This paper examines the roles of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Ethiopian peacebuilding, exploring change and continuity within the sector and how past events influence their activities. It discusses CSOs’ involvement in peace initiatives, analysing their successes as well as the factors that have hindered their effectiveness.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Moving forward, CSOs in Ethiopia should try and emulate these successful approaches and address challenges by leveraging collaboration, grassroots connections and innovative approaches. The study suggests the following policy recommendations directed towards key stakeholders:

1. Enhancing recognition: The government should recognize the valuable role of CSOs in peacebuilding and create a more enabling environment for their operations. This includes legal protections and institutional recognition in early warning and response mechanisms.
2. Strengthening frameworks: The government should strengthen legal frameworks governing CSOs, ensuring that they are conducive to free and safe operations while safeguarding the rights and autonomy of civil society.
3. Promoting state-CSOs dialogue: The FDRE Authority for Civil Society Organizations, in coordination with ECSOC, should foster an enabling environment for ongoing dialogue between the government and CSOs. This can be achieved by revitalizing existing platforms like the GO-CSOs Forum and CSOs Week. Institutionalizing the Civil-Military Coordination (CM-Coord) initiative would improve coordination between civil humanitarian actors and military entities.
4. Utilizing local knowledge: Peacebuilding initiatives and policies should support the integration of culturally relevant conflict resolution methods and creative expression in peacebuilding initiatives.
5. Promoting community engagement: All peace stakeholders, including the government, international organizations and community leaders, should promote grassroots initiatives that actively involve communities in peacebuilding.
6. Addressing internal divisions: Initiatives aimed at fostering unity and collaboration among CSOs should be prioritized. This could include dialogue platforms and joint training programmes.
7. Better coordination: There is a pressing need for coordinated peacebuilding strategies that integrate both state-led and CSO-led interventions. Governments, donors and CSOs should encourage such collaboration.
8. Facilitating partnerships: ECSOC, Consortiums and CSOs networks, along with international organizations and donors, should promote collaborations between local CSOs and international entities.
9. Sharing best practice: Successful interventions from organizations like MSD, GPRDA and I4C provide valuable templates for other CSOs, inspiring best practices in social cohesion and peacebuilding.
10. Increasing resources: Increased funding for local CSOs, including emerging ones, is essential. This should include direct financial support, capacity-building programs and access to international funding.
11. More training: International organizations, local CSOs, networks, coalition of CSOs and ECSOC should invest in training programs focused on enhancing the capacity of local CSOs.
12. Improving security: The government should implement measures to enhance the safety of CSO workers, especially in the humanitarian sector.

This report was written for the Ethiopia Peace Research Facility (PRF). The PRF is an independent facility combining timely analysis on peace and conflict from Ethiopian experts with support for conflict-sensitive programming in the country. It is managed by the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) and funded by the UK government.