UNICEF SUDAN
PEACE BUILDING INITIATIVE
Case study
Summer Program on Advances in Social Norms and social changes University of Pennsilvania.
5-16 July 2010
Valentina Rios
Introduction
UNICEF started the development of an advocacy initiative for peace building in
December 2009. UNICEF’s Country Office in Sudan maintains its work to deliver
goods but also wants to deliver thinking on the issue of peace building to have
better opportunities in making sustainable change on improvement for children’s and
women’s conditions.
The overarching goal of the 2009-2012 United Nations Development Assistance
Framework (UNDAF) in Sudan is peace building, with a focus on ensuring that right
holders who have paid the price of war could be empowered to claim their right to
enjoy gains from sustainable peace. UNICEF is committed and indeed has taken
decisive steps to invest substantial efforts to contribute to this important agenda.
Background
The political landscape in Sudan has always been complex and challenging. Since
independence in the 1950s there have been two major civil wars between the north
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and south that spanned five decades, a rebel uprising in the east of the country,
there’s also the on-going conflict in Darfur which is now in its seventh year. In
addition, there is a history of conflict between Sudan’s many ethnic groups.
Against this backdrop Sudan started 2010 with many critical challenges and
obstacles ahead. In April, the country went through its first general election in 20
years. This vote was supposed to pave the way for a referendum next January,
which can see Southern Sudan vote to secede from the north. Both these events
have had the potential to trigger renewed conflict between the north and south.
As the political parties battle to keep on track the implementation of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA (North and South Sudan, 2005), the Darfur
Peace Agreement (2005) and East Sudan Peace Agreement (2006), there is a
general sense amongst the population – particularly in the south and the Three
Areas – that the much-promoted peace dividends have not materialized.
It is clear across Sudan that there is an undercurrent of instability that threatens
long-term prospects. Failure to bolster the peace process could leave a worse
alternative for the people of Sudan – isolation from the international community,
tougher foreign policy approaches by current friends, loss of dividends that have
been generated since 2005, deeper divisions within society, further marginalisation
of those already living on the edges.
UNICEF Peace Initiative
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The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2009-2012 is the
lead agency for the 2009-2012 UNDAF outcomes for peace building, the goal of
which is to ensure that by 2012, the environment for sustainable peace in Sudan is
improved through increased respect for rights and human security, with special
attention to individuals and communities directly affected by conflict. Specific results
to be achieved include:
(a) Sudanese society and Government have enhanced capacity to use conflict
mitigating mechanisms.
(b) Individuals and communities in conflict affected areas face significantly
reduced threats to social and physical security from mines and small arms
(c) Sustainable solutions for war-affected groups are supported by national, subnational and local authorities and institutions with active participation of
communities.
Current pressures in Sudan including, political, civil, environmental, and economic
situations clearly indicate that peace and stability in Sudan are essential if UN, in
general and UNICEF in particular, is to achieve its country programme objectives. As
a counter-point, and to help ensure the successful implementation of its
programmes, UNICEF, in close collaboration with UN sister agencies and United
Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and United Nations African Union Mission in
Darfur (UNAMID), is proposing a multi-pronged strategy that includes national peace
initiative with a broad-based partnerships and mainstreaming of conflict prevention
and peace building in its sectoral and cross-sectoral programmes.
Over-arching goals
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Promote positive messages about peace and conflict-resolution, with the aim to get a
critical mass of Sudanese people to reflect seriously on the price of war and gains of
peace and as a result choose to demand peace and non-violent resolution of conflict.
Objectives
1.1.
Raise awareness of the Sudanese people in North and Southern Sudan to
actively support and demand prevention of violence and the peaceful
resolution of conflict from their leaders.
1.2.
Empower different stakeholders including-, youth organizations, religious
groups, school children and civil society organizations to demand peace
from their leaders and make their voices heard on issues relevant to peace
consolidation and prevention of violent conflict
Expected Results
a) By the end of 2011, 50 per cent of North and Southern Sudanese society
have an enhanced awareness of their need for personal engagement in
prevention of violent conflict and peaceful resolution of differences and conflict
at all levels, leading to a noticeable decrease in incidence of violence and
increase in de-escalation of existing conflicts. Indicators: 1) increase in
number of civil society organizations and actors involved in prevention of
conflicts, de-escalation/resolution of existing conflicts and engaging their
leaders and authorities on issues related to peace building and conflict
prevention, respectively. 2) reduction in violence as documented through
media reports of violence; and reported through UN safety reports
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b) All UNICEF-assisted programmes have mainstreamed peace building and
conflict prevention, reaching estimated 15 million households/persons.
