstad, Johanna Söderstrom, and Malin Åkebo, 2023) have developed a new approach to defining opportunities for peace. The book, a collection of in-depth case studies by several academics, focuses on peace within social dyads, groups of two people have a relationship to one another.

Relational peace, the editors write, entails “behavioral interaction that can be characterized as deliberation, non-domination, and cooperation between the actors in the dyad” (Söderstrom et.al. 2021). Each of the chapters provide rich depictions of the lived experience of people in countries experiencing conflict such as Cyprus, Colombia, Russia, Cambodia, South Africa, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.

The point of the book is to apply this conceptual framework to cases across the world, thereby illustrating specific components of these dyads, as well as the different forms they can take. Examples include dyads between elites, ethnic groups, civilian and military actors, and artistic groups.

The book shows how these dyads may have a demonstration effect over the rest of society, creating pressure towards peaceful relations. In this way, the chapters included in the book introduce much needed nuance and an understanding of process into our knowledge about how societies become peaceful (or, in contrast, relapse into violence). 

This is useful to manage expectations: In order to produce incremental advances towards peace, specific dyads—not necessarily the whole of society, and not even a majority—can contribute to building the kinds of relationships that will prevent new bouts of violence. This represents a clear departure from the positive/negative peace dichotomy and illustrates the importance of agency over structure. The book accomplishes its goals by underscoring the practical implications of the relational peace approach for research and methodology choices, as well as for the formulation of public policy. 

While the focus on relations between groups is fruitful, the analysis leaves open several questions the reader or the researchers may want to address. One refers to the larger context in which dyads develop relations, and the centrality of each dyad to building sustainable peace. In this regard, the book does not provide an in-depth exploration of which kinds of dyads are more strategic or central to the overarching goal of achieving sustainable peace. A crucial missing ingredient is therefore the old question of power and influence: not any dyad will produce a wide-ranging effect, some dyads may prove to be more consequential and more impactful than others, and should therefore be the target of policy intervention and promotion. 

An additional question relates to the emergence of non-obvious, even surprising dyads, such as between victims and perpetrators. When the harmed and the causers of harm come together and develop constructive relations, they may form unexpected alliances to move forward the peace. The chapters by Manuela Nilsson on Colombia and by Niklas Eklund on Russia point in this direction. What are the conditions for these unusual dyads to develop and consolidate and what effect do they have on the larger society?

A third question relates to how many non-peaceful dyads a society can endure until peace breaks down. What do we know about resilience resulting from the “right” mix of dyads and component actors or, in contrast, about the vulnerabilities arising from negative dyads which will propel societies back into violence?

A final question is about the complex system dyads operate in. As covered, for example, by the chapter by Isabel Bramsen on the role of actors external to the dyad, there is by now a vast literature on the negative or constructive role of third parties in conflict, peacebuilding, and transitional justice. What can be said about the efforts to promote dyads via the facilitation or enabling role of external actors and organizations? Under what conditions are they and aren’t they be effective?

The book and the framework provide rich stimulus to address these questions. Readers will find a highly stimulating set of case studies, all tied together nicely with dense introductory and concluding remarks.

Keywords: relational peace, book review, dyads, social dyads, peace relations, conflict zones, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, relationships

Implementing Peace Education in Latin America and the Caribbean

By
Tara Abhasakun
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Boy In plaid button ip shirt smiling with backpack in Haiti, photo by Zachary Vessels via Pexels.

Many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are struggling with ongoing armed conflicts, or recovering from past conflicts. Haiti is grappling with gangs controlling 90% of neighborhoods in the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince. In Colombia, despite the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the government and the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), violence continues to this day involving FARC dissidents and other armed groups. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war (1960–1996) left over 200,000 people dead or missing, many of them Indigenous civilians, and the country continues to struggle with inequality and gang violence. 

From November 12 to 14, a group of experts debated proposals and actions for implementing peace education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education of the Dominican Republic, organized the Regional Meeting on the Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development. The meeting was held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and attendees included representatives from ministries of education, teachers, researchers, and civil society organizations.

The proposals and actions debated are meant to improve educational policies and practices in line with the UNESCO recommendation. The recommendation, adopted in 2023, defines what needs to evolve in education in order to achieve the goals of building more peaceful and just societies. This entails addressing inequalities, as well as the rise in discrimination, hate speech, violence, and conflict. 

