Women Mediators as Peacebuilders: Driving Local Change Across Burundi
July 2025
In the hills of Karonda, a small town in Southern Burundi, women who once stood on the margins of society, silenced by conflict, displacement, or gender-based violence, have become architects of peace.? Karonda was just one of the communities from across seven provinces where, between 2021 and 2025, UN Women and the American Friends Service Committee, with $3?million in financing from PBF, supported women to become recognized peacebuilders, able to mediate conflicts, support vulnerable groups, and drive local development.
Rumonge Province was the area hardest hit by the ethnic-based violence that plagued Burundi during the political crises of 1972 and the 1990s. As a sign of past trauma, many community-based tensions remain unresolved to this day, and Rumonge Province continues to report a high number of SGBV cases. The project provided support to former refugees for reintegration into local society and the mitigation of resource-based conflicts. It also equipped partners to deliver a range of community activities addressing both short-term needs¡ªsuch as women's protection, mediation, peer solidarity, and psychosocial support¡ªand long-term needs, including socio-economic resilience and women's participation.
At the heart of this transformation is the Association des Femmes Actrices de Paix et de Dialogue (AFAPD), a national network of 534 trained women mediators, 18 provincial focal points and 516 communal mediators, who support nearly 16,000 grassroots women. Supported by the project, they have resolved over 34,000 conflicts, with an impressive 82% success rate, addressing everything from land disputes to domestic violence. Their impact reaches deep into communities, particularly among returnees and vulnerable households.
Over 13,000 people received psychosocial support, many of them survivors of trauma, with nearly 60% of cases successfully treated. To ensure women mediators could sustain their volunteer roles, the project also invested in over 1,400 income-generating initiatives, laying the foundation for lasting self-reliance.
Nowhere is the catalytic power of this model clearer than in Karonda¡¯s Dukundane cooperative. What began as a modest women's savings association focused on peer solidarity and small-scale community reintegration has evolved¡ªfirst into a group of women entrepreneurs producing palm-fiber brooms, and later, with support from the Peacebuilding Fund, into a semi-industrial palm oil business. It offers an effective response to the difficult socio-economic situation and addresses the community¡¯s need to explore alternative livelihoods beyond subsistence agriculture.
This year, with an investment of $202,402, the group launched a factory that today processes up to 10 tons of palm fruit daily under the Tamura Oil brand.
The factory employs over 170 women and maintains two hectares of palm plantations. It¡¯s a beacon of local development and a bridge between grassroots peacebuilding and the formal economy, linked to national food agencies and supported by both public and private actors. It proves that peace isn¡¯t just a political process, it¡¯s also about access, inclusion, and economic opportunity.
She now speaks to young girls about self-worth and prevention of gender-based violence, proud to have already helped six others choose a different path.
These stories show that when women are given tools and trust, they don¡¯t just survive conflict, they reshape the future. From community dialogues to palm oil production, Burundi¡¯s women mediators have proven that peace grows stronger when it¡¯s led by those who have lived through its absence. And thanks to their vision, a new generation of girls in Burundi is growing up not just dreaming of change, but building it.