Indicator: Number of households/persons reached with peace building and
conflict prevention messages by each of the seven programme sections,
North and South, respectively.
Social dynamics of violent behaviour in Sudan
After more than 30 years of armed conflict young Sudanese have grown up within a
culture of war, where violence is the main way of solving conflict at the individual and
collective levels. To better understand the social dynamics among the Sudanese we
believe that we should study the social norms theory.
Social norms are understood as the customary rules that govern behaviour in groups
and societies. They are seen as central to the production of social order or social
coordination. A system of norms specifies what is acceptable and what is not in a
society or group. Many social norms are the unplanned outcome of human
interaction. The main variables affecting behaviour are the individual’s belief about
what “society” says he should do and what other people actually do. Only those
normative beliefs that people perceive to be collectively shared and put into practice
seem to matter to behaviour, as established by the Social Norms Theory, there is a
correlation between people’s choices and what they think other people believe ought
to be done (Normative expectations) and what they expect others in the same
situation to do (empirical expectations) (Bicchieri and Muldoon, 2010).
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Sudanese groups seem to be characterized by distinctive features such as perceived
similarity between group members, in their cohesiveness, their shared attitudes and
beliefs and strong conformity to group norms but the diversity of the inhabitants of
Sudan in religion, language and ethnic community raises the problem of how these
different groups can be in agreement in the political, economic and cultural life of the
whole country.
Their social identity is built around group characteristics and behavioural standards;
hence any perceived lack of conformity to their group norms is seen as a threat to
the legitimacy of the group, ethnic diversity, religious differences, and geographical
and cultural differences.
Reviewing the situation in Sudan we can infer that there are some normative
expectations among Sudanese related to the violent behaviour:
•
Sudanese people see that most people use violence to resolve conflict and
that it is the only way to obtain the individual/group benefit.
This leads us to think that in Sudan there is a social dilemma in which there is a
situation that violence is the way of solving conflict, in which groups dominate others
by the use of violence (armed groups/government law; spouses on each other;
spouses on a child; among community leaders; teachers on students, etc). There is
a tension that suits the stronger groups to dominate the more vulnerable ones that
do not act in a violent manner. The social norms make people continue the violence
although legal sanctions are in total contradiction with them. The prevalent situation
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is that in which ones and others are violent and try to maintain dominance to get their
own benefit.
As we see in Figure 1 the social dilemma diagram we found that the best choice for
the individual is to be defective and behave with violence while the other is non
violent. That gives him total power above the other who is in the worst possible
situation. The second best position for the individual is to be in a non violent situation
with the other as an all-win situation. The third choice is to be violent with the other in
a situation in which both are violent. Of course the worst position to be in is that in
which the individual chooses to be non violent and the other to be violent. Legal
sanctions are there but are not being useful. And the norm is that violence gives a
better dominant situation that allows them to solve their conflicts.
Figure 1. Shows the Social Dilemma in the real situation of Sudan, where legal sanctions and social
norms are in total contradiction. B: best; S: Second; T: Third; W: worst.
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The ideal situation would be to have a different relation for each party where legal
sanctions and social sanctions make a change in people’s expectations. In figure 2
we can see the ideal situation which would be that the Best for the collective is a non
violent way of being, or that any group has the same level of power but where the
instability caused by a dominant group, with complete power, is not longer there. To
see this change to an ideal situation social norms have to be consistent to legal
sanctions.
Figure 2. Ideal situation. To have collective benefit without the use of violence. Through the defense
of human rights.
Sources of conflict in Sudan.
Peace building is the practice of identifying the conditions that can lead to a
sustainable peace between those who have previously been adversaries, and
assisting adversaries to move towards a sustainable peace.
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For the peace initiative in Sudan it is necessary to identify the causes that make
Sudanese people resolve conflict in a violent way, to understand the reasons why
they engage in conflictive ways. To recognize the social norms in those issues that
lead to conflict and to discover the new norms that can lead to a change in violent
behavior.
To change from behaviour of violent resolution of conflict to behaviour of peaceful
resolution of conflict the peace initiative has to work on changing the way people
deal with the potential conflict. UNICEF staff in Sudan has identified the most
common negative issues that lead to conflict. As seen in Figure 3 it is considered
that household food insecurity, drugs and alcohol abuse, as well as lack of likelihood
opportunities are issues that lead to fear and concerns on the future. Lack of
knowledge of the consequences of actions come from fear and concern about the
future which along with unresolved past conflicts and lack of access to correct
information lead to lack of awareness on the benefits of peace. It is also considered
that this group of issues leads to lack of mechanisms to resolve conflict peacefully
and thereafter lead to discrimination and to lack of basic services which again and
closing the circle, gets back to the issue of lack of livelihood opportunities and more
conflict. Lack of access to basic services is also a consequence of another group of
issues that starts at lack of public accountability issues as well as in the specific
circumstances of North and South Sudan the possible lack of understanding after the
referendum. They lead to abuse of power, Inequalities in distribution of political
power and inequity of distribution of basic services which also lead to lack of basic
services, and again to conflict.
