The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: Case Study – Lebanon

This study explores the linkages that have been forged between education and peacebuilding during and after violent political conflict in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990. Throughout the past 20 years, international, national and various civil-society actors have been actively engaged in education and peacebuilding activities, whether explicitly in name, or by design. Their efforts have been varied, multimodal and fragmented. Based on consultations with a range of actors representing international and national, governmental and civil-society organizations, and schools engaged in peacebuilding, this project seeks to understand how education – in the formal and non-formal sector – has been employed as a peacebuilding mechanism in Lebanon.

Data collection took place from 1 July to 30 July 2011 and involved interviews, stakeholder consultation meetings, document analysis, site visits and participant observation.This study set out to locate peacebuilding initiatives in education within broader approaches to peacebuilding in Lebanon. It first described the sectarian foundations of conflict and how historical drivers of conflict have evolved within a matrix of regional, national and localized conflicts, underpinning mobilization for major episodes of violence. Sectarianism has also underpinned the institutionalization of various forms of discrimination.

• This study argues that ongoing conflict analysis is required in order to capture these age-old considerations alongside their contemporary manifestations, and that such conflict analysis requires consideration of citizens and non-citizens in an interconnected manner that captures the ways in which their histories of conflict and marginalization have been, and continue to be, inextricably linked.
• Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the contours of conflict and post-conflict situations are fluid; and in Lebanon, different phases of conflict coexist, reflecting the limitations of linear conceptualizations of progression from emergency to post-conflict peacebuilding.

Recommendations for UNICEF Lebanon:

• Invest in the conceptualization of peacebuilding;
• Establish a policy framework for education;
• Invest in creative design processes that engage a dynamic, long-term strategy and ongoing conflict analysis;
• Develop mechanisms for coordination and alignment in education and peacebuilding;
• Document the implications for UNICEF's shift towards upstream engagement and peacebuilding;
• Develop high-quality research and evaluation programmes for education and peacebuilding, and for the purposes of institutional learning.

Recommendations for UNICEF headquarters:

• Clarify the relationship between UNICEF's equity approach and peacebuilding as they pertain to education;
• Find ways to influence peacebuilding strategies in order to better locate education within peacebuilding processes and to consider the implications of engaging a peacebuilding approach to education;
• Develop tools for ongoing conflict analysis on the local level and related capacity development (Excerpts from Executive Summary, pp. 8-12)