Context: A Turning Point for Civic Engagement in Peace Processes
In early 2014, as conflict intensified and the human toll deepened, civil society actors recognized an urgent need to shape how peace would be negotiated and sustained. Rather than leaving the future of the country solely in the hands of armed and political elites, a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals came together to define clear modalities for engagement and representation at the peace negotiations. This marked a critical shift: from watching the process from the sidelines to insisting on a meaningful seat at the table.
Out of this moment, in January 2014, a broad-based civil society platform emerged under the banner of Citizens for Peace and Justice. The coalition aimed to ensure that the voices of communities, victims, women, youth, and marginalized groups were not simply referenced in communiqués, but embedded in the architecture of the talks themselves.
The Emergence of Citizens for Peace and Justice
Citizens for Peace and Justice was formed as a response to a gap: the absence of structured and sustained participation of ordinary citizens in high-level mediation. While regional and international actors convened peace conferences and follow-up forums, there was limited clarity on how everyday people and grassroots organizations could contribute to the agenda, influence outcomes, and monitor implementation.
The platform gathered civil society organizations from diverse sectors—human rights, faith-based groups, women’s networks, youth movements, academia, and professional associations—around a shared conviction: peace is more legitimate, and more likely to last, when it is co-created with those who live its consequences. Through this common front, they sought to move from ad hoc consultations to an organized, sustained, and principled engagement with the formal peace process.
Goals of the Platform: Representation, Accountability, and Justice
From the beginning, Citizens for Peace and Justice set itself three core, interlinked goals:
- Inclusive representation at peace negotiations: Ensure that civil society had clearly defined and recognized roles within the negotiation framework, including direct participation in thematic working groups, advisory mechanisms, and plenary sessions.
- Accountability and transparency: Promote mechanisms that would hold both parties and mediators accountable to commitments made at the negotiation table, including public reporting and open communication with communities.
- Justice and redress for victims: Advocate for an agenda that addressed not only power-sharing and political arrangements, but also truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence for those affected by violence.
These goals were not conceived in isolation. They were rooted in years of civic organizing, documentation of abuses, and direct engagement with communities that had grown wary of elite bargains that delivered ceasefires on paper but failed to transform the realities on the ground.
The Letter to IGAD: A Formal Appeal for Inclusive Mediation
To translate these ambitions into concrete influence, Citizens for Peace and Justice drafted and submitted a formal letter to the regional mediation body, IGAD. This letter was both a moral appeal and a technical proposal. It called on IGAD to recognize civil society as a substantive partner in the peace process, not merely as observers or symbolic attendees at side events.
The letter articulated a set of practical recommendations, including:
- Creation of clearly mandated civil society seats within negotiation delegations and thematic committees.
- Regular briefings by the mediation team to civil society, with space for feedback and alternative proposals.
- Structured opportunities for women’s and youth groups to present position papers and testimonies during the talks.
- Integration of human rights monitoring and victim-centered justice into the negotiation agenda from the outset, rather than as an afterthought.
Beyond process, the letter underscored a central principle: that any agreement reached without genuine citizen participation would struggle to command public trust, leaving it vulnerable to contestation and collapse. By foregrounding this principle, Citizens for Peace and Justice challenged IGAD to reimagine mediation as a shared public enterprise rather than a closed diplomatic ritual.
Modalities for Engagement: From Consultation to Co-creation
One of the key contributions of the Citizens for Peace and Justice initiative was its effort to define the modalities through which civil society could engage the peace process. Historically, engagement had often been limited to hastily organized side consultations, where civil society was invited to comment on near-final texts. The platform argued for a deeper approach: co-creation of peace agreements.
The modalities proposed and practiced included:
- Structured dialogue platforms: Regular forums where civil society could debate negotiation issues, consolidate positions, and feed them into the talks in a timely manner.
- Thematic working groups: Specialist teams on issues such as security arrangements, constitutional reform, humanitarian access, and transitional justice, capable of offering detailed, evidence-based input.
- Community consultations: Efforts to bring negotiation agendas back to local communities, collecting feedback from those most affected and returning it to mediators and parties as a form of social accountability.
- Monitoring and follow-up: Civil society-led tracking of commitments and implementation, to ensure that agreements did not end with signatures but extended into real change.
By articulating these modalities, Citizens for Peace and Justice bridged the gap between high diplomacy and local realities. It demonstrated that civic engagement was not a vague principle, but a set of concrete practices that could strengthen the quality and durability of any agreement.
