The ‘risk assessment’ in peacebuilding has become a standard, if sometimes slightly formulaic and performative, element of project design and written proposals. Largely driven by donor requirements and organisational procedures, the relatively new discipline and practice recognised as ‘Religious Peacebuilding’ has taken on many of the elements of ‘secular’ peacebuilding, including the risk assessment. This means that organisations increasingly have to attempt to understand the associated risks to projects with a religious dimension often without any specific guidelines, and in many cases, any relevant knowledge or previous experience of working with religious actors in peacebuilding. Consequently, the primary objective of this paper is to propose the first risk assessment framework for peacebuilding projects which explicitly focus on religious dimensions and actors. The framework is based on analysis of case studies and project evaluations from a number of contexts; and has the potential to make a tangible difference to the efficacy and impact of peacebuilding projects in a variety of post-conflict contexts. This paper will also briefly consider how the proposed framework relates to contemporary theoretical debates concerning the instrumentalization of religion, and increasing technocracy in peacebuilding theory and practice.

This article explores whether a relational approach to peacebuilding, shared multireligious perspectives and widening networks can bring sources of strength which enable positive peacebuilding and create grassroots, cross-community peace. While religious peacebuilding organizations have become the object of a burgeoning literature, the role of multireligious organisations in peacebuilding has received far less attention. The purpose of this paper is to redress this lack. By examining the influence, challenges and benefits of multireligious approaches to transnational peacebuilding, we hope to develop a sharper and more critically nuanced understanding of the potential role of multireligious organisations in global peacebuilding, and consider what, if anything, distinguishes them from secular and other faith-based organisations. We do so by analysing the impact of a project carried out in Myanmar by Religions for Peace. The project provides three case studies which offer unique opportunities to consider the limits and potential of multireligious grassroots interventions in conflict contexts with very different histories and cultural configurations.