The political events of last week in Colombia made clear that while the country has a real chance for peace, the road is still riddled with difficulties. On the one hand, the unprecedented ceasefire agreement between the Ejército de Liberación Nacional(ELN) and the government of Colombia is an encouraging sign that the peace process with this armed group is moving forward, albeit slowly.

Policymakers continuing to wrestle with issue of how sustaining peace, prevention and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development work together, could look no further than The Gambia as a case study. The country’s fragile transition since national elections in January this year provide considerable room for studying and responding to the root causes of conflict by pursuing both peace and development in a holistic manner.

Despite facing severe opposition from the central Iraqi government, Iran, Turkey, and other powers, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) moved ahead with a historic referendum regarding independence from Iraq on Monday this week. After an estimated 78% of the five million eligible Kurdish voters turned up at polling booths, the Kurdish government announced a 93% “yes” vote for independence.

The pace and scale of the violence currently unfolding in Myanmar is difficult to comprehend. Since August 25 this year, 430,000 Rohingya—more than a third of the ethnic minority’s population—have fled the country and an estimated 1,000 have died in a scorched earth campaign that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

By Mel Duncan and Kimberly Ai-Lin-Loh