Participants discussed the need to integrate topics such as environmental education, civic ethics, and the arts into curricula. UNESCO member states shared several peace education projects including: programs against racism and hate speech, school coexistence plans based on a culture of peace, curricula integrating global citizenship and sustainable development, and strategies for the ethical use of technology and artificial intelligence.

They also discussed the need for curricula integrating different areas of study including environmental education, civic ethics, and the arts. The meeting launched innovative approaches including a board game teaching Afro-Caribbean history, an ‘Education in Colors’ methodology which aims to apply actions inspired by the recommendation, and a teacher’s manual on preventing hate speech. These innovations intend to support countries in the process of implementing UNESCO’s recommendation.

In relation to tackling racism, voices from Brazil’s Paulo Freire Institute stressed South-South dialogue between Latin America and Africa. Meanwhile, UNESCO introduced resources on integrating African history into education systems. 

Participants also noted the important role of a territorial approach to peace involving local actors and knowledge. 

Ancell Scheker, Vice Minister of Education of the Dominican Republic, stressed that education “cannot remain neutral in the face of today’s challenges; it must be a conscious act of building citizenship and peace,” as quoted in a report by UNESCO.

Anne Lemaistre, the director of UNESCO’s Regional Office in Havana, described the meeting as “a starting point for a roadmap, what we are creating is a community of practice where UNESCO Member States can support each other in an ongoing conversation.”

Still, there are obstacles to making peace education effective in Latin America and the caribbean. In October 2025, Peace News Network (PNN) published an article by Gabriel Velez on what Colombian youth made of the country’s peace education curriculum. In 2016 and 2017, Velez interviewed hundreds of youth aged 15 to 18, seeking to understand how they felt about the peace education they were receiving, and their role in peacebuilding.

Velez found that many youth from lower resourced communities rejected the idea that they could contribute to national peace, often pointing towards its distance from their everyday lives. Some discussed the challenges even in the their schools, discussing gangs and drugs as motivators of violence that they could not address. 

Velez noted that a decade after the peace agreement, broader peace efforts have all but collapsed, and there had been targeting killings of human rights and peace activists, and remobilization of armed combatants. The energy of peace education and youth, he said, had faded noticeably. 

“We can give young people ‘tools’ but we also have to work with them on seeing these tools as able to be implemented and able to create change. There must be interactive possibilities, openness to structural hurdles, and recognition of their own experiences,” Velez wrote.

Keywords: Education, peace education, Latin America, Caribbean, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, conflict, conflict resolution

This Week in Peace #109: December 5

By
Tara Abhasakun
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Caracas, Venezuela, photo via

This week, a pending reparations loan for Ukraine. Pope Leo calls for “another way” to handle situation in Venezuela. New peace agreement between DRC and Rwanda.

A Pending Reparations Loan for Ukraine

The European Commission is discussing providing Ukraine a ‘reparations loan’ with frozen Russian assets. However, in a concession to Belgium’s concerns over the loan, the EU executive proposed an EU loan based on common borrowing as another option.

On December 3, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the two proposals would ensure that “Ukraine has the means to defend [itself] and take forward peace negotiations from a position of strength,” as quoted by Jennifer Rankin and Shaun Walker of The Guardian. EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later in December. 

This development comes amidst ongoing US efforts to reach a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, which have yet to bear fruit. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Putin in Moscow on December 2 to discuss the US’s revised proposal. Putin aide Yury Ushakov said the meeting was “constructive” although no compromise was reached.

Pope Leo Calls for “Another Way” to Handle Situation in Venezuela

Pope Leo is calling on US president Donald Trump to find “another way” to deal with the situation in Venezuela. This development comes amidst tensions between the US and Venezuela over Trump’s accusations of Maduro running a “narcoterrorist” cartel flooding the United States with drug, and threats to expand the US’s military actions in the country. In recent months, the US has carried out airstrikes on boats traveling from Venezuela which Trump accused of carrying drugs.

On a plane returning to Rome from Beirut on December 2, Pope Leo told reporters, “I truly believe that it is better to look for ways of dialogue, maybe pressure, including economic pressure, but looking another way to change, if that is what they want to do in the United States,” as quoted by Christopher Lamb of CNN.

