Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Vol.03 No.14 October 31/2022
“Communities in Ethiopia who share and care for each other are important for preventing
conflict and creating and maintaining peace.”
Belayneh Zelelew, Rotary Peace Fellow
Through education for peacebuilding, schools and teachers can build a culture
of peace in the classroom, school environments and in the community. Educa-
tors can encourage and model peaceful debate, collaborative work, equality be-
tween boys and girls and interact with respect towards all learners. Schools also
have the potential for releasing latent tensions through arts, drama, poetry and
sports. Schools can strengthen their community through open days for their
student’s family, where the school and the family come together as one commu-
nity and have some sort of exchange meeting.
The government has an immense role for conflict prevention and resolution.
The government has a duty to protect its citizens and has the obligation for the
respect of rule of law. Government is also very crucial in drafting and imple-
menting economic and social policies for conflict prevention and resolution.
The government’s approach to conflict prevention should be proactive rather
than reactive. The government should not fail to address the fundamental and
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Peace Ambassador
underlying causes of conflicts and not to use the wrong approach to redress the
problem. Several reasons have been floated to suffice the fact that the use of force
alone cannot curb conflict in Ethiopia. If for instance, in some conflict preven-
tion operations, police/military personnel are backed by inappropriate force, which
government also uses, to control conflicts it will widen the relation gap between
the government and its citizens. The government might be viewed as an enemy and
not as a provider of services, guarantor of rights, including security, fundamental
human rights and the rule of law. Hence, the government’s role in conflict preven-
tion and resolution needs eloquent balance. Therefore, a holistic and integrated
approach of intervention is needed since the issues are imbedded and mutually
inclusive.