While indigenous civil society organisations (CSOs) are important actors in post-conflict peacebuilding, they have traditionally played a somewhat secondary role by carrying out unofficial Track II (T2) peacebuilding activities, such as peace education programs and problem-solving workshops. They are often absent from the negotiating table, with official mediation instead led by international actors and diplomats. This does not mean indigenous organisations are ineffective, but that their peacebuilding influence has tended to be more focused on community relations than determining a conflict’s future. However, in recent times, indigenous CSOs have increasingly assumed a more central role in peacebuilding operations. As international actors, most notably the United States, continue to roll back the amount of humanitarian funding and support given to peacebuilding, a space has opened for indigenous CSOs to more explicitly shape the future trajectory of their conflict and associated peacebuilding efforts.
By focusing on the Cypriot conflict, this short article will demonstrate how several peacebuilding CSOs have recently assumed greater responsibility and agency, notably by influencing the country’s peacebuilding priorities. As external actors continue to reduce their support, indigenous CSOs will likely play a central peacebuilding role in the future. We should no longer view them as secondary or peripheral actors, but as integral peacebuilders with an unmatched understanding and attachment to conflict and related peacebuilding efforts.
Civil Society’s Peacebuilding Role
In recent decades, researchers and policymakers have increasingly argued that indigenous civil society organisations (CSOs) – here defined as organisations comprising of shared interests, purposes and values, distinct from the state, market and family, such as religious associations, women’s organisations and human rights groups – play a critical role in post-conflict peacebuilding (Barrow 2023, 1). As they are ingrained into disputant communities, they understand their ‘cultural context and nuanced dynamics’ (Jewett 2019, 119) and can thereby develop effective, working relationships with conflicting parties, who commonly perceive them as legitimate and well-meaning actors.
While there is wide recognition that indigenous CSOs should be involved in peace efforts, the specific means by which they contribute to peacebuilding continues to attract scholarly debate. Some scholars focus on the merits and drawbacks of including CSOs in official peace negotiations – Track 1 (T1) efforts – a practice often referred to as ‘direct participation’ in peace processes (Kew & Wanis-St. John 2008,17). The arguments put forward for including CSOs at this high level include their ability to ensure greater public representation in negotiations, while engendering societal and community ownership of an eventual peace agreement (Paffenholz 2014; Lorentzen 2020).
However, there have traditionally been few cases of CSOs directly influencing peace talks at the negotiating table, with Paffenholz noting that ‘negotiators have tended to favour the exclusion of CSOs from peace negotiations’ (Paffenholz 2014, 73). There are notable exceptions to this trend. For example, the 2003 peace settlement in Liberia was signed by the government and two rebel groups, besides several CSOs, such as the Inter-Religious Council for Liberia (Nilsson 2012, 244). However, other official peace negotiations, such as in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, were ‘exclusive’ given that those directly involved in the negotiations were ‘political leaders and diplomatic envoys’ (Kmec & Ganiel 2019, 151).
In these cases of exclusion, CSOs have historically embarked on unofficial forms of peacebuilding, which take place away from the negotiating table. In practice, CSOs typically become facilitators of unofficial Track 2 (T2) interventions. T2 is a term often attributed to Joseph Montville, who defined it as ‘unofficial, informal interaction between members of adversary groups or nations that aim to develop strategies, influence public opinion, organise human and material sources in ways that might help resolve their conflict’ (Montville and Davidson 1981, 192). T2 interventions are largely welcomed by officials and policymakers, as they typically supplement T1 diplomacy by creating peaceful conditions where official negotiations are more likely to succeed. Specific T2 interventions include dialogue forums, where parties are brought together by a facilitator to improve interpersonal relationships and understanding; problem-solving workshops, consisting of controlled communication where disputants are encouraged to discuss potential peacebuilding strategies; and peace education programs, designed to promote peaceful coexistence by countering divisive narratives (Burgess and Burgess 2010; Çuhadar & Dayton 2012).
Cypriot Peacebuilding and Civil Society
Cyprus has been divided between the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the southern Republic of Cyprus (RoC) since Turkey’s 1974 invasion culminated in the separation of the island’s two largest ethnic communities, the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Official peace talks have taken place periodically over the past 50 years, but have repeatedly failed to appease both communities and resolve their points of contention.
The most recent attempts to resolve the conflict were the 2017 peace talks held at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana. The talks were convened by the United Nations’ (UN’s) Special Adviser on Cyprus, Espen Barth Eide, and included representatives from Cyprus’ guarantor powers (Britain, Greece and Turkey), in addition to the EU and leaders of both the RoC and TRNC (Coufoudakis 2018). The talks lasted for ten days, beginning on 28th June 2017, before collapsing ‘amid anger and recriminations’ on 7th July (Smith 2017). One of the main points of contention was Turkey’s refusal to withdraw its troops from the island, which is a condition insisted upon by the Greek Cypriot (GC) community.
