Building Peace
from the Ground Up
What Zimbabwe's civil society teaches the world — and what it means for adult education and the future of peace learning.
When I read the findings of this study, I found myself thinking not just about peacebuilding policy — but about the classroom. About adult learners who carry histories of conflict in their bodies. About communities where education itself has been a site of violence or exclusion. This research, to me, is as much about how we learn peace as it is about how we build it.
Since its independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has survived wave after wave of conflict — mass protests, ethnic fragmentation, political polarisation, and the slow structural violence of inequality and poverty. Against this backdrop, civil society organisations (CSOs) have emerged as some of the country's most consequential peacebuilders. A new systematic review by Chijoko, Mataruse, and Tagutanazvo from the University of Zimbabwe examines exactly what that looks like on the ground: what strategies CSOs use, what informal structures are achieving, and what stands in the way of lasting peace.
Reading this through the lens of adult education, I am struck by how much the study's core argument mirrors what we know about transformative learning. The most effective peacebuilding, the researchers find, is locally owned, culturally embedded, and deeply relational — the same qualities that define meaningful adult education. This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern worth naming.
Fig. 1 — From 1,500 sources to 50 documents: the systematic review pathway
What I found most striking in the research
The study synthesises a decade of scholarship across Zimbabwe's provinces. What I encounter in these pages is not a dry policy audit, but a living map of communities trying — under enormous pressure — to create the conditions for human dignity. Let me walk through what stands out most.
1. The breadth and creativity of CSO strategies
What I did not expect when reading this study was just how inventive Zimbabwe's civil society has become in the absence of meaningful state support. Far from operating with one-size-fits-all approaches, CSOs are deploying a remarkable range of strategies simultaneously.
Fig. 2 — Six core CSO peacebuilding strategies identified in the review
What binds all six of these together is a commitment to local ownership. The most effective initiatives are those designed by and for the communities they serve, not imposed by outside actors — whether government, donors, or international NGOs. I think of this as the pedagogical principle of starting where the learner is, applied to the entire architecture of social peace.
Peace education as transformative learning
In adult education theory, Jack Mezirow's concept of transformative learning describes a process by which adults critically examine assumptions, engage with disorienting dilemmas, and restructure their worldview. This maps almost precisely onto what the best CSO-led peacebuilding programmes do: they create conditions in which communities can examine inherited narratives of conflict, encounter alternative perspectives through dialogue, and reconstruct shared meaning.
Social entrepreneurship initiatives, restorative justice circles, and arts-based dialogue programmes are not just peacebuilding tools — they are adult learning environments. They mobilise prior experience, situate learning in real-world problems, and trust participants to generate their own solutions. This is andragogy in practice.
2. Informal peace committees — the unsung classrooms of reconciliation
One of the findings I keep returning to is the role of Informal Peace Committees (IPCs) and Local Peace Infrastructures (LPIs). These grassroots structures — not government-created, not donor-funded — have emerged organically to fill the spaces that formal institutions cannot or will not occupy. They are flexible, inclusive, and culturally embedded. They bring together women, youth, traditional leaders, and minority groups who are routinely excluded from formal peace processes.
But here is what strikes me most as an adult educator: Informal Peace Committees function as learning communities. The committee meeting is a form of structured dialogue. The conflict resolution session is a form of experiential learning. The community gathering is a form of participatory adult education. That these structures lack formal recognition is not merely a funding problem — it is a failure by states and institutions to see non-formal community processes as legitimate sites of learning, healing, and governance.
Effective grassroots engagement is multi-faceted, demanding deep local ownership, inclusive participation, and the strategic integration of both informal mechanisms and traditional methods.
— Chijoko, Mataruse & Tagutanazvo (2026)3. Indigenous knowledge as curriculum
The study's treatment of Indigenous Knowledge Systems is one of its most compelling contributions. Practices like kuripa ngozi (appeasing an avenging spirit in Shona culture), Ubuntu philosophy, and Ndebele spirituality provide what formal courts and transitional justice tribunals often cannot: moral legitimacy, emotional resonance, and a grammar of healing that the community already speaks.
This should challenge adult educators directly. If we take seriously the principle that learners bring valid knowledge into the learning space — that experience is a legitimate source of curriculum — then we must also take seriously the knowledge embedded in indigenous peacebuilding traditions. Peace education programmes that treat Western conflict resolution frameworks as the only valid curriculum are practising a form of epistemic exclusion. The Zimbabwean case argues powerfully for decolonising peace education.
4. Gender inclusion — progress that needs protecting
I am encouraged, but not satisfied, by what the research shows on gender. Informal peace structures have meaningfully increased women's participation and minority representation — a real achievement in patriarchal contexts where formal peace processes are still dominated by men. But the researchers are honest: patriarchal norms and political dynamics continue to impede full gender inclusivity. And critically, when traditional practices are used uncritically — without gender-sensitive interrogation — they can inadvertently reinforce the very exclusions they are meant to overcome. For adult educators, this is a reminder that inclusive pedagogy must be actively cultivated, continuously evaluated, and protected.
The obstacles — what this research refuses to romanticise
I appreciate that this study does not fall into the trap of celebrating grassroots peacebuilding without honestly accounting for what undermines it. The obstacles are real, and naming them is the first step toward addressing them.
Fig. 3 — Relative severity of the four main challenges identified across reviewed studies
Political interference tops the list. Zimbabwe's civic space is tightly constrained, and CSOs regularly operate under government suspicion. State-dominated peace committees slide toward partisanship; CSO-led committees are accused of harbouring "sinister agendas." The mutual mistrust is not merely unpleasant — it structurally prevents the collaboration that sustainable peacebuilding requires.
