The Great Lakes Project (GLP) constitutes one such effort in promoting a regionally focused programme for sustainable peace. Over the past three years, the GLP has sought to channel the comparative advantages of each partner into promoting a regional dimension to sustainable peacebuilding.
This special Issue of Conflict Trends highlights some of the most pressing peacebuilding challenges that confront the Great Lakes Region. It also reflects on some of our experiences in implementing a project that sought to forge relations across sectors (state and non-state) and across different countries, while keeping a clear and consistent focus on the common thread of peacebuilding.
Africa’s Great Lakes Region will confront a further number of interrelated development challenges over the next few years. From potential conflicts over governance and land to promoting local-level economic growth and social cohesion, the actions undertaken by a variety of local stakeholders will have lasting impacts on the communities themselves and the region at large.
The GLP model, exemplified through non-state actors working to promote regional efforts for sustainable conflict prevention and peacebuilding, can be applied to other regions of the world, especially those confronted by complex regional security and peacebuilding challenges. While the GLP does not claim to have addressed all the peacebuilding dynamics confronting the Great Lakes Region, the outcomes achieved in this work will leave a lasting and positive influence on the region at large.