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Amplifying Voices and Transforming Institutions for Sustainable Peace
At ACES Africa Center, we harness research, advocacy, and capacity building to challenge the systemic exclusion of youth in peace and security. Our practical initiatives bridge representation gaps by empowering and amplifying youth voices, integrating gendered insights and diverse demographic perspectives into decision-making processes, and transforming young people into assets, catalysts, and key drivers of sustainable peace—a mission reinforced by UN Security Council Resolution 2250. Additionally, our work helps build robust, accountable, and inclusive institutions in line with Sustainable Development Goal 16.
Security and Criminal Justice Sector Reforms (SCJSR) is a central theme in the development, conflict transformation and peace building agenda in Eastern Africa. This involves infusing the principles of accountability, professionalism, and efficiency, strengthening civilian oversight role, aligning security agencies operations to international best practices, transforming the underlying values, norms, and politics that frame the operations of security agencies, addressing the history of human rights violations by promoting dialogue, reconciliation and healing, and building trust and restoring relationships.
ACES – Africa Center plays an important role in the reforms and transformation of security and criminal justice sector programs including researching and strengthening of critical intersections, building the enabling institutional capacities through training, policy and expert advisory services, mobilizing and engaging with key actors and stakeholders including media, civil society, academia, private sector, development partners and governments, and influencing inclusion and meaningful participation of women and youth by incorporating gender and human rights perspectives in line with UNSCR 1325 and 2250.
ACES – Africa Center has various country and regional level interventions under our Prevention and Transformation of Conflict and Violent Extremism (PTCVE) program. One outstanding regional level intervention is the Eastern Africa Community of Practice on Prevention and Transformation of Conflict and Violent Extremism (EAPTCVE) bringing together 24 civil society organizations in eight countries; Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC and South Sudan working together through cross-country learning programs with the view to building regional, community and institutional resilience against conflict driven violent extremism.
Our country level interventions work closely with CT/PCVE state-lead agencies to implement national strategies and action plans, build the capacity of counter-terrorism programs to comply with national and international laws, and to advocate for the mainstreaming of gender and human rights perspectives.
This program works with communities to research and strengthen culturally appropriate primary prevention interventions that support communities’ climate adaptation. The program explores the uses indigenous knowledge and gender sensitive and transformative cultural practices that foster adaptation, mitigation and resilience to reduce the risks of conflicts, disaster, poverty in communities that are adversely affected by climate change and climate variability.
The project also uses information generated through grassroot communities’ climate-dialogue to raise the sense of urgency and to advocate with and influence government and business policies and consumer practices through strategic engagements.
At the Africa Center for Engendered Security (ACES – Africa Center) we conduct robust gender analysis informed by intersectionality of gender equality and other effective human rights frameworks and lead like-minded partners and stakeholder groups in building, curating and management of gendered local knowledge with the view to enhancing contextualized understanding, influencing decision making and fostering gender mainstreaming in peace and security processes. We ensure that the concerns, needs and priorities of women and youth inform and become a part of the key outcomes of policy and practice dialogue on peace and security. As well, we empower and advocate for inclusion and meaningful participation of women and youth in all dimensions, and at all stages and levels of peace and security support processes.
Additionally, we build a multidisciplinary community of experts in security, gender, governance and human rights who provide in-country advisory and related support to peace and security sector programs, and to also mentor the next generation of leaders and specialists across the continent as a strategy for sustainable peace. ACES – Africa Center is a convener, organizer, participant and facilitator on critical issues of gender and inclusion in dialogues on peace and security in the continent.
The greater Eastern Africa region is a complex eco system of conflicts, terrorism and violent extremism driven by gender inequalities, human rights track record, poor governance and ecological threats.
The efficacy of CT/PCVE interventions gearing towards peace, security, inclusion and stability, a critical panacea for sustainable development within the framework of Goal 13 of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and Goal 16 of the Global agenda 2030 demands the strengthening of these critical intersections as well as the role and capacity of stakeholders. In this respect, ACES -Africa Center has a long-running history and a track record of mobilizing, empowering and engaging communities, state agencies, regional mechanisms and non-state actors with a commitment to building regional resilience through mainstreaming, equality and participation. We work with a growing number of experts, partners and communities of thematic practice in thirteen countries.
