Dialogues for Post-Conflict Futures
Conversations to guide sustainable futures and social innovation in conflict-affected regions
Image via ICRC; aid and community response in Ukraine, 2022
The Dialogues for Post-Conflict Futures Webinar Series initiative brings together individuals with lived experience and deep expertise across diverse global conflicts to create a platform rooted in principles of listening and deep understanding before intervention.
We convene practitioners, grassroots leaders, researchers, social entrepreneurs, and affected communities to explore how infrastructure, humanitarian recovery, and sustainable development can be effectively implemented in conflict-affected regions. A particular focus of the series is how locally driven social innovation and entrepreneurial approaches can shape more adaptive, context-sensitive, and sustainable pathways to recovery.
Rather than imposing external frameworks, the series centres on-the-ground voices and locally grounded knowledge. It creates space for conversations that challenge dominant Western development paradigms while exploring how locally driven social innovation and entrepreneurial approaches can reshape how impact and recovery are defined and delivered.
At its core is a belief that deeper understanding, built through open dialogue, can lead to more sustainable solutions and drive a paradigm shift around how impact and innovation are conceived in conflict-affected settings.
Former Combatants Commit to Peace in Columbia, via the UN Peacebuilding in Action
We are founded on three guiding principles:
Understanding before intervention
In order to prioritise deep, contextual understanding of root causes over surface-level or short-term development solutions.
Innovation from within
In order to highlight and support locally-led social innovation and entrepreneurship as critical drivers of recovery; foregrounding community-based solutions, informal economies, and context-specific approaches to change.
Critical engagement across perspectives
In order to question dominant models of growth, recognise that Western frameworks of profit and progress do not universally translate, and interrogate development narratives including practices such as greenwashing.
Following these three guiding principles, the series aims to achieve the following goals:
Amplify lived experience, elevating the essential voices of those directly impacted by conflict and displacement
Question dominant models of progress, creating space for alternative, locally grounded models of development.
Create opportunities for collaboration for practitioners, researchers, NGOs, and social entrepreneurs, and more.
Bridge local and global perspectives Connecting discussions to global frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals alongside locally defined priorities.
UN Women via Ryan Brown, peacebuilding discussions in Indonesia
Format:
The series runs as a curated programme of 3–4 sessions per term, with each session lasting one hour.
Sessions are primarily hosted online via webinars with the following structure:
A 10-minute opening from a featured speaker or partner organisation
A moderated dialogue exploring key themes and tensions
An open Q&A with participants
Resource sharing and continued discussion, supporting ongoing collaboration beyond the session
Sessions are co-developed in partnership with invited speakers and organisations.
If you would like to get involved, either in developing a session, moderating, or more, please reach out to Mia Fulford: mgf36@cam.ac.uk
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