Why do international peacebuilding organizations sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, even within the same country? Bridging the gaps between the peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and global governance scholarship, this book argues that international peacebuilding organizations repeatedly fail because they are accountable to global actors, not to local institutions or people. International peacebuilding organizations can succeed only when country-based staff bypass existing accountability structures and empower local stakeholders to hold their global organizations accountable for achieving local-level peacebuilding outcomes. In other words, the innovative, if seemingly wayward, actions of individual country-office staff are necessary to improve peacebuilding performance. Using in-depth studies of organizations operating in Burundi over a fifteen-year period, combined with fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sudan, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, African studies, and peace and conflict studies as well as policymakers.

Speaker:

Susana P. Campbell, Assistant Professor at American University’s School of International Service

Discussant:

Katia Papagianni, Director for Policy and Mediation Support, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue

This event is part of the International Geneva Luncheon Series which constitutes a forum for select senior-level managers, communications and policy practitioners of Geneva-based international organizations to discuss current challenges in the multilateral system, together with scholars of international governance invited by the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of International Governance.

The series aims to nurture greater exchange between academia and practitioners by creating an informal platform for substantive discussions and networking across broad institutional and thematic lines.

This is a closed event, by invitation only.