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Figure 3. Most common issues that lead to conflict in Sudan.
This flow chart of conflict issues can be useful to set a targeted and focused strategy
in each issue. The mapping can tell us who to partner with, what issues correspond
to each area programmes and the issue for each of the activities. With this
information we can go in deep research to find out the social norms that are
influencing matters that lead to violent behaviour. The social norms or practices that
lead to conflict may be found in the following issues: Discrimination, lack of skills and
mechanisms to resolve conflict peacefully, unresolved past conflict, fear/concern of
the future, abuse of power.
A baseline study in 8 regions of the country where the Peace Initiative is going to be
developed will have the objective to validate the issues that lead to conflict (they may
vary from one region to the other), and to identify with detail the issues that are found
on social norms. Other important outcome from the baseline is that we need to
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identify what kind of expectations support those social norms that are leading to
conflict. Is there pride in violent behaviour? Or in participating in conflicts? The
network of beliefs and common values related to a violent behaviour and the ones
related to a peaceful behaviour. What people think and what they think other people
think and do. What is their interest in human rights and democracy?
Identification of the social networks in the regions where the Peace initiative is
developed, is also important, to know which are the relationships that can be more
useful for the desired change. Who are the most trusted groups, the most influencer
leaders: Are they the families, or the teachers, the civil society organizations,
women’s groups?
Also some research on laws are being ignored in each region is necessary in order
to work on the ways of making people change their view on them and to make a
change to start respecting them. Identifying the gap between law, morality and
culture, a lack of consistency that is expressed as violence
The Peace Initiative change model
The objective of the peace initiative should be the change to collective empirical
expectations that will lead to shared benefit in which the best for all is to be non
violent, to resolve conflict in a peaceful manner.
The main theoretical underpinning of the Sudan Peace Initiative is the change of
collective expectations from social norms that are related to violence at different
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levels, especially on the scripts related to those norms and to work on the procedural
justice to make Sudanese people participating in decision making process.
The social dynamics of the change process will lead to an abandonment of the
attitudes that lead to potential conflict. It will be developed in the following steps:
1. Vision of the community (Gillespie and Melching, 2010): helping the
community to identify their vision and their conflict issues. This part of the
process should take into account the own communities’ traditional methods
for the sessions.
2. Social networks identification and Alliances with the most trusted and
respected influencers to start working with them since the beginning of the
process, and helping the community to create new networks if necessary to
share new information, gain support and consensus, and make decisions.
(Muldoon, 2010)
3. Reflection, discussion (Mackie, 2009):
with a focus on human rights and
democracy, the process will help to raise the community awareness on the
price of war and the gains of peace, but most important, it will try to help them
think about how they can contribute on the abandonment of the violent
behavior. Try to use their traditional ways of communication as theater, role
play, song, dance, poetry, illustrations. (Tostan, 2007)
4. Common knowledge, alternative behaviors and reasons to contribute.
Dialogues and deliberations involving all sectors of the community, about
violence and other issues that leads to conflict, engaging to international
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human rights and local community traditions and values. To make use of the
concept employed in Bogota, “life is sacred” and “construction” (to respond to
conflict not with more destruction but with work and productivity), as part of a
foundation of coherent messages and methods of persuasion about the
advantages and disadvantages of abandonment violent behavior. Make the
people in the communities understand each other and realize their common
desire to change leveraging trust and correcting mistrust. (Mercier, 2010).
Overcoming self-enforcing beliefs with holistic and positive content in the
messages. (Mackie, 2009)
5. Decision and taking action: It is important for the community to understand
the importance of making an effort to build peace in their communities working
on their main conflict issues, to develop non violent mechanisms for solving
conflict and empowering youth to demand peaceful resolution of conflict from
their leaders. People commit to change and want to start implementing the
change using deliberation for problem solving. (Mercier, 2010)
6. Incentives and punishments (Erte, 2010) Giving external incentives as
symbolic rewards for the active participants on peace building, the ones that
take action for the collective benefit. Helping the community members to gain
pride for trying to solve conflicts through peaceful means and from demanding
their leaders for peaceful resolution of conflict. Communicate the benefits of
the actions taken. Use shame as a form of punishment for the practice of
violent behavior. Bring attention to procedural justice and empowering people
to demand from their leaders access for participation in the decision-making
process, helping them to have their views of non violence considered by the
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authorities. Asking for change in the local governments and organizations to
not discriminate and abuse their powers in order to increase punishments
ability to communicate norms.
