ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the findings from a survey of more than 100 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the fields of trauma management and crime prevention across the Southern African Development Community (SADC). In particular, civil society initiatives exhibit visible contributions to peace-building and stabilisation efforts in Africa, as well as many other areas of the world, that appear to be worth advancing, whether independently or as part of multi-track strategies of conflict resolution. The SADC Crime and violence prevention project, in turn, sought to promote and consolidate the work of civil society around the region by encouraging further information sharing and networking among NGOs. During the 1980s and 1990s, over 40 of the 51 African countries were afflicted by either intrastate or interstate conflict. War, civil and political strife and social and economic collapse in places like Angola, and lately Zimbabwe constitute a serious threat to peace, stability and human security in these countries, not to mention the entire region.
