Rather than being staffed by highly visible armed forces, the peace team's low profile ordinary citizens come together, more often than not, from an organization which has just come into existence. Additionally, current peace team organizations have limited global participation. It would not be an exaggeration to say that peace teams as they are manifested today are the foreign policy arm of the western peace movement. Their struggle for political legitimacy on the world stage has been hindered by a general lack of understanding of their purpose. This lack of understanding has come from confusion within the movement as to the various organizations goals, methods of operation and effectiveness, which in turn has fed suspicion or noncooperation with other, more traditional governmental and international humanitarian and relief agencies working within the crisis situation.
Media reports on their activities are frequently vague or dismissive.
Peace team development has suffered from lack of resources and capable personnel and clear strategic goals. This appears to also foster a cycle of lack of support from more traditional groups because these shortfalls make the voluntary groups appear unprofessional or naive. More intensive training may help alleviate this deficiency, but this too costs resources and assumes training capacity is there. Peace teams are still in the developmental stage, and we are only discovering some of the things the organization should be thinking about by direct experience. Drawing on the years of experience of established humanitarian agencies such as Medicine San Frontiers and the International Committee of the Red Cross would be extremely helpful and should be sought.