Peacekeeping missions have always sought to better understand the views, concerns and priorities of the host population in orderto inform their work. Until recently, however, there has been little evidence of peacekeeping missions gathering information on local perceptions in a systematic, coordinated manner, and explicitly incorporating this information into decision making processes. In 2012 the Civil Affairs team of the Policy and Best Practices Service in DPKO/DFS, with the generous support of the Government of Australia, initiated a study and analysis of peacekeeping practice to strengthen the Departments’ understanding of this field of practice and lay the groundwork for operational guidance.