The National Transformational Leadership Institute with support from UNDP-Peace and Community Cohesion (PACC) project conducted ten days training for the peace committees from Mangalla, Lado and Lobonok counties on transformational leadership, conflict resolution, peacebuilding and sexual gender based violence in Juba Town from the 2nd to 11th July 2019. The participants were drawn from the Boma and Payam Administrators, Local Government Officers, Chiefs, Community Development Officers, Peace Commission, Conflict Mitigation and Community Representatives.
The overall objective of the training was to build the skills for PACC project beneficiaries (peace committees) on transformational leadership, conflict resolution, peacebuilding and sexual gender based violence. Adult learning techniques were employed to boost understanding of the topics.
The topics covered included transformational leadership in peace building, early warning and early response in peace building, conflict mapping and analysis, mediation and dialogue, gender, gender based violence prevention and response, women and youth as mediators, barriers to women’s participation in peace building, money and wealth, saving and investment, building networks and partnership, communication and public speaking.
The training achieved the following: First, the participants were able to identify conflicts in the three counties, causes and effects of these conflicts and developed strategies for intervention. Secondly, the participants were able to understand the concept of gender and identify key gender issues in Jubek State including marginalization of women, political appointment by nepotism, underestimating women and generally gender issues in the social, economic, legal, political, education and health sectors. Thirdly, participants were able to highlight the role of youth and women in peacebuilding while identifying the internal and external barriers to the youth and women’s involvement in peacebuilding Lastly, the participants appreciated the approaches employed and shared how conflicts are managed in their communities. The participants were able to build connections and develop clear strategies on how to work in collaboration with other organizations and stakeholders in their counties.
The training concluded that there is a need to continue strengthening the capacities of the peace committees in the three counties and the other counties in Jubek State and called on UNDP to support other tailor-made trainings to meet the needs of the peace committees, youth and women on transformational leadership, economic empowerment, gender based violence, trauma healing/counselling and peacebuilding.