Collective Action After the Follow-Up Conference
The formation of Citizens for Peace and Justice was closely tied to a crucial follow-up conference convened to assess progress and setbacks in the peace process. Many participants emerged from that gathering with a shared sense of urgency: without a unified civic voice, opportunities to shape the peace agenda would be lost, and the process risked becoming a closed conversation among elites.
In response, civil society representatives agreed to consolidate their efforts on a single platform. This collective front allowed them to:
- Speak with more coherence and authority to IGAD and other regional actors.
- Reduce fragmentation and duplication among organizations working on similar themes.
- Develop joint position papers, communiqués, and advocacy strategies grounded in shared principles.
- Coordinate outreach to communities, ensuring that messages from the negotiation table were more accessible and understandable.
This shift from dispersed initiatives to a unified coalition amplified civil society’s influence. It also sent a signal to all parties involved: that peace and justice were not the domain of a small circle of negotiators, but the demand of a broad and organized citizenry.
Peace, Justice, and the Everyday Life of Citizens
The advocacy of Citizens for Peace and Justice was grounded in a simple insight: peace is experienced in the everyday spaces where people work, travel, study, and gather. Negotiation rooms may be distant, but their decisions ripple into local markets, schools, places of worship, and public infrastructure. Without security and justice, daily routines are marked by uncertainty and fear.
For displaced families, returnees, and communities living in contested areas, the demands echoed in the letter to IGAD—protection of civilians, access to humanitarian aid, accountability for atrocities, and inclusive governance—were not abstract legal terms. They were essential preconditions for rebuilding lives, livelihoods, and trust among neighbors.
Civil Society’s Long-Term Role Beyond Agreements
Civil society’s involvement, as envisioned by Citizens for Peace and Justice, extended far beyond the signing of an agreement. The platform emphasized that citizens must remain engaged during implementation and beyond, acting as guardians of the peace and watchdogs over power.
This long-term perspective involved several key functions:
- Monitoring implementation: Tracking key benchmarks, from ceasefire compliance to institutional reforms, and publicly reporting on progress and setbacks.
- Supporting reconciliation: Facilitating dialogues, community healing initiatives, and truth-telling processes that build social cohesion beneath formal political settlements.
- Legal and policy advocacy: Pushing for domestic legislation and policies that give effect to the terms of the peace agreement and protect fundamental rights.
- Civic education: Equipping citizens with information about their rights, the contents of the agreement, and channels for participation in new governance structures.
In this way, Citizens for Peace and Justice envisioned peace not as a single event or document, but as an ongoing, participatory project—one that required vigilance, creativity, and partnership between institutions and the people they serve.
Challenges and Opportunities for Inclusive Mediation
Despite its clear vision, the platform faced a range of challenges. Political elites sometimes viewed robust civil society participation as a threat to their control over the agenda. Security risks, resource constraints, and shrinking civic space made it difficult for activists and communities to engage safely and consistently. Differences in priorities among civil society organizations also required continuous dialogue and compromise.
Yet these challenges also revealed important opportunities. The very existence of a coherent platform like Citizens for Peace and Justice demonstrated that citizens could organize across lines of geography, identity, and sector to advocate for the common good. It showed regional mediators and international partners that inclusive approaches were not only desirable but feasible, provided there was political will and thoughtful design.
By documenting its experiences and proposals, the platform contributed to a growing body of knowledge on how to embed civil society in peace processes. This experience can inform future mediation efforts within the region and beyond, offering lessons on participation, accountability, and the centrality of justice.
Looking Forward: Reimagining Peace Through Citizen Leadership
The story of Citizens for Peace and Justice and its letter to IGAD is, at its core, a story about who owns the peace process. By insisting on inclusive modalities for engagement, the platform advanced the idea that citizens are not passive beneficiaries of peace agreements, but active authors of their collective future.
As conflicts evolve and new negotiations emerge, the principles championed in 2014 remain relevant: transparency, representation, justice, and sustained civic participation. Whether through formal seats at the table, community consultations, or independent monitoring, citizen-led platforms continue to be essential in transforming peace from an elite settlement into a shared, lived reality.
Ultimately, the legacy of Citizens for Peace and Justice lies not only in the text of a single letter or the outcomes of a specific mediation, but in the broader shift it inspired: a reimagining of peace as something built with, by, and for the people most affected by conflict.