CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle require creative imagination and marks real advance in science – Albert Einstein

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

It is often said that conflict is a major characteristic of human daily activities. It is an innate feature, one that cannot be avoided but can be mitigated to prevent violence and grave consequences. According to Rambotham et al (2011), conflict takes its origins from economic differentiation, social change, cultural formation, psychological development and political organization – all of which are inherently conflictual – and becomes overt through the formation of conflict parties, which come to have, or are perceived to have, mutually incompatible goals. Conflict can be constructive or destructive depending on how it is addressed. Constructive conflict can have valuable outcome on human society while destructive conflict can result to damages and loss. Fisher et al(2011) opined that conflict can be addressed through different approaches-given the different dimensions of conflict-which are sometimes linked; conflict prevention, conflict settlement, conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict management.

Conflict resolution, as stated above is one of the approaches to dealing with conflict and a comprehensive one. Wallenstein (2011) defined conflict resolution as a situation where the conflicting parties enter into an agreement that solves their central incompatibilities, accept each other‘s continued existence as parties and cease all violent action against each other. This means, of course, that conflict resolution is something that necessarily comes after conflict. Fisher et al (2011) opined that conflict resolution addresses the causes of conflict and seeks to build new and lasting relationships between hostile groups. This means a conflict resolution process is often towards putting an end to armed struggle, it also means that conflicts are resolved and transformed to workable peace among the conflicting parties.