Conducive Space for Peace Conducive Space for Peace

How do funding and power flow through the international aid system? How can international organisations strengthen their efforts to support locally led peacebuilding and development? In this podcast, Mie Roesdahl from Conductive Space for Peace discusses the organisation's publication, 'Chain of Influence: Framework for Systems Change'. We also hear from Lesley Connolly, Team Leader at the Life & Peace Institute, who speaks about their own work on shifting chains of influence. The core of the thinking in the Chain of Influence Framework for Systems Change is that funding and power are transferred through the international aid system in a way that limits the space for local leadership – but if the chains are shifted there is scope for a more effective and sustainable aid system to emerge. All international organisations and actors within them have important roles to play in contributing to systems change that shifts power to local actors. But it also takes leaders who are willing to move the international systems in this direction. The Chain of Influence Framework highlights avenues for international organisations to pursue change within and between international organisations in order to enable a more conducive space for local leadership and thus contribute to more sustainable peacebuilding and development.