7. Collective commitment with public affirmation for peace, specifically for
different social norms and scripts related to conflict issues. (Mackie)
8. The collective choice of Corresponsability and citizenship, to build an
environment that enables and support change. Rights and duties are for all.
People take responsibility for their individual and collective security by
cooperation with other citizens and the state. That means commitment of
government and organized armed groups, civil society and media. From the
“civil resistance initiative” of Colombia we understand that it is crucial to make
an effort in understanding what violence is in each community and especially,
what is the opposite of violence and what can counteract it. To develop the
concept of “civic respect” seeing the other as similar to oneself in his
relationship to the three regulations -law, moral and culture-, believing that
oneself, like others, can understand in the main willingly. (Mokus, 2002)
9. Organized diffusion. In alliances with the critical mass and tipping point of the
social networks in each community for organized diffusion that ensures the
decision of non violent behavior within the community and with neighboring
communities. (Mackie, 2009)
The activities that support the strategy and model of change of the peace
initiative:
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i.
Advocacy through mass media campaign: This will include development
and use of slogans, including TV and community radio programs and
coverage of activities and newspaper feature articles. Using comparisons in a
first series of videos for raise awareness about the price of war and the gains
of peace and the concept of individual alternative to make a choice. Posters to
be distributed in schools, health centres, religious centres and leaflets to
every household. The material must have credible information and come from
trusted sources.
ii.
Artistic Outreach:
massive events in every main locality part of the
interventions, based on leveraging the Sudanese concept of naiesh sawa
sawa (we live together), which is widely held throughout Sudan. Starting with
a football match in the morning, following with songs and dance with the
participation of a national famous musical group with peace lyrics. A drawings
exhibition done by youth in their meetings speeches by youth peace
ambassadors and a public pledge and commitment to work on specific peace
building activities with clear goals and objectives that lead to change the way
they deal with potential conflict.
iii.
Peace Ambassadors: this will include core schools’ programme to reach
15,000 school children in 300 schools using club-style outreach activities and
non-school channels through existing youth-oriented groups, such as the Boy
Scouts and religious youth groups, as well with community youth (e.g., cattle
herders, football clubs, Girls Education Movement) and use of Child TV
Journalists. Also for adults in every locality as peace promoters for the
community and the youth.
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iv.
Regional
and
Global
Goodwill
Ambassadors:
This
will
include
endorsement of influential people getting the positive peace building message
as
they
participate
in
UNICEF-supported
programmes,
like
Polio
campaigns/breastfeeding promotion week and to recognition of young Peace
Ambassadors and adult peace promoters.
v.
Mainstreaming of Peace building in UNICEF assisted programmes:
Standardized peace building messaged is being incorporated in UNICEFsupported programme training and other events.
vi.
Capacity building: The strategy is designed to enable and encourage people
to think constructively about issues, and to develop constructive attitudes
towards living together and solving problems that arise in their communities
through peaceful means. It requires the development of training modules for
communities, for peace ambassadors and teachers, for UNICEF’s sectoral
programmes. The programme allows the learners to practise new skills and
helps them discover the benefits for themselves so that they psychologically
‘own’ the skills and behaviours.
vii.
Broad-based partnerships: It is expected that the UN Country Team, led by
the Resident Coordinator, will put the weight of their collective voice behind
the campaign. Partnership with NGOs, Civil Society Groups and Faith-based
organizations will be capitalized on. Sudanese Youth organization will have a
major stake in the campaign and not the least, Government of Sudan and
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Government of South Sudan, will participate and would like to been seen by
their constituencies to be promoting peace and not war.
Figure 4. Peace initiative Change Model
Activities
Mass Media
Campaign and
artistic outreach
Outcomes
Alliances with
youth
organizations,
NGOs and civil
society
Young Peace
Ambassador
& Goodwill
Ambassadors
Increased peace
awareness among
youth
Capacity
Building
Mainstreaming
Peace in
UNICEF CP,
and alliances
UNDAF
partnerships
Youth are empowered to
demand peace
Increased number of leaders, civil society organizations, NGOs, and other actors in
conflict prevention and resolution and overall peace consolidation
Impact
Sustained peace and reduced incidence of violence
Monitoring and Evaluation Framework:
An efficient M&E system should be articulated around the theory of change of the
advocacy initiative right from the planning stage. It must comprise different
measurement approaches and processes that aim at collecting reliable information
at different levels of the result chain of the logic model (activities/inputs, outcomes,
and impact). The M&E system should also document how the initiative goes and
provide real-time information on processes in order to help make adjustments where
necessary.
