This toolkit provides practitioners with methods to understand and transform complex conflict systems using systems thinking approaches. By viewing conflicts as interconnected networks of relationships rather than isolated events, practitioners can design more effective, sustainable interventions that address root causes rather than symptoms.
Key Systems Concepts for Peacebuilding
Feedback Loops
Patterns where a system's outputs return as inputs, creating either reinforcing (escalating) or balancing (stabilizing) dynamics in conflict.
Emergence
How complex conflict patterns arise from simple interactions between parts of a system, often with surprising and unpredictable results.
System Boundaries
Defining what's inside and outside your analysis, recognizing that different stakeholders perceive system boundaries differently.
Leverage Points
A tool for systematically identifying and prioritizing high-impact intervention points within complex conflict systems.
Resilience
A system's capacity to absorb shocks while maintaining its basic functions and structure, crucial for sustainable peace.
Nonlinearity
How causes and effects in conflicts aren't proportional, with small actions sometimes producing major consequences and vice versa.
Systems Mapping Tools
Causal Loop Diagramming Template
A structured approach to mapping feedback loops, helping you visualize how different variables in a conflict interact in reinforcing or balancing cycles.
Systemic Stakeholder Mapping
A template for mapping key actors in a conflict along with their relationships, influences, and positions within the broader system.
System Boundary Definition Guide
A structured process for determining what to include and exclude in your system analysis, aligned with your intervention goals.
Systems Analysis Tools
Stock and Flow Analysis Framework
A framework for identifying and analyzing the accumulation and depletion of key resources, grievances, and capacities in conflict settings.
Conflict Iceberg Model Template
A visualization tool that helps reveal the underlying structures, mental models, and patterns beneath visible conflict events.
Conflict System Archetype Guide
A reference guide to common patterns of conflict dynamics and their typical intervention approaches.
Intervention Design Tools
Leverage Point Identification Matrix
A tool for systematically identifying and prioritizing high-impact intervention points within complex conflict systems.
Systems-Based Scenario Planning
A structured approach to developing and analyzing possible futures based on different intervention strategies and system dynamics.
Monitoring & Evaluation Tools
Systemic Outcomes Harvesting
A monitoring and evaluation approach that captures emergent, unexpected, and nonlinear outcomes of peacebuilding interventions.
Implementation Guides
Community Systems Mapping Guide
A participatory approach to engaging local communities in mapping their own conflict systems and identifying intervention priorities.
Organizational Systems Analysis
A framework for analyzing how organizational structures and processes contribute to or mitigate conflict dynamics.
Policy Systems Assessment
A structured approach to evaluating how policy frameworks impact complex conflict systems at local, national, and regional levels.
Interactive Systems Models
Stock & Flow Simulator
Interactive model demonstrating how resources, grievances, and capacities accumulate or deplete over time in conflict settings, based on various intervention strategies.
Leverage Points Explorer
Interactive tool for identifying and testing high-impact intervention points within conflict systems, simulating the ripple effects of different actions.
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