An analysis of the effectiveness of the roles of civil society organisations in peace building in Zambia: a case of church mother bodies in Zambia

This study analysed the effectiveness of the roles of civil society organisations in peace building in Zambia. The objectives of this study were to, evaluate the efficacy of the roles of civil society organizations in peace building, investigate the extent to which civil society organisations engage youths and political players in peace building activities, assess people‟s perceptions on the roles of civil society organisations and to determine the challenges that civil society organisations face in peace building in the Republic of Zambia. Both questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect information from the respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect information from students in three selected higher learning institutions and bus drivers as well as marketers. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyse the findings. Quantitative method was used to present the findings collected using questionnaires while qualitative method was used to analyse the findings collected using interviews and focus group discussions. This study revealed that the three church mother bodies play various roles in peace building in Zambia. These roles include acting as inter-mediation and facilitation, advocates for citizens‟ human rights and promote inter-group social cohesion in peace building process. This study also revealed that the majority people in Zambia were not involved in peace building. The study also revealed that the majority political leaders were not showing interest of working together with the three church mother bodies in peace building in the country. It was also revealed in this study that civil society organisations face different challenges in promoting peace in the country which included, being perceived as political partisan associations, lack of willingness by political leaders to work with Civil Society Organisations (CSO) in peace building programmes and financial challenges in Zambia