Project Update: “Peace Pledges” Go Live!

Community Meeting in Ghana

SIRLab is excited to announce that another project has moved to the implementation phase in 80 communities across Ghana!

In this particular project, the partnering development organization is working to form producer cooperatives as a way to both generate economic development and address conflict, specifically among communities in Ghana’s Eastern corridor. However, the same ethnic, tribal and religious differences that create conflict across communities are present in the cooperatives, creating conflict among individual cooperative members.

While the overall economic goal of the cooperatives does reduce some of the issues, conflict within the cooperatives remains a challenge for the development organization. To address this, a SIRLab research team has developed two “peace pledges” – one that focuses on preventing conflict and one that focuses on promoting cooperation. Both of the pledges were translated into 5 tribal languages and turned into a song with the help of a drum teacher! By converting the pledges to songs, they will be more memorable and approachable in mostly illiterate communities. Over the next several weeks, SIRLab will be testing which of these pledges – conflict prevention or cooperation promotion – is more effective in reducing conflict within the cooperatives.

For the next update on this project, and all SIRLab projects, follow us @SIR_Lab.

SIRLab Team