New Peace Agreement Between DRC and Rwanda

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed a new peace agreement on December 4 at the White House. The deal is meant to advance the United States-brokered peace deal reached in June. 

US President Donald Trump said he was confident in both country’s leaders, adding, “We’ll keep these commitments. I know they’re going to keep them and follow through on the agreement and create a much brighter future for the people of their countries,” as quoted by Emery Makumeno, Samba Cyuzuzo, and Bernd Debusmann Jr. of BBC.

Eastern DRC has for decades suffered from fighting between M23 rebels and the DRC government. The government has repeatedly said that any agreement depends on Rwanda ending its support for M23, although Rwanda denies backing the group.

Tina Salama, a spokesperson for DRC president Felix Tshisekedi, told The Associated Press on November 29 that any peace agreement must exclude “any mixing or integration of M23 fighters.”

Despite peace efforts between Rwanda and DRC, violence against civilians has continued in DRC. On November 16, M23 rebels and the DRC government signed a framework for peace in the country’s eastern region. 

Still, between November 23 and 24, members of the AFC-M23 executed 12 men between the ages of 20 and 40 under the pretext of collaborating with and/or belonging to the “Wazalendo” militia, Agenzia Fides reported.

Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, Pope Leo, Venezuela, DRC, Congo, Rwanda, peace, conflict, conflict resolution

Still No Peace Deal Reached Between Ukraine and Russia

By
Tara Abhasakun
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0
Moscow, Russia, photo by Pixabay.

A peace deal between Ukraine and Russia still has yet to be reached. US and Ukrainian officials met for talks in Florida on November 30 after US President Donald Trump’s administration last week proposed a 28-point peace plan which some European countries criticized as caving in to Russian demands for Ukraine to give up large amounts of territory, limit its military, and abandon efforts to join NATO.

The amended plan now includes 19 points, and US Secretary of State Marc Rubio said after the talks that there was still “much work to do” on the proposal, as quoted by Cassandra Vinograd in The New York Times. Rubio and Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation after the resignation of former chief of staff Andriy Yermak, both described the talks as productive, although they did not provide further details.

One potential difference between the original proposal and the revised proposal is the number of personnel allowed in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The original proposal capped this number at 600,000. While the new proposal is not publicly available, reports say a potential part of the revised proposal is capping this number at 800,000. The original proposal would require Ukraine to hand over the remaining land it controls in Donetsk and Luhansk. Reports say that a potential part of the revised proposal is requiring Ukraine to commit to not recovering occupied sovereign territory through military means, but through negotiations. The original proposal would not allow Ukraine to join NATO, however, reports say that another potential part of the revised proposal is that Ukraine’s Nato membership will depend on the consensus of the alliance’s members.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on November 30 that he had received a preliminary report from the delegation in Florida. Zelensky stated on social media that “It is important that the talks have a constructive dynamic and that all issues were discussed openly and with a clear focus on ensuring Ukraine’s sovereignty and national interests.”

Zelensky said that after the revisions, the peace proposal “looks better,” however, The European Union (EU)’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned however that talks between Putin and Witkoff would again pile pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. 

Meanwhile, violence continues. Dan Sabbagh and Jane Clinton reported in The Guardian on November 29 that Russian attacks on Ukraine had killed six people and wounded dozens. On December 2, Al Jazeera reported that Russian attacks in Dnipro had killed four and injured 40.

Amidst the high-stakes meetings, Zelensky is seeking support from European allies. On December 1, Zelensky met with French president Emmanuel Macron, who stressed Europe’s commitment to supporting Ukraine, saying that only Ukraine could decide whether to cede any territory. Zelensky said that territory is the most complicated topic, and Macron said that there was “no finalized peace plan to speak of at this time,” as quoted by Vinograd.

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, met with Putin in Moscow on December 2 to discuss the revised proposal. Putin said ahead of the meeting that Russia would continue to advance against Ukraine on the battlefield. 

Both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks, which lasted nearly five hours. However, Putin aide Yury Ushakov said the meeting was “constructive” although no compromise was reached. Ushakov noted that the idea of Ukraine territorial concessions and Russia-US economic cooperation were points of discussion in the meeting. Moscow-based NPR correspondent Charles Maynes reports that while Russia agreed to some points of the US plan, it disagreed with others.

