A Participatory Approach for Local Peace Initiatives: The Lodwar Border Harmonization Meeting

Long-term, low-intensity conflicts are pervasive in many pastoralist areas in the Horn of Africa. As international development agencies have sought strategies for improving livelihoods in these areas, their attention has been increasingly drawn to the need for creating durable solutions to these conflicts. In December of 1999, the Border Harmonization Meeting, held in Lodwar, Kenya, brought together local community elders, government officials, and members of the international donor community to discuss local strategies for resolving widespread pastoralist conflict in the Karamojong Cluster. The meeting provided a good example of how participatory strategies, used widely in development programs, provide a valuable framework for local peace initiatives. It also illustrated the multiple levels on which peace processes operate and in which issues are discussed and resolved. This paper will provide some background for the current destabilization of the Karamojong Cluster, explore the development of the peace process, and discuss how success was achieved, or not, on a variety of levels. Finally, it will point out how the meeting raised important questions for employing participatory strategies in local conflict resolution.