ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the business of peacebuilding as a sector of the larger international aid industry in terms of funding, practice, goals, and key actors in both developed and developing countries. International development emerged in the post–World War II era, when developed countries sought to increase the capacities of states emerging from colonialism. The chapter reviews many of the relevant challenges that actors in the field face while pursuing the difficult goal of effecting sustainable, peaceful, and positive change in fragile societies. In addition to private contractors, a growing number of businesses have been involved in international development, especially as donors push for increased public/private partnerships. The majority of organizations that work in integrated peacebuilding rely to a large degree on funding from bilateral and multilateral aid agencies. The chapter explores the securitization of the field. Conflict, security, fragile states, and peacebuilding have become relatively new focal areas for the Development Assistance Committee in the past decade.