As has been the case with previous peace talks, the Crans-Montana negotiations were ‘exclusive’, with little opportunity for civil society inclusion. As such, the island’s civil society has traditionally relied on alternative means of peacebuilding, principally the facilitation of unofficial T2 interventions. This has been the case since the number of Cypriot peacebuilding CSOs proliferated after 2003, when restrictions preventing Turkish and Greek Cypriots from crossing the divide were relaxed. Women’s groups, youth-based organisations, educational associations and religious groups developed in the years that followed, such as the Association of Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) and Hands Across the Divide (HAD). While the CSOs have different interests, they facilitate similar types of peacebuilding activity. They include dialogue forums where Greek and Turkish Cypriots (TCs) can discuss and propose solutions to different aspects of conflict, and educational programs where young GCs and TCs learn about each other’s community away from the nationalist education curricula they are exposed to in school.
One CSO that has received considerable scholarly attention – owing to its somewhat unique contribution within the Cypriot context – is the Home for Cooperation (HFC), a community hub within Nicosia’s buffer zone. Officially opened in 2011, it describes itself as ‘the embodiment of intercommunal cooperation, contributing to the collective efforts of civil society in their engagement with peacebuilding’ (HFC website 2023), given that it provides TCs and GCs with a place to meet and socialise in the space dividing the two communities. It hosts a range of events, including multicommunal performing arts festivals designed to strengthen links between citizens, build bridges and facilitate interaction (Ladini 2009, 54-5; Tziarras 2018).
Declining international support
However, it has become increasingly clear over the past decade that Cypriot CSOs are assuming greater responsibility for the future of the island’s conflict and peacebuilding. There are several interconnected reasons for this. There is widespread domestic understanding that Cyprus is way down the list of priorities facing the international peacebuilding community. Even though Cyprus is geopolitically important for several reasons – including contestation between Turkey and the EU over offshore gas extraction in the Eastern Mediterranean – it is believed that international attention will remain predominantly focused on other issues, such as the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine conflicts, for the foreseeable future. It is telling that there has been little appetite to restart official peace talks since their most recent demise in 2017.
This declining international attention on Cyprus is evidenced by the decreasing amount of international funding being channelled into the island’s humanitarian and peacebuilding activities. Over the past year, we have seen foreign actors and governments – most notably the US – limiting their financial humanitarian support. In early 2025, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was heavily defunded, with over 80% of the agency’s global humanitarian and peacebuilding programmes cancelled by March 2025 (Faguy 2025). The UK has also cut foreign aid by over £6 billion, while other European countries have heavily reduced their commitments (Peace Direct 2026).
Cyprus is an interesting case in this regard, as the decline of international financial support began much earlier than 2025. The US was previously one of the most prolific supporters of Cypriot reconciliation measures. USAID financially supported the island’s Action for Cooperation and Trust (ACT) programme, which was set up to support ‘civil society initiatives’ aimed at ‘peacebuilding and confidence building’ between both communities, including cultural heritage and educational projects (UNDP webpage 2023). However, the programme was discontinued in March 2016, following USAID’s decision to stop funding Cypriot projects. This was primarily owing to USAID’s priorities shifting ‘to other parts of the world where there is more active conflict’ (Interview with USAID employee 1, 2023).
USAID is not the only donor to curtail its financial support. The UK was also previously a significant supporter of Cypriot peacebuilding activities, but its ‘focus has turned elsewhere’ in recent years, given there is ‘less money to go around than there used to be’ (Interview with Cyprus High Commission representative 2023). There is also a growing assumption among foreign donors that it is ‘futile’ supporting Cypriot peacebuilding initiatives until the island’s two nationalist administrations (in the RoC and TRNC) learn to ‘speak with each other again’ and ‘reconcile their differences about the island’s future’ (Interview with Cyprus High Commission representative 2023). The domestic political situation is cited by other donors, including the EU, as a factor deterring their financial peacebuilding support.
Asserting Agency
Some initial studies have been carried out to question how the declining level of funding has impacted indigenous peacebuilding actors in different parts of the world. Peace Direct, an International NGO, finds that it has led to increased pressure on local peacebuilders to continue their activities without financial support, while long-term planning has become increasingly difficult owing to the precarious position many indigenous actors now find themselves in (Peace Direct 2026). Ukrainian CSOs are struggling to provide the same level and quality of humanitarian services, including educational programmes (Dolinina 2025), while peacebuilding CSOs operating in the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo are trying their best to continue at least some of their community integration activities (Peace Direct 2026). Another recent study finds that key ‘efforts led by women peacebuilders have been severely undermined by recent funding cuts’, including women-led educational initiatives in Syria and Afghanistan (GIWPS 2025).
