Sustaining Future Peace Processes amid Global Institutional Austerity

The global landscape of peacemaking is navigating a severe political and institutional crisis. As world leaders seek frameworks and “deals” to end high-intensity wars, the traditional international architectures designed to safeguard peace agreements face systematic rollbacks, funding starvation, and political skepticism. Many agreements, especially partial ceasefires, fall apart in a short period of time. Refined approaches for monitoring and facilitating a sustained process of implementation and adaptation are needed if future agreements are to translate into durable peace. Research shows that built-in conflict resolution mechanisms and third-party monitoring and verification can increase success rates in peace agreements by over 29 percent (Joshi et al. 2016).

In the current climate of global institutional austerity and geopolitical fragmentation, contemporary peace practice must contend with an additional critical vulnerability: the lack of a shared, transparent, and mutually accepted understanding of implementation progress among signatory parties. Ambiguous language and divergent interpretations often enable political actors to instrumentalize delays in peace agreement implementation, fueling polarization and heightening the risk of conflict recurrence (Echavarría Álvarez et al. 2025). In a vicious circle, the absence of third-party monitors, which provide the public with transparent communication about the status of implementation, adds to the lack of knowledge about the challenges of implementation. The lack of clarity and transparency on the implementation of peace agreements contributes to an already volatile political scenario that favors lean peace agreements, with much content focused on security provisions with little regard for the inclusion of civil society and larger dynamics of conflict.

Innovative Frontiers and Best Practices from Colombia

In direct response to these destabilizing dynamics, an important innovation in contemporary peace practice is the shift toward independent, empirical, data-driven, third-party monitoring mechanisms. A notable example among these is the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM) developed by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. By establishing a replicable methodology that translates complex, comprehensive peace accords into observable, traceable, and empirically verifiable commitments (“stipulations”), PAM has transformed peace verification from a closed-door deal into a rigorous, impartial, and transparent peacebuilding accompaniment exercise (Joshi 2026).

The operationalization of this tool is vividly illustrated by the Kroc Institute’s official role as part of the International Verification Component in Colombia’s 2016 Final Agreement. Through the Colombia Barometer Initiative, a team of local and international researchers systematically track 578 specific stipulations across six core pillars and three intersectional approaches: gender, ethnicity, and territory. In real time, the Barometer’s reports have firmly become part of the national and international conversation about the achievements and gaps in implementation of the Colombian peace accord (Cooper et al. 2026; Castillo 2026).

Drawing on nearly a decade of data, a forthcoming study outlines three critical best practices and insights for effective peace accord implementation, derived from the Colombian case (Echavarría Álvarez and Murphy Forthcoming):

– Differentiate high-overhead vs. structural commitments: Barometer data reveal a stark discrepancy in implementation patterns. High-overhead, short-term measures such as the bilateral ceasefire and disarmament and the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms achieve rapid compliance due to concentrated international aid and political focus. Conversely, long-term structural transformations—such as “rural reform” and “political participation”—routinely lag behind due to institutional pushback, gaps in data governance, and shifting administrative priorities.

– Protect intersectional and inclusive cross-cutting approaches: Colombia pioneered the inclusion of specific “gender” and “ethnic” approaches. However, best practices dictate that inclusion at the design phase must be rigorously sustained through implementation; currently, only 14 percent of gender-related stipulations are fully complete compared to 36 percent of stipulations overall. Failing to prioritize intersectional stipulations undercuts overall accord durability.

– Shift from forced control to rights-based frameworks: Concerning “illicit drugs,” Colombia’s recent strategic shift away from control-based forced eradication toward UN-supported, human-rights-focused drug policies demonstrates how national policy can be realigned to sustainably tackle the structural root causes of conflict. With a stagnant full implementation rate of 29 percent, the hope of communities on the ground is that this new approach moves the needle forward in crop substitution and coca eradication.

Future Adaptation, Innovation, and Research Needed

To ensure the durability of future agreements under continuous funding constraints and geopolitical tensions, the peacemaking and peacebuilding community must systematically institutionalize these impartial verification mechanisms. Robust third-party oversight acts as a vital insurance policy for international investments in peace (Echavarría Álvarez et al. 2025). From this monitoring practice, forward-looking lessons emerge:

First, peace design must move toward explicit design-to-verification integration. Future peace processes should embed clear, unambiguous compliance understandings and implementation metrics directly into the text of peace deals while they are being designed—and not a posteriori. This prevents interpretive ambiguities that disappoint civil society organizations (who are mostly victims of the conflict) while denying spoilers ample opportunities to weaponize delays. Rather than depending on multi-billion-dollar enforcement structures, agreements should be designed as adaptive, iterative, and modular frameworks. These frameworks can prioritize easily verifiable milestones first, allowing implementation to scale incrementally based on real-time data.

Second, future research must focus heavily on intersectional implementation dynamics. As the Colombia Barometer Initiative’s analysis underscores, peace cannot be durable if the structural transformations promised to marginalized populations remain unfulfilled. We need deeper empirical research into how delays in structural pillars—such as rural reform and gender equality—undermine progress in security and political participation.

Ultimately, the promises of peacemaking need to deliver for affected populations if we are to turn the page in the current state of global affairs and move towards a more secure, just, and peaceful future for communities on the ground. An essential new challenge emerging for the international community is how to show progress, create trust, and start delivering on the promises of partial peace accords so that the parties move closer towards solutions that are systemic and involve many more actors than those sitting at the negotiation table. By pursuing more intentionality in how peace processes are monitored, sustained, and adapted after agreements are signed, we can increase the chances for such success—even in an age of global austerity and disruption.

Works Cited

Castillo, Cindy A. Morales. 2026. “Implementar el Acuerdo de Paz no puede empezar de cero cada cuatro años.” Instituto Kroc, May 18. https://www.elespectador.com/colombia-20/paz-y-memoria/acuerdo-de-paz-alertas-del-instituto-kroc-sobre-elecciones-2026-candidatos-y-plata-del-pacto-firmado-con-las-farc-en-2016/.

Cooper, Anderson, Aliza Chasan, Andy Court, and Annabelle Hanflig. 2026. “Once a Hostage of Colombian Rebels, He Decided to Teach his Former Captors Birding.” CBS News, May 3. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colombia-guerrillas-birding-tourism-60-minutes/.

Echavarría Álvarez, Josefina, and E. Murphy. Forthcoming. “The Colombian Peace Agreement Implementation Challenges a Decade Later.” Latin American Perspectives.

Echavarría Álvarez, Josefina, Peter J Quaranto, Jess Tyler Thompson, and A. Verjee. 2025. “Policy Brief: Third-Party Monitoring Essential for Success of Peace Deals.” Keogh School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. https://doi.org/10.7274/30640379.v1.

Joshi, Madhav. 2026. “Active International Actors Accompainment, Reputational Costs and Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement Implementation.” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2026.2626223.

Joshi, Madhav, Sung Yong Lee, and Roger MacGinty. 2016. “Built-In Safeguards and the Implementation of Civil War Peace Accords.” International Interactions 43 (6): 994-1018. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2017.1257491.