This programme addresses safety and security in the local context, with the aim of building a sustainable model of local governance, based on the mobilisation of local knowledge and capacity around issues of dispute-resolution and community-building. The cooperative action-research process – initiated in 1997 – has produced a model of community engagement called �gPeace Committees�h, groups of residents in poor communities who facilitate the resolution of local disputes and support local entrepreneurs who are engaged in projects and enterprises that address the root causes of local conflicts.

The continuing aims of this model of community development include the following :

1. to develop Private/Public partnerships involving poor communities and state agencies in a relationship of mutual respect;
2. through both the PeaceMaking and the PeaceBuilding processes, to build the capacity and increase the effectiveness of Peace Committee members and community service-providers;
3. to build a culture of community solidarity, self-direction and respect for human rights;
4. to show how market incentives, in the form of remunerated rather than voluntary work, can be applied to mobilise and organise civil society in the local governance of justice and security;
5. to extend the model to other countries and jurisdictions, adapting it where appropriate to local circumstances but without compromising its essential foundation – that is the effective mobilisation of local knowledge within an appropriate and facilitative regulatory framework.

The Peace Committees have so far facilitated the resolution of over 15 000 disputes, and have provided training and an income for 500 active Peace Committee members.  The latest expansion since 2007 mobilises an additional 1 000 facilitators in 100 sites.