Preventing conflict and mending bridges between communities

Teams of UNV specialists in Afghanistan have used reconstruction programmes as a magnet to draw warring factions together in rehabilitation of shared infrastructure, under a UNDP rural rehabilitation strategy. UNVs also played a key role in cross-border and cross-line relief and rehabilitation operations there, facilitating the setting-up of district development committees which acted as fora to shift inter-group dynamics away from factional rivalries to incentive-led collaborative reconstruction.

In Croatia, UNDP is funding an inter-ethnic endeavour particularly benefiting the elderly, women, and children. UNVs have been working on the spot to demonstrate the feasibility of resettling minority groups in their former villages through such community self-help and social action, and hoping to foster inter-ethnic harmony. Over 90 villages under UNPROFOR protection have already received Serb and Croat returnees.

In Mauritania UNV Oliver Delarue from France works as a Field Officer with UNHCR and as part of his work he acts as a facilitator for inter-communal dialogue and peace initiatives between leaders of rival Touareg and Maure communities in the UNHCR camps for Malian refugees.

In the Lebanon, in association with the Ministry for Displaced Persons, UNV Specialists and National UNVs are involved in a holistic and humanitarian project to resettle in their home villages some of the 90,000 families displaced in the civil conflict of some years back.