The 4th of June UCT Peace & Conflict Studies Workshop

The Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa (IDCPPA) at the University of Cape Town hosted its 2026 Peace and Conflict Studies Workshop on 4 June, bringing together leading scholars and practitioners to discuss contemporary challenges in peacebuilding, conflict resolution and governance. Held at UCT's Leslie Social Science Building, the workshop provided a platform for researchers from South Africa and abroad to present ongoing work addressing conflict dynamics, peace processes, governance challenges and security issues across Africa and beyond.

The workshop opened with a session on the African Peace and Security Architecture. Jamie Pring examined the role of overlapping regional and international institutions in the successful mediation of the 2022 Pretoria Agreement that ended the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia. Linda Mushoriwa explored the implications of the ongoing conflict in Sudan for the African Union's aspiration of achieving a peaceful and secure Africa under Agenda 2063.

The morning concluded with a presentation by Michael Aeby, who shared insights from his book project examining how the African Union mediates, monitors and guarantees the implementation of peace agreements and political transitions. His research analyses the effectiveness of AU implementation support across multiple African peace processes over the past two decades.

The afternoon sessions shifted attention towards governance and conflict in comparative perspective. Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón presented research from his forthcoming book on the relationship between protests and armed conflict in Colombia and South Africa, challenging conventional distinctions between social unrest and organised violence. Drawing on recent fieldwork in Mozambique, Stephen Buchanan-Clarke examined the complexities of hybrid security governance in Cabo Delgado, highlighting the interactions between state security actors, private security companies and local communities in a context of ongoing insurgency and extractive investment. 

The final academic presentation was delivered by Monique Bennett, whose research investigated the implementation of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes during the United Nations peacebuilding mission in Mozambique. Her work highlighted the political and practical challenges of translating peace agreements into sustainable peacebuilding outcomes.

The workshop concluded with a presentation by Jamie Pring on a newly published edited volume examining memory, authoritarianism and democratic contestation in the Philippines. The discussion provided an opportunity to reflect on the broader significance of historical memory and political narratives in shaping contemporary governance and conflict dynamics. Throughout the day, participants engaged in lively discussions on mediation, peace agreement implementation, governance, conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The workshop demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to understanding conflict and highlighted the growing strength of peace and conflict scholarship within South Africa and across international academic networks. By bringing together researchers from institutions including the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, Rhodes University, the University of the Western Cape, the Geneva Graduate Institute and Good Governance Africa, the workshop fostered new opportunities for collaboration while advancing debates on some of the most pressing peace and security challenges facing Africa today.

We as the IDCPPA hope that this will continue in the years to come and bring even more Peace and Justice studies together for many years to come.