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The M&E system is structured around four sub-systems:
1. The Sentinel Focus Groups. Sudan Peace Initiative is aimed at delivering
thinking instead of material goods. The goal of the initiative is ideational
change that empowers individuals and communities to shift from violence as a
norm to peace through transformed leaders and civil society organizations.
Focus groups are the best way to capture whether such changes are
occurring or not. It is important that focus groups in the baseline study and in
the following monitoring process search into what people think and what they
think other people think and do.
2. Longitudinal Random Sample Surveys will collect quantitative indicators on
various issues that will need to be discussed and agreed upon while
developing the questionnaire.
3. Unicef Program Review
4. Governance meetings
a) The component of the Peace Initiative mainstreamed in the sectoral
programme will be monitored based on the parameters of the Results
Framework/M & E Framework for each sectoral programme.
b) Additionally, 8 Sentinel Focus Groups (SFG), [4 in the North and 4 in the
South] to be managed by one Facilitator each will be established. Four sites,
in the North and South, respectively, will be selected randomly; each facilitator
will hold one FGD before the initiative starts, 2 during the initiative and 1 after
the campaign. Four questions discussed during the SFG sessions will be the
same across all the sessions, and the 8 facilitators will receive the same
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training, data collection/reporting tools. The questions will be designed in such
a way that they will gauge the objectives/outcomes of the campaigns.
c) The Campaign players will also hold regular meetings and reflect on issues
defined in advance of the campaign.
Risks and Responses:
A public initiative of this nature will face risks related to message formulation, slow or
no partner or audience participation, acts of violence, politicization, and funding and
logistics challenges. These risks threaten the success of the peace initiative but
more importantly the reputation and programmatic activities of UNICEF.
These risks and others must be addressed in the planning and implementation
stage. They include:
Expectations built by the initiative are unmet.
Response: refrain from making unreasonable promises through developed
guidelines for participants and ensure the initiative is ‘multi-platformed’ and is
‘owned’ by many partners (e.g., sister UN agencies, NGOs)
Partners are slow to participate
Response: seek ‘leader’ partners to encourage others to join initiative and assess
and act on opportunities offered for partner participation and revise where
barriers or deficiencies are identified
Initiative messages and activities fail to resonate or backfire with intended target
audiences
- Response: ensure participatory and evidence-informed approaches utilized in
initiative formation and implementation and avoid a committee-style and watered-
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down production which has no impact or effect on the intended audience: the
Sudanese general public
Initiative becomes politicized.
-
Response: ensure appropriate formation of initiative messages, materials, and
activities to avoid identifying with any political parties and avoid stirring
politicized responses; ensure partners understand initiative goal and
objectives, and commit to non-political approach. Avoid the initiative being
perceived as a mouthpiece of the authorities.
Survival issues divert attention from Peace Campaign
- Response: ensure appropriate formation of initiative messages, materials and
activities relating survival issues as gains of peace and price of war.
References
Gillespie D, & Melching M. (2010). The transformative power of democracy and
human rights in non formal education: the case of Tostan. Washington: Adult
Education Quarterly XX(X) I-22
Bicchieri, C. (2006) The Grammar of Society: the Nature and Dynamics of Social
Norms. New York: Cambridge University Press
Bicchieri, C & Muldoon, R. (2010) Social Norms. University of Pennsilvania.
Summer program on Advances in social norms and social changes
Mackie, G. (2009). Lessons learned from comparison of FGM/C Abandonment
programs in five countries. Innocenti Research Centre, UNICEF.
Mercier, H. (2010). How to change people’s mind? Insights from psychology.
University of Pennsilvania. Summer program on Advances in social norms and
social changes.
Mokus, A. (2002). Education for learning to live together. Coexistence as
harmonization of law, morality and culture. Prospects, vol. XXXII.
Mokus, A. (2010). Bogota’s capacity for self-transformation & Citizenship
building. University of Pennsilvania. Summer program on Advances in social
norms and social changes
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Muldoon, R. (2010). Social network analysis. University of Pennsilvania. Summer
program on Advances in social norms and social changes.
Xiao, E. (2010) Incentives and Social Norms. University of Pennsilvania. Summer
program on Advances in social norms and social changes.
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