ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that contemporary peacebuilding has been guided by the conviction that non government organizations (NGO), both international and national, are essential players in building peace and stability. It first provides evidence of the important role of NGOs in peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from 1996 to 2009. The chapter then considers how the effort to build national NGOs impacted outcomes in BiH, and offers an explanation for why national NGOs often failed to produce intended effects, using principal-agent theory and elaborating on the structural environment associated with peacebuilding. The chapter also examines some conceptual and policy approaches for understanding and improving the performance of NGOs in peacebuilding. It argues that the failures are due to the number of actors involved in peacebuilding and the environment itself, which brings together diverse organizations with competing agendas and financial constraints.
