Listening Before Helping: Why Community Involvement is Essential for Peace in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

• The arrival of over 1 million Rohingya refugees since 2017 has significantly altered the social and economic landscape of Cox’s Bazar, straining relations between refugees and host communities.
• Lasting peace in the region requires international organizations to move beyond top-down interventions toward deeper, long-term collaboration rooted in local community ownership.

Drivers of Tension and Grassroots Mediation

• Economic pressures, such as rising living costs and shrinking labor opportunities, combined with rumors about aid distribution, have fueled local tensions.
• Local community organizers in Teknaf have facilitated informal dialogues between refugees and residents, successfully creating market access agreements and localized conflict resolution channels.

The Role and Limitations of International Aid

• Programs funded by donors like the EU and implemented by agencies like UNICEF and Save the Children provide essential training, youth engagement, and mediation support.
• Structural barriers, such as rigid reporting requirements and short funding cycles, often prevent aid from addressing the complex, long-term nature of trust-building.
• Many project frameworks are designed at distant headquarters without meaningful consultation, often overlooking the specific local drivers of conflict like land disputes or political rivalries.

Calls for Humanitarian Reform

• Local peacebuilders advocate for "co-designed" programs that include community actors before project proposals are finalized.
• There is a call to reduce reporting burdens for smaller grants, allowing local organizations to prioritize community engagement over administrative compliance.
• Effective peacebuilding requires international partners to embrace humility and recognize that sustainable social cohesion is grown through relationships rather than predefined performance indicators.