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Capacity-Building & Advocacy Initiatives

Developing local skills to resolve and transform conflict.

We design and implement multi-year programs that amplify local voices, transform conflict, and build skills for a peaceful society. These programs:

  • Integrate local practices
  • Collaborative efforts
  • Keep people at the center

Climate Change Project (CCP)

Strengthening human capacity to build peace and constructively manage conflict related to the climate crisis.

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Children and Youth ADR (CYADR)

Advocating for the use of ADR practices with children and youth in schools and communities while building capacity with practitioners worldwide.

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Sierra Leone

Inspiring thousands of diverse stakeholders to envision what sustainable peace looks like for their country.

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ARCoM / Southern Africa

Southeast Asia

Supporting conflict management and peacebuilding activities in South and Southeast Asia.

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Overview

MBBI members form multidisciplinary teams to jointly design and implement projects on specific topics, advocacy efforts, and location-specific, trauma-informed efforts alongside local partners. The goal of these projects is to strengthen civil society and governmental organizations through advocacy,  training, facilitation, dialogue, mediation, and other peacebuilding processes. These efforts increase local abilities to heal from violence, reconcile communities, develop resilience against pressures to join armed conflicts, and manage conflict sustainably. Our advocacy work opens doors in political arenas to use mediation and negotiation to navigate disputes.

What We Do

MBBI Delivered a Workshop on Mediating Climate Change and Other Environmental Issues, COP24

Thematic projects arise out of MBBI’s members expertise and interest.  The teams  develop curriculum for use in training, create opportunities for knowledge/skill development, participate in events to speak for peacebuilding approaches, and actively use their mediation and facilitation skills to address conflict.

Location-specific projects come by invitation—an e-mail from a Ghanaian refugee camp, a conversation with Pittsburgh community leaders, or an appeal by a Rwandan senator. They come from civil society, government, academia, or student groups.

All MBBI projects are as diverse as the spectrum of conflict we encounter. Our projects have:

  • Offered leadership development in Sierra Leone and increased conflict transformation skills among youth, women and traditional leaders
  • Mentored Kenyan pastoralists wanting to stop deadly violence between tribes and with farming communities
  • Worked with Colombian internally displaced persons returning home to establish restorative justice systems and addressing trauma
  • Advocated at UN climate change talks for the use of mediation in climate change disputes worldwide
  • Created learning partnerships between Israeli Jewish/Arab co-mediation services and U.S. mediation centers
  • Enhanced Greek mediators’ skills to be able to convene dialogues on immigration conflicts
  • Developed community reconciliation and trauma healing with former child soldiers and women in Liberia
  • Provided opportunities for community members and police to talk together

Past Projects

MBBI has worked with hundreds of people to launch and complete peace-enabling projects in countries across the globe. To learn more about these projects, click here.