24 October 2025 Sara Torrelles Vives
Reflections from Peace Connect 2025
Last week, peacebuilders, activists, and international partners gathered in Nairobi for Peace Connect 2025 — for me, this was a moment to rethink what peacebuilding truly means in an era defined by collapsing global norms, deepening conflicts, and increasingly monopolised narratives about what peace and justice should look like. It was also an opportunity to connect, embrace friends and colleagues that I admire – and remind ourselves of our collective strength.
The first day of the conference was particularly inspiring and set the tone for the rest of the week. Degan Ali, CEO at Adeso, spoke about the genocide in Gaza, and reminded people that it is “a continuation of a colonial project”. She reflects on her session here, and the main take-away for me is that ‘if we are truly committed to peace, we must be committed to honesty. And that means confronting the global hierarchy of empathy that defines who gets rescued and who gets erased.’
We know that the colonial foundations of Western-led peacebuilding are being profoundly challenged. The frameworks and institutions that once defined how peacebuilding “should” happen – from international advocacy to human rights mechanisms – are being questioned for their relevance, legitimacy, and connection to peoples’ lived realities.
That the colonial foundations of peacebuilding continue to shape global responses to conflict was a thread throughout the week. What was clear from the discussions is that international systems that once claimed legitimacy are increasingly viewed as disconnected, prescriptive, top-down, and resistant to change. Reflecting on the gathering in Nairobi, reaffirms that genuine transformation begins with recognising the power and agency of those most affected by conflict. We know that peace cannot be built from the outside in. Real transformation happens when people and communities have the power to shape their own futures.
Grounded perspectives from Myanmar, Somalia, and Sudan
We had the privilege of facilitating a discussion space where we explored the idea of building a collective vision for peace, rooted in solidarity and resistance. Our discussion drew on experiences working in Myanmar, Somalia, and Sudan – three contexts deeply shaped by histories of colonialism, conflict, and ongoing struggles for peace and justice.
Asaad Alahir, Executive Director of the Community Development for Progress Organization (CDPO) in Sudan, spoke about the repeated failure of top-down peace processes that marginalise local actors. Every major peace agreement in Sudan, he noted, has faltered because communities were excluded from decision-making and treated as beneficiaries rather than leaders. Drawing from Sudanese traditions like nafir (collective mobilisation) and faza’a (emergency solidarity), Asaad argued that the cultural foundations for peace already exist – rooted in cooperation, not conditionality. What is missing is recognition, capacity exchange, and sustained support for community-led initiatives that already serve as engines of peacebuilding.
From Myanmar, Poe Dah, General Secretary of the Burmese Women’s Union, spoke about the courage of local networks operating under military repression. “Survival itself has become an act of resistance,” she reflected. In a context where visibility invites risk, many local groups now rely on informal, trust-based networks that respond rapidly to local needs. For her, locally-led peacebuilding means more than representation – it means action, adaptability, and the daily practice of resilience. And it demands a new model of international solidarity, one grounded in listening, trust, and flexibility rather than compliance and control.
My colleague, Ali Hersi, Saferworld’s Regional Director for Africa who oversees Saferworld’s peacebuilding work in Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda, shared his reflections on the impact of external interventions in Somalia, and reminded us that hope must prevail. He said that what gives him hope, is to share with the world the joy of walking through the streets of Mogadishu and enjoying the beauty of his country and its people.
Solidarity beyond rhetoric
There was a lot of push back against the tendency to romanticise “local ownership” while maintaining donor-driven systems that undermine it. For example, in Sudan, Saferworld’s collaboration with local actors has shown what more equitable partnerships can look like.
For the past four years, led by our Sudanese partners, we have used the rushash approach.
Rushash is a Sudanese Arabic word meaning “the gentle sprinkling of water or light rain that nourishes germinating seedlings”. It reflects the belief that ideas and initiatives already exist within communities, and that the role of project inputs is to nurture and help them grow. The Rushash approach defines how Saferworld engages with our partners and informal groups in Sudan. Rather than introducing externally-driven interventions, we identify organisations and groups that have an established constituency, a clear agenda, and are already implementing initiatives.
