Building Sustainable Peace: Conflict, Conciliation and Civil Society in Northern Ghana

Intense fighting in the Northern Region of Ghana in 1994 and 1995 led to the loss of 15,000 lives and the displacement of 200,000 people. A formal peace treaty, negotiated by the government, ended the fighting but did not address the underlying causes of the conflict, which were a complex mix of economic, political, and ethnic factors. An informal consortium of NGOs, initially involved in delivering humanitarian aid, set up a parallel peace process, seeking to build up trust through a series of peace-education workshops and the creation of a multi-ethnic Youth and Development Association. The success of the process was symbolised by the signnig of the Kumasi Peace Accord in 1996. This report, commissioned by the Northern Ghana Inter-NGO Consortium, demonstrates how a network of NGOs, sharing skills and building up local capacities, can play an invaluable role in promoting sustainable peace after conflict. An Oxfam Working Paper.