Learning to build a sustainable peace: "local ownership" and peacebuilding practices. The case of justice reform in Haiti

Abstract

The debate on local ownership in peacebuilding policies is relatively recent, inherited from the reflection on aid efficiency and sustainability. When focusing on its application at the field level, like in the Haitian case, it becomes evident that its inclusion in the peacebuilding doctrine of all major donors has not had a correspondence at the strategic and operative levels. This article is the result of a research in the field on how the concept of “local ownership” in peacebuilding efforts is put into practice and perceived by different stakeholders. The authors focused on the on-going Justice reform in Haiti before the Earthquake of January 2010 to better understand the dynamics between international and local actors, from the policy definition stage to their application at the country level.