What is peacebuilding?

So instead of working for UNHCR in Geneva, I chose the office of Peacebuilding Support at UN headquarters in NYC. I am, of course, working in the Policy Analysis Section.

And who would have thought that 501 concepts could actually be useful?! In every single thing I do I am reminded of the importance of politics especially here at the UN. Or rather the futility of politics. We have to negotiate every single word of our reports (should it be state or declare, a political factor or an actor...) At least I dont have to use stata, I am happy to say.

Finally, I grudgingly have to accept that Bob Keohane's class with its overemphasis on theory has been freakishly pertinent to this job. Most of the colleagues I work with, for instance, seem to mull over the question of what peacebuilding means. Conventionally, building peace can mean anything really, from handing out food to security sector reform. But since we need to specify our field of action, we need to define peacebuilding as narrowly as our funding and jurisdiction will allow! Once again, politics come into play. The ambassador of XXX feels that gender work might not be peacebuilding (cue a lot of anger from female colleagues) and so on. Life at the UN in other words is very much like an international theory class, a lot of debate on semantics with little concrete results.

Next, what is truth?!