The notion of building peace in conflict-affected states and societies is not new, and certainly not one invented by the United Nations (UN). Contemporary discussions, nonetheless, might very well give this impression, not least since the inauguration of the UN’s ‘peacebuilding architecture’ in the wake of the 2005 World Summit, encompassing a UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) of 31 member states, a UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) based in New York, and a UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to help finance its mandates. But the endeavour to build peace is, of course, much more than the activities of a particular (legal and political) institutional set-up. Indeed, peacebuilding has gained in prominence – not just in specialized academic and practitioner circles, but also in the public discourse at large.