Washington — The Peace Corps is trying to improve how it helps people recover from wars.
As part of the commemoration of the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, the United States Institute of Peace hosted a discussion October 27 on the challenges that face the Peace Corps after armed conflicts. Despite those challenges, speakers said, there is consensus on one point: As soon as fighting is over and volunteers’ safety is secure, the Peace Corps can play a vital role in a country’s recovery.
“The Peace Corps is uniquely qualified to be supportive” in areas emerging from conflict “because our volunteers work shoulder-to-shoulder with people in communities, helping grass-roots associations achieve their development goals,” said Aaron S. Williams, Peace Corps director. When governments and other institutions have been weakened by war, local initiatives are all the more important, he said.
Williams said the volunteers’ approach matters as much as their mission. “They come with a commitment to inclusive, democratic processes, and in many post-conflict instances, when local trust is in short supply, community members view volunteers as engaged and evenhanded,” he said. “By leveraging this trust, Peace Corps volunteers can help people divided by conflict identify their areas of common cause and cultivate common ground.”
Alison Milofsky, once a Peace Corps volunteer and now with the Institute of Peace, said Peace Corps volunteers in general and those in post-conflict zones in particular need training in conflict-resolution skills — but not necessarily to resolve community conflicts themselves. The volunteer should be teaching those skills to community members, she said, so factions can speak to one another and resolve issues. Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be neutral about the politics of their host countries.
Sean Kane, also of the Institute of Peace, said an outsider such as a Peace Corps volunteer can play a role as “a third-party convener” when conflicts have destroyed trust between groups or communities. Reconciliation might be elusive, he said, but just getting everyone together in one room can be “a substantive win.”
Colin Thomas-Jensen, a returned volunteer now at the State Department, said volunteers, before they go to a post-conflict country, need to learn the history of the conflicts that will become part of their lives so they can understand their new community.
Williams said conflict areas are one of the priorities for a program called “Peace Corps Response,” which places highly skilled volunteers in short-term assignments. The Peace Corps relies on these volunteers and others with substantial experience to take the initial assignments in former conflict zones and monitors their progress more closely than that of volunteers in more stable places.
Among the post-conflict successes cited by Williams: a volunteer who worked with women on a beekeeping cooperative in northern Uganda, and one who helped build village savings and loan programs in Rwanda.
Overall, the Peace Corps’ 9,000 volunteers serve in 76 countries. More than 200,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps since it opened in 1961.