Another example emerged after the war erupted in Sudan in April 2023, when communities organised Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), self-managed structures that deliver aid, mediate tensions, and sustain social cohesion in the absence of formal institutions. Their success rests not on external funding or recognition, but on horizontal accountability to neighbours, elders, and peers. This kind of legitimacy cannot be imported; it must be nurtured through local trust. In Asaad’s words: “International actors must stop planning peacebuilding interventions from the top down and directly support the efforts of local community initiatives and local civil society that is familiar with cultural and ethnic diversity, which can be used as a force for peacebuilding rather than a driver of conflict.”
So, accountability in peacebuilding must be redefined. True accountability flows downward to communities who bear the impact of conflict, not only upward to donors and institutions. This requires long-term commitment, flexible funding, and a willingness from international actors to let go of control. As Poe Dah argued, solidarity must begin with respect for local expertise: “Communities are not passive beneficiaries, they are the main architects of peace and survival.”
Beyond aid: remembering ancestral systems of solidarity
Reflections from other sessions at Peace Connect brought up the centrality of community philanthropy, an approach that reminds us that collective care and solidarity are not new inventions. Community philanthropy is, at its heart, an ancestral and Indigenous practice rooted in collective power, relationships, and trust. Crucially, it is money that comes from the community, not to the community. Long before the establishment of colonial aid systems, people were organising, showing solidarity, and sustaining their own networks of resistance and care.
The Western-made aid model did not create generosity or cooperation; it co-opted and distorted them. What was once an organic web of mutual support has often been replaced by rigid hierarchies, competition for funding, and dependency on external validation. This was not accidental, it was systemic. While intentional or not, the current aid architecture, which is being rapidly dismantled in a way that undermines support for local organisations while giving lip service to ‘localisation’, has fragmented civil society and weakened its autonomy, ensuring continued dependence on external powers. To rethink peacebuilding, then, is also to remember what came before and to reclaim those Indigenous systems of giving, organising, and showing solidarity that have always sustained communities through crisis.
Indigenous and feminist resistance
Across the conference, Indigenous and feminist resistance emerged as vital forces shaping peace in real time. Feminist activists shared the creative, courageous tactics they use to build peace in their countries and communities, from mutual aid and care networks to truth-telling, healing, and radical imagination. The work of the Art of Freedom project particularly stood out.
These movements remind us that peace is not one-size-fits-all. As we explored in our last blog on International Peace Day: Resistance, Hope and Action, peace means different things to different people. It is contextual and local: for some, peace means access to water; for others, the end of violence; and in some contexts, peace feels unimaginable ≠ a distant future that cannot yet be seen.
That is why we must reclaim the meaning of peace from institutions that do not represent us. We must deconstruct to reconstruct on our own terms. One of the common threads running through social movements is a sense of belonging and collective purpose. This decentralisation of power stands in direct contrast to colonial systems that isolate and fragment. To sustain our movements and initiatives, we must think and act in terms of collective power and shared resources. As a native Spanish speaker, I had the opportunity to spend time with peers from Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru, whose work has guided mine over the years. I look up to Latin American women activists – such as Lourdes Huanca Atencio, from FENMUCARINAP, who has been leading the way in resisting colonial and patriarchal oppression for two decades. She is spearheading a very promising collective new initiative called Acápacá.
Holding ourselves while holding the work
One of the most grounding elements of Peace Connect was the emphasis on mental health and collective care. A full ‘rest day’ was built into the programme to allow participants to pause and breathe after two intense days of connecting. Throughout the gathering, psycho-social counsellors were on hand to offer support. It was a powerful reminder that peacebuilding begins with how we hold ourselves and each other. To build peace, we must care for ourselves, individually and collectively. This practice of care is not a distraction from resistance; it is what sustains it. As Tricia Hersey, an American poet, performance artist and activist, says, “rest is a form of resistance”.
Towards collective visions of peace
Across Peace Connect, one truth resonated: peacebuilding cannot be the work of isolated actors. It must be understood as part of an ecosystem, a web of people, movements, and organisations striving for justice, solidarity, and freedom. To sustain peace and justice over time, we must embark on a collective journey that values shared vision over individual recognition, and collective strength over institutional visibility.
At Saferworld, we believe strongly in the power of collective visions of peace rooted in justice and anti-colonial practice. Our role is not to lead from the front, but to connect and facilitate spaces where others – civil society organisations, activists, and networks – can take the stage, the resources, and the power, and claim them back, because they have always belonged to them. The future of peacebuilding lies in the hands of those who have lived out of its necessity and are already imagining, embodying, and building peace and justice from the ground up.