Chronic funding shortages trap innovative models in perpetual pilot status. Donor dependency pulls CSOs toward funder priorities and away from genuine community need. The state–civil society disconnect means even when grassroots mechanisms succeed, they cannot connect those successes to national frameworks. And structural and socio-cultural barriers — elitist peacebuilding models, ethnic and class divisions, the digital divide, pervasive poverty — compound everything.
When the learning environment is hostile
Adult educators will recognise the structural dynamics described here. We know what happens when the institutional environment — the funding landscape, the political climate, the social hierarchies — actively undermines learning. The literature on popular education, from Freire onwards, is a long reflection on precisely this problem: how do you create conditions for critical consciousness when power is invested in preventing it?
The Zimbabwean context offers a particularly sharp version of this challenge. CSOs engaged in peace education are operating in politically contested terrain, with limited resources, under surveillance. The fact that they continue to generate meaningful learning and healing is itself remarkable — and demands our analytical respect, not just our sympathy.
The central insight — peace is learned, not just legislated
The most important intellectual contribution of this study, in my reading, is a deceptively simple argument: grassroots innovation and formal institutional support are not alternatives — they need each other.
Community-led peacebuilding works. The "Peace Rabbits Project" in Epworth, the autonomous peace committees in Seke District, the youth empowerment programmes in Masvingo — these are evidence of what happens when communities are trusted to lead their own peace processes. But without formal recognition, sustainable funding, and genuine state partnership, these successes remain local — and the structural causes of conflict remain unaddressed.
I want to name this as a truth about adult education too. Transformative learning happens in communities, in informal groups, in circles of dialogue and storytelling. But it needs the recognition, resources, and policy frameworks that allow it to scale, persist, and genuinely change social structures. Informal learning without institutional legitimacy stays invisible. Institutional learning without community grounding stays irrelevant. Both failures are costly.
Fig. 4 — Where peacebuilding principles and adult education theory converge
What this means for peace education specifically
Peace education has long sat at the intersection of adult education and peacebuilding — and this research enriches both fields simultaneously. Let me draw out four specific implications that I believe deserve sustained attention from adult educators and peace education practitioners.
- Peace education must be embedded in community life, not delivered to it. The study's consistent finding is that externally-designed, top-down peace initiatives underperform against community-led ones. This should prompt peace educators to ask: whose knowledge anchors our curricula? Who designs the learning? Who defines what peace means?
- The evidence argues for integrating indigenous knowledge into peace education curricula — not as a cultural footnote, but as a central epistemological resource. Ubuntu philosophy, the Shona restorative tradition, Ndebele spiritual frameworks for healing: these are different from, and in many contexts more effective than, externally imposed models.
- Youth are not problems to be managed — they are educators in their own right. Youth-led peace programmes are simultaneously peacebuilding interventions and adult education programmes. We should fund and study them as both.
- The study's warning about evaluation gaps applies directly to peace education. The field needs rigorous, participatory evaluation tools — ones that measure not just outputs, but genuine changes in attitudes, relationships, and community capacity.
The case for peace education as a discipline
This research makes me more convinced than ever that peace education deserves recognition as a distinct field within adult education — not a sub-theme or optional enrichment, but a core strand of how we prepare adult learners to live in complex, contested societies.
Peace education, properly conceived, integrates critical consciousness (Freire), transformative learning (Mezirow), embodied knowing, indigenous epistemologies, and community-based participatory approaches. It equips adults not merely with conflict resolution skills, but with the capacity to understand the structural roots of violence, interrogate their own assumptions, and act collectively for justice. Zimbabwe's CSOs are — whether they name it this way or not — practising this kind of education every day.
The way forward — four recommendations through an adult education lens
The researchers propose four strategic directions. I want to engage with each through the lens of what they mean for adult educators and peace education practitioners specifically.
Invest in longitudinal research
Understanding long-term change requires participatory frameworks like PAR that keep communities as authors of inquiry. Build research capacity within communities, not just outside them.
Build genuine multi-stakeholder collaboration
Siloed efforts are not sustainable. Co-creation platforms and joint planning spaces are essentially adult learning environments. Designing them well requires adult education expertise.
Scale what works — with care
Successful models need pathways to scale, but must respect contextual variation. For peace education, this means developing adaptable frameworks rather than fixed curricula — principles, not scripts.
Reform the enabling environment
Expanding civic space, reducing political interference, and strengthening the NPRC are preconditions for sustainable peace. Adult educators have a role in civic education that builds community agency.
Why this matters beyond Zimbabwe
I want to close by naming what I believe is the broadest significance of this research — not just for Zimbabwe, not just for Africa, but for how the world thinks about peace and how we educate for it.
We live in a moment of proliferating conflict: political polarisation, resurgent nationalism, climate-linked resource competition, and the erosion of democratic institutions across many contexts. The standard responses — international mediation, formal transitional justice, donor-funded CSO programmes — are demonstrably insufficient. They treat peace as an event to be achieved rather than a capacity to be built.
What Zimbabwe's civil society teaches us is that peace is fundamentally a learning process. It is built in the conversations communities have about their shared past. It is practised in dialogue circles where former opponents sit together. It is transmitted across generations through the stories traditional leaders tell and the values they embody. It is scaffolded by peace educators who create conditions for critical reflection, honest encounter, and collaborative action.
This means that adult education is not peripheral to peacebuilding — it is central to it. And it means that peacebuilding, done well, is always in some sense adult education. Reading this study, I am left not with despair about the obstacles Zimbabwe faces, but with genuine admiration for the communities and organisations that continue to build peace in the gaps that institutions leave — and a renewed sense of responsibility, as an adult educator, to make those efforts more visible, more supported, and more sustainable.
