Is Local Ownership a peace-building framework designed to fail? : A case of Myanmar

Abstract: How can actors and agencies in post-conflict societies construct activities and navigate theirways through the challenges affecting locally owned peace process? What are the majorchallenges obstructing the goals for peace-building in local post-conflict societies? How canthese challenges be tackled to enable local peace process to become sustainable? These questionsare deeply motivated by the presumably failed peace-building processes in Myanmar. This thesisseeks to contribute to the feasibility of peace-building in local context. To highlight thechallenges of locally owned peace process which- are shaped by the elements of local ownership,this thesis offers a layout on which peace practitioners, policy makers and donor agencies canembed their framework for local peace operations in post-conflict societies. The existing elementof local ownership distorts reality and creates numerous challenges for post-conflict internal andexternal actors and agencies implementing peace framework. To counter the impediments oflocal ownership in post-conflict peace-building, this thesis argues for external-local ownershipand cooperation, as a means to promote and strengthen transparency of all forms of supportsnecessary to achieve sustainable peace-building goals in local post-conflict societies.