This is a recording of the M&E Thursday Talk from Thursday, April 26th, as Scarlett Kassimatis of Peace Direct & Anyway Mutetwa of Envision hosted the M&E Thursday Talks to lead a discussion on “Conflict Transformation in Zimbabwe: Lessons from Envision and Peace Direct.”
This presentation shared earnings from a 9 year community-based conflict transformation project in Zimbabwe. The presenters looked at the way an organization was able to adapt to a very challenging funding environment and how it developed from an organically formed solution to the problem of violence to a full-fledged organization. This process generated interesting lessons as well as specific learnings from working in a highly politicised environment, certainly transferable to many contexts around the world. With this presentation they aimed to share expertise and lessons learnt from local peacebuilders who are acutely aware of the difficulties of working in their contexts and highly knowledgeable about the solutions to these in programming. We hope that through this short presentation, sustainable and locally-led solutions will be sought for peacebuilding in Zimbabwe, and that the impact of such an approach is tangible. A learning summary will be shared with the audience after the presentation, covering some of what will be discussed.