The Society for Peace Studies and Practice, SPSP, is a civil society body that seeks to integrate peace scholarship and practice as a way of advancing the development of the culture of peace. SPSP provides a collaborative space for peace scholars and practitioners from various areas of specialization to creatively share and synthesize ideas and experiences as a way of evolving a more holistic appr
oach to the understanding and practice of peace. Sustainable peace, the goal of multi-level intervention, has been elusive in Africa partly because efforts of state and civil society actors in the quest for peace have not been coalesced into the type of leveling focus that could serve to coordinate and translate these diverse peace actions into unified achievement. Consequently, the field of peace and conflict studies and practice in Africa has been defined more by unfruitful competition than by a productive collaboration between peace scholars and conflict management practitioners. SPSP, an initiative that emerged from discourse between scholars and practitioners on the Peace and Conflict Studies Programme of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, was formed in 2005 to meet this challenge. The absence of constructive symbiosis between the contemplative work and findings of peace scholars and the experience of peace practitioners whose engagements are more prone to field interventions portends the possibility of their efforts being contentious rather than complimentary. It is a truism that peace scholars need the experience of the practitioners for honing their context-specific analyses; the practitioners equally need the scientific insight, as well as familiarity with current findings in relation to best peace practice that research provides. SPSP aims to maximize the largely untapped potentials inherent in the integration of peace study and practice through actions such as joint-project designs, joint facilitation of operational strategies in programmes, joint monitoring and evaluations, and other myriad opportunities that a creative cooperation between peace scholars and practitioners will lend to the quest of transforming conflict energies emerging from inevitable and often violent social interactions in contemporary Africa to peace resources.
