This chapter offers a comparative look at the ways in which the international community prioritized peacebuilding agendas of intervention linked to national and local spaces. In other words, it examines how each international actor foregrounded agendas in targeted spaces for peacebuilding intervention, using examples from online communications to illustrate some of the broader trends observed. Agendas were linked to recommendations for action, information about activities or strategies carried out, and expressions of support, concern or condemnation in online subsidies. The latter was included in the analysis as it reflected the desire for something to be addressed (agenda setting) and a call for state action (see Appendix 1 for a description of agendas).

Overall trends

Figure 7.1 shows the overall number of subsidies found per agenda. Most communications referred to development, followed by peace process, security, governance and HR agendas. Regarding development, in particular, most subsidies referred to social fabric (159), followed by economic development and food security (141), environment (65) and media and communication (13). In relation to the peace process, specifically, most subsidies referred to disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and recruitment prevention (122), followed by negotiation and implementation of the peace agreement (119) and transitional justice (TJ) (66). Concerning security, most subsidies included comments on monopoly of force (113), followed by tackling illegal economies (55) and de-mining (21). In terms of governance, most online subsidies referred to institutionalization and the rule of law (108), followed by infrastructure and social services (62) and land governance (46). Regarding human rights, most communications mentioned HR alongside humanitarian aid (89), followed by security guarantees for HR defenders (62) and against gender-based violence (22).

Figure 7.2 compares actors using percentages of subsidies linked to different agendas per total of subsidies for each actor's total subsidies. In other words, it shows which actors focused the greatest percentage of their online subsidies to comments in support of each agenda, in comparison with other actors. In general, the US, EU, IDB and World Bank foregrounded socio-economic development; Canada and the UK, security agendas; Sweden, the UN and OAS, aspects related to the peace process. Comments around human rights were not identified as a theme in either the World Bank or IDB subsidies, and the latter organization did not refer directly either to the peace process or security dynamics.