Ukrainian troops say they doubt the proposed pact with Russia will bring lasting peace, as they believe that Russia remains determined to conquer Ukraine. 

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there have been 53,006 civilian casualties, including 14,534 deaths, according to the UN. The UN notes that frontline communities remain the most at risk, particularly in the Kherson, Kharkiv, and Donetsk regions, accounting for 65 percent of deaths and injuries.

Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, war, conflict, conflict resolution, peace, peace deal, proposal, 28-point proposal, Putin, Zelensky, US

Leaders Speak Out for Gender Justice in Peacebuilding in Somalia

By
Tara Abhasakun
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0
Celebration with Somalia National Flag at Night, Mogadishu, Banaadir, Somalia, photo by Ibrahim Sakhawi.

Since the fall of former president Siad Barre in 1991, various armed groups have fought for power in Somalia. Meanwhile, the country is further challenged by weak government authority. Roughly 60% of Somalis live below the poverty line, making Somalia the second poorest country in the world, according to the World Bank in October 2025.

Somali and international leaders have recently spoken out in support of gender justice as a part of building peace in Somalia. On November 23, 2025, UNDP Somalia Resident Representative Lionel Laurens delivered remarks at the opening of Somalia’s first Annual Justice Sector Conference in Mogadishu. Laurens said, “Advancing gender justice and ensuring equal access to legal aid and protection are not only moral imperatives but also essential for sustainable peace and development.” 

Laurens stressed the need to expand justice, particularly for women, children, internally displaced people, and marginalized groups, “so that no one is left behind.”

On October 31, 2025, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre met with women leaders from civil society, leadership forums, and the security forces, and affirmed their crucial role in Somalia’s future and survival. PM Barre said, “lasting statehood and sustainable peace cannot be achieved unless women are given a visible, decision-making role,” as quoted by Abdiqani Abdullahi of the Somali National News Agency (SONNA).

Somali women are speaking out in support of freedom in the face of terrorism through the use of community forums, radio, and powerful networks, according to Abdullahi. They are often the main mediators in their communities resolving conflicts such as land disputes. In many areas of the country, Somali women have formed neighborhood watch groups, and have come up with new ways of reporting suspicious activity to police, helping to sharply increase safety. 

A key element of the work Somali women do to build peace is rehabilitating youth and defectors from militant groups such as Al-Shabaab. Women provide counseling, therapy, and opportunities to engage in sports, giving young men leaving these groups a “second chance.” They also work with business communities to help these men find jobs.

Somali women have particularly made gains in peacebuilding in the past few years. An August 2025 report for UNDP by Madina Ahmed Nur, the Director General of the Ministry of Women, Family Affairs and Human Rights Development, states that just a few years ago, women had “little access to formal decision-making spaces. They were the first to respond when communities were displaced or when local disputes erupted, yet their voices were absent in the rooms where real power was exercised.”

In 2022, The Somali government, along with UNDP, UN Women, and UNTMIS, launched the Women, Peace and Protection (WPP) Programme. The program aims to localize the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in Somalia’s Southwest State. One of the program’s biggest achievements is the adoption of the Local Action Plan for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. The plan was a declaration that women would be at the heart of peace and security. 

Polls show that much of Somali society is now supportive of women’s involvement in politics and public life, Abdullahi reports. Surveys show that 80 percent of the public believes women have a right to participate in the administration of their country. Meanwhile, 74% of Somalis support legislating the 30% parliamentary quota for women to make it a constitutional reality. 

According to polls, 58% of Somalis believe women politicians represent the interests of the Society, while viewing male politicians as more likely to represent their personal (22%) or clan (20%) interests.

In the past, Peace News Network (PNN) has written about UNDP’s efforts to include women and youth in peacebuilding in Somalia. In September 2025, we published an article on the UNDP and a South Korean agency’s work on the program Peacebuilding and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) in East Africa. A key leader of the program, Wankyu Park, said that communities, youth and women leaders, and government institutions in Somalia are engaging in peace dialogues, while six local action plans on preventing violent extremism have been developed.

Park said, “Importantly, women will be engaged as active leaders in peacebuilding, reflecting their unique role in reconciliation.”

Keywords: Somalia, Somali, women, women peace and security, WPS, terrorism, extremism, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, Mogadishu, UNDP

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