Peace Dividend Trust (PDT) is a non-profit organization dedicated to making peace and humanitarian operations more effective, efficient and equitable so that they deliver cheaper, faster, smarter missions - resulting in a stronger peace and a larger peace dividend.
Effective, efficient and equitable operations are ones that learn from past failures by building on successes and lessons learned; that reinforce peacebuilding by jumpstarting economic recovery; that build legitimacy by dispersing benefits as widely as possible; and, that implement practical and innovative approaches that create self-perpetuating results.
APPROACH
Efficient Operations: Outdated management and operational practices can lead to widespread inefficiencies that plague a mission for years and years to come. In partnership with international actors, PDT leverages its experience and creativity to develop innovative resources and tools that address these weakness at both the operational and strategic levels.
Effective Spending: PDT's research projects increase the effectiveness of development assistance by providing international organisations with new data on the local impact of their missions. This helps inform better decision-making that leads to smarter spending.
Equitable Peace Dividend: Through a unique set of services, PDT's economic recovery projects encourage the international community in post-conflict countries to use locally available goods and services to carry out their operations. This in turn creates jobs, generates important tax revenue and develops the local marketplace - all of which support peace and long-term stability.
WHAT THEY DO
PEACE DIVIDEND MARKETPLACE
By linking international spending to local enterprise in post-conflict countries, PDT's Peace Dividend Marketplace (PDM) projects create jobs, generate tax revenue and develop local marketplaces - all of which support economic recovery and the restoration of stability.
The services and activities implemented through PDM projects target local business owners and the various institutional buyers operating in each marketplace including the military, the United Nations and its agencies, national governments, non-governmental organizations, embassies and private companies. While the activities of each project are tailored to the specific country context, all PDM projects are comprised of several essential services that create business relationships and opportunities between international buyers and local suppliers.
RESEARCH
PDT's research projects fill empirical gaps in understanding about the local impact of peacekeeping and humanitarian operations to increase knowledge and facilitate better practices within international agencies. At the heart of all our quantitative and qualitative studies is a commitment to rigorous methodology and transparency.
To date, PDT research has included groundbreaking quantitative analysis of the local economic footprint of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations; the economic impact of official development assistance spending in Afghanistan; and, research on how international organisations determine the demand for the technical assistance they supply to conflict and post-conflict countries. Globally, our projects have included field-based research in 12 countries including Afghanistan, Burundi, Cambodia, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, and Sudan.
OPERATIONAL INNOVATIONS
PDT's Operational Innovation projects test and implement new ideas to improve how missions run. In collaboration with PDT field offices and partners, gaps in practice are identified that are hindering the ability of peacekeeping and development operations to more effectively deliver services. To address this, PDT develops practical solutions based on real experience that address the nuts and bolts of these issues. From promoting centralized information sharing to developing senior mission management tools, we create resources that lead to more efficient operations.