The purpose of this article is not to deny or challenge these negative implications arising from the decline of international funding, but to argue that this situation also creates an opportunity, at least once the initial shock of funding termination has subsided. This is the attitude shared by many Cypriot peacebuilding CSOs, which have had longer to adjust to decreased funding than CSOs operating in other contexts. They speak of asserting their agency by assuming greater ownership and responsibility for the island’s conflict and peacebuilding efforts. This simultaneously allows them to break from their previous dependency upon external actors and agendas, with several CSOs claiming that their autonomy was previously restricted, given that donors typically prescribe and ‘dictate what exactly the money should be used for’ (Interview with HFC employee 1, 2023). As such, while many Cypriot CSOs originated as relatively ad hoc groups planning and facilitating T2 interventions in accordance with donors’ preferences, they increasingly see themselves as integral to keeping the idea of a peaceful resolution ‘alive’ within the wider Cypriot community. As few other actors are driving forward the Cypriot peace agenda, it is a case of ‘if not us, then who?’ (Interview with AHDR employee 1, 2023).
While there is no single strategy or mechanism by which Cypriot CSOs assert their agency, one principal method has been to shape the structure and agenda of the overall peace process. In practice, this entails pressing for the inclusion of certain groups and individuals in the peace process, and campaigning for specific topics and conflict-related issues to be added to the island’s overall peace agenda, or to be prioritised once negotiations resume sometime in the future. Several CSOs believe that their close relationship with the UN’s Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) is integral in allowing them to push ‘for change in how the conflict is managed’ (Interview with HFC employee 1, 2023). As official peace talks take place under the auspices of the UN, in collaboration with other members of the negotiation team, the UN ultimately determines their procedure and is generally responsible for managing and coordinating the island’s peacebuilding efforts.
As such, the ‘good relationship’ formed between UNFICYP and two education-focused CSOs, the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR) and the Home for Cooperation (HFC), has allowed the two CSOs to push UNFICYP, and the international peacebuilding community more broadly, into making peace education a ‘key component of any eventual peace agreement’ (Interview with AHDR employee 1, 2023). The CSOs believe widescale adoption of the ‘peace education’ term and framework is itself a key ‘indicator of success’ (Interview with HFC employee 1, 2023), with UNFICYP’s Civil Affairs section fully integrating the ‘premise of peace education’ into their work and activities (Interview with UNFICYP employee 1, 2023). The CSOs and UNFICYP are clear that there would be fewer opportunities to influence the peace process and UNFICYP’s own priorities if external actors and donors, including the US, remained explicitly focused on determining the island’s peace process.
In practice, the CSOs’ agenda-setting ability derives from AHDR’s Director being recently added to the Technical Committee on Education’s membership. This is one of the island’s 12 Technical Committees, which aim to encourage and facilitate ‘greater interaction and understanding between the two communities’ (UNDP webpage). They also have specific remits and areas of focus, such as education, culture and the environment. AHDR’s Director has long worked with UNFICYP and is widely judged to have a ‘deep knowledge of education’ that benefits the committee (Interview with UNFICYP employee 1, 2023). His membership provides him with the opportunity to raise AHDR’s objectives with the full committee, including the CSO’s consistent call for schools to assume a ‘critical, empathetic and multiperspectival approach’ to history education (AHDR Policy Paper 2013, 7). This has enabled AHDR to demonstrate the importance of peace education to UNFICYP and other committee members, and has contributed to UNFICYP’s acceptance of the peace education framework.
There are further examples of indigenous CSOs influencing the agenda of the Cypriot peace process. Hands Across the Divide (HAD) was established in 2001 as the island’s first multicommunal women’s organisation. It specifically focuses on uniting Greek and Turkish Cypriot women, in addition to campaigning for the inclusion of women in official peace negotiations. HAD believes their targeted campaigning has forced international actors, most notably the UN, to ‘take note’ of their ‘specific demands’, including their desire for ‘more women to be formally involved in peace negotiations’, which is now a priority for UNFICYP (Interview with HAD member 1, 2023). Indeed, the employment of a Gender Affairs Officer as part of UNFICYP’s Civil Affairs team – a position that was added in 2017 – largely stemmed from ‘continued discussion and campaigning from civil society groups, especially Hands Across the Divide’ as to the importance of gender inclusion in all aspects of peacebuilding (Interview with UNFICYP Gender Affairs Officer 2024). HAD are adamant that the island’s civil society is increasingly ‘filling the void’ left by the international community’s growing detachment from the island (Interview with HAD member 1, 2023).
