Principles for Quality Financing for Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention: Practical Avenues to Improve Support for Local Peace Actors

This paper suggests practical avenues to improve financial support for local peace actors whose work is an essential complement to international conflict prevention, peacebuilding efforts and sustaining peace.

It understands ‘quality’ of financing as a standard encompassing more participatory, accessible, flexible, and sustained financial resources. In addition to increasing the ‘quantity’ of funds needed to meet the demands for peacebuilding activities by local peace actors, ensuring the quality of these funds is equally as crucial for long-term peacebuilding success.

To enhance quality financing, the international donor community – broadly defined as multilateral and bilateral donors – should prioritise modalities and funding instruments that adhere to the following principles:

1. Prioritise participatory funding approaches;
2. Generate sustained support for local peace actors and their organisations;
3. Be flexible and reflect shifting peacebuilding realities;
4. Enable direct funding to local peace actors;
5. Support intermediary models rooted in network- and movement-building;
6. Promote community-focused accountability, community-determined impact, and creative means of achieving monitoring, evaluation, and learning; and
7. Consider realistic and transparent approaches to risk