This Phase II of the Peace Pioneers program was implemented by Search Lebanon from July 2018 to June 2019, with support from the Embassy of Switzerland in Beirut.
The project aimed to stimulate private sector engagement in peacebuilding with CSOs in Lebanon. Building on Phase I, this new phase engaged a larger pool of participants and focused on continued support to the development of partnership and support mechanisms between the private sector and CSOs that will, in the longer term, maximize peacebuilding efforts throughout the country.
The project was effective in stimulating understanding, attitudes, and perceptions towards peacebuilding and creating space for dialogue between CSOs and the private sector. 90% of trainees interviewed indicated that trainings helped them see things differently while 80% indicated using learning outcomes in their daily lives. However, although some entities drew very close in collaborating with each other through the project, these collaborations did not flourish in actual bilateral partnerships. The success of this model requires deeper and more comprehensive understanding and therefore needs longer-term engagement for both parties to better understand each other’s mandates and ways of working which would result in identifying entry points of collaboration that could materialize in actual partnerships.