Conclusion
The main objective of this article has been to illustrate an emerging trend within the peacebuilding field. There is now broad recognition that international actors, most notably the US, are rolling back the amount of support and funding available for peacebuilding and humanitarian activities around the world. While the wider implications remain somewhat uncertain, initial scholarly debate has largely focused on how this situation is undermining the ability of indigenous actors to develop and facilitate peacebuilding activities. It is, of course, the case that a sudden termination of funding significantly hinders peacebuilding actors, but this should also be seen as an opportunity, at least in the longer term. By focusing on the Cypriot context, this article has demonstrated how the growing disassociation and absence of international support have provided a space for indigenous actors to more explicitly shape the island’s peacebuilding priorities. We have seen how CSOs are asserting their agency by increasingly setting the agenda of the island’s peace process, specifically by influencing the UN peacekeeping mission’s focus. Although a lot more research is required in this area, we should no longer regard indigenous peacebuilders as secondary actors facilitating unofficial activities, but as central actors increasingly determining the future trajectory of conflict and peacebuilding.
References
Association for Historical Dialogue and Research. 2013. ‘’Policy Paper: Rethinking Education in Cyprus’’. Nicosia: AHDR. https://www.ahdr.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/POLICY-PAPER_FINAL-LR.pdf.
Barrow, Mark. 2023. ‘’Enabling Within Constraints: Assessing International Aid’s Impact Upon Cypriot Peacebuilding Organisations’’. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 18, No. 3: 295-309.
Burgess, Heidi and Guy Burgess. 2010. ‘’Conducting track II peacemaking’’. US Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/PMT_Burgess_Conducting_TrackII.pdf.
Coufoudakis, Van. 2018. ‘’Cyprus: The Crans-Montana Deadlock and the Next Steps’’, Greek News, April 21, 2018. https://www.greeknewsonline.com/cyprus-the-crans-montana-deadlock-and-the-next-steps/.
Çuhadar, Esra and Bruce Dayton. 2012. ‘’Oslo and Its Aftermath: Lessons Learned from Track Two Diplomacy’’. Negotiation Journal 28, No. 2: 155-179.
Davidson, William. D. and Joseph V. Montville. 1981. ‘’Foreign policy according to Freud’’. Foreign Policy 45, No. 45: 145-157.
Dolinina, Olga. 2025. ‘’US funding cuts hit peacebuilding initiatives in Ukraine’’, Peace Direct, September 09, 2025. https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/articles/us-funding-cuts-hit-peacebuilding-initiatives-in-ukraine/?location=ukraine&theme=refugees-and-idps.
Faguy, Ana. 2025. ‘’USAID officially closes, attracting condemnation from Obama and Bush’’, BBC News, July 02, 2025. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c307zq8ppj6o.
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Jewett, Georgia. 2019. ‘’Necessary but insufficient: Civil society in international mediation’’. International Negotiation 24, No. 1: 117–135.
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Kmec, Vladimir and Gladys Ganiel. 2019. ‘’The Strengths and Limitations of the Inclusion of Religious Actors in Peace Processes in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina’’. International Negotiation 24, No. 1: 136-163.
Ladini, Gianfabrizio. 2009. ‘’Peacebuilding, United Nations and civil society: The case of Cyprus’’. Cyprus Review 21, No. 2: 37–61.
Lorentzen, Jenny. 2020. ‘’Women’s Inclusion in the Malian Peace Negotiations: Norms and Practices’’. Swiss Political Science Review 26, No. 4: 406-424.McKeon, Celia. 2004. ‘’Owning the process: The role of civil society in peace negotiations’’. London: Conciliation Resources: https://www.c-r.org/resource/owning-process-role-civil-society-peace-negotiations.
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Interviews
Interviews with the Association of Historical Dialogue and Research Employee 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. In-person interview in Nicosia, Cyprus (18 April 2023 and 20 March 2024).
Interview with Cyprus High Commission Representative 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. In-person interview by Mark Barrow (12 March 2023).
Interview with Hands Across the Divide Member 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. Online Video Call (07 November 2022). In-person interview in Nicosia, Cyprus (27 March 2023, 19 September 2023 and 29 March 2024).
Interview with Home for Cooperation Employee 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. Online Video Call (03 November 2022). In-person interview in Nicosia, Cyprus (22 March 2023 and 20 March 2024).
Interview with UNFICYP Employee 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. Online Video Call (25 November 2022). In-person interview in Nicosia, Cyprus (24 March 2023, 03 October 2023 and 02 April 2024).
Interview with US Agency for International Development (USAID) Employee 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. Online Video Call (12 January 2023).
Interview with UNFICYP Gender Affairs Officer 1, conducted by Mark Barrow. In-person interview in Nicosia, Cyprus (01 April 2024).
Further Reading on E-International Relations
