peacebuilding

tacos for peace believes in the superiority of peacebuilding that is broadly inclusive – that is to say peacebuilding projects and activities which:

  1. have a working definition and vision of peace that incorporates the whole of society without exclusion

  2. actively seek the participation and benefit of as broad a section of civil society as is possible or relevant in the conflict context


this is not to say that tacos for peace seeks to ignore existing inequalities within civil society, or to turn a blind eye to the unjust distribution of power within dynamics of structural oppression – along the lines of gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, to name but a few.

rather, it is in an attempt to support the self-determination and empowerment of marginalised groups that tacos for peace makes inclusivity a central value by which it evaluates peacebuilding attempts. 

 

tacos for peace maintains a preferential option for the poor.

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tacos for peace has a preference for projects and activities which consider sustainability in their efforts to build peace.

 

that is to say we believe that good peacebuilding accounts for the long term impact of activities and seeks ultimately to build a lasting just peace that self-sustains, rather than being content with superficial and costly negative peace*

 

tacos for peace also values environmental sustainability and prefers activities which account for and seek to reduce negative environmental impact.

 

world peace only works if there’s still a world.

 

tacos for peace believes that “local people working to stop violence and build peace in their communities remain the greatest sources of untapped peacebuilding potential globally”**

 

tacos for peace thus seeks to add to the minority of peacebuilding donors who enthusiastically prioritise supporting “bottom-up” peacebuilding over and above “top-down” peacebuilding.

 

it is widely recognised that peace is most sustainable and inclusive when it is locally owned and yet the majority of international organizations involved in peace processes for the most part neglect locally led peace initiatives.

 

tacos for peace aims to play a small part in redressing this imbalance.

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*this is not to discount the value of negative peace, or to suggest that keeping peace at great expense is not sometimes a necessary step towards positive peace. tacos for peace supports peacebuilding that aims for the latter.

 

**Peace Direct Local peacebuilding: What works and why

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