The Sneak Peek session brought together practitioners from a wide range of fields, including peacebuilding, finance, government, law, and more, to introduce the upcoming Peace Finance Workshop series and explore how peace-positive outcomes can be intentionally integrated into the designs of initiatives and investments.

The discussion highlighted a shift from viewing peace as an outcome of funded activities to understanding how financing itself shapes behaviour and incentives in fragile contexts. It explored how factors such as trust, cooperation, legitimacy, and inclusion are widely recognised as critical to stability, but rarely influence how capital or funding is allocated, structured, or managed in practice.

The implication is that if these stabilisation factors can be better understood and translated into financial decision-making, they begin to matter for how capital is deployed and managed. This opens the possibility for financing structures not only to operate more effectively in fragile contexts, but also to reinforce the very conditions that support stability and peace.

The participants engaged in a lively discussion sharing their respective experiences from financial ecosystems, development practices, and fragile contexts. Building on the introduction of the ‘peace finance’ concept, discussions from the participants highlighted the challenges present in financing peace-related work as well as the structural barriers that affect such investments in fragile contexts.

In particular, participants noted the discrepancy between necessity of a long-term commitment and the public value such an investment would produce, and the prioritization of short-term investments in traditional investor circles. This discrepancy is further compounded by the shrinking funding in the peacebuilding sector, much of which increasingly requires measurable financial returns. Peacebuilding has historically struggled to demonstrate its relevance in financial terms. Moreover, participants also noted the additional challenges faced in fragile contexts where, due to high-risk, development finance remains largely absent, thus creating a ‘chicken-or-egg’ situation where lack of adequate investment prevents the development of the infrastructure and capacity necessary to create economic growth and stability.

Building on these insights, the workshops will explore practical approaches and design options, using real initiatives to examine how peace-positive considerations can be integrated into financing and investment structures..

Key Questions Raised

Several important questions were raised during the discussion. These will be explored further through the workshop series, using practical cases and examples:

• How do we embed peacebuilding measures in financial structures and not just in programme design?
  This points to a shift from what is funded to how funding is structured including allocation rules, incentives, and decision criteria that influence behaviour.
• What incentives are necessary for investors to move away from short-term gains and adopt longer-term approaches in fragile contexts?
  This includes examining how risk, return expectations, and structuring mechanisms can be aligned with longer-term stability and resilience.
• What is the difference between peace finance and other financial models such as the HDP nexus or Islamic finance? How can they be integrated?
  Peace finance does not replace these approaches, but focuses specifically on how financial design — across different models — can incorporate stabilisation and cooperation into capital or funding allocation and use.
• What measurement frameworks and data evaluation methodologies are needed to demonstrate the impact of financial structures on peace?
  This remains a central area of development, particularly in linking financial decision-making to observable changes in stabilisation factors.
• What is new about peace finance?
  What is emerging is a focus on financial design — how capital is structured, allocated, and managed — and how stabilisation factors such as trust, cooperation, and governance can become relevant within those decisions.
• What can be learned from the evolution of climate finance?
  Climate finance illustrates how new areas can evolve into structured markets through standards, data, and alignment between public and private actors — a trajectory that peace finance is beginning to explore.
• How does peace finance operate in highly constrained contexts (e.g. sanctions environments)?
  These contexts raise real constraints around compliance and risk. The question is how financing structures can adapt while remaining operational and responsible.
• What is the role of legal and structuring actors in peace finance?
  A key one, namely, translating stabilisation-related considerations into contractual terms, governance arrangements, and financial structures.
• Why do investors struggle to see a return, and what happens when impact investors are limited?
  This reflects the current gap between stabilisation dynamics and financial logic. A core focus is understanding how these dynamics can become more relevant for investment decisions.

Next Steps

• Share sneak peek summary and key insights
• Circulate survey to assess participant insights and needs
• Follow up on interested participants to explore insights and collaboration opportunities
• Integrate these insights and challenges into the format and agenda of the workshop series