With the number of state-based conflicts at a record high since 1946, effective mediation is crucial for conflict prevention, de-escalation and transformation. Yet traditional approaches are proving inadequate, discrediting major players. Meanwhile, new approaches are emerging: we’re seeing more diverse actors taking the role of mediators; growing recognition of the importance of local ownership and multicultural representation; increasing use of technology for mediation, from AI chatbots to Online Dispute Resolution platforms; rising interest in the seminal role that emotional and mental health plays - both in a mediation process and in breaking cycles of violence; and acknowledgement of climate change impacts, from heat stress to resource scarcity, on tensions.
I had the opportunity to lead 24 peace practitioners from across the world - including the Philippines, Nigeria, Cyprus, Spain and the US - in a workshop to explore new visions and transformative pathways for mediation, as part of the Build Peace 2024 conference programme. We used Three Horizons, a futures thinking framework, offering participants a chance to experience its value as a dialogue tool, as well as to explore the question of how mediation practices might adapt to pressing challenges. We began by greeting each other as individuals, and reflecting on this poem by Yehuda Amichai, which to me encapsulates the need for dialogue frameworks that help to free us from entrenched narratives and consider new perspectives:
From the place where we are right flowers will never grow
in the spring. The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined house
once stood.
Futures Thinking makes space for new narratives by bringing us into a place entirely characterized by doubt and uncertainty, but to which we are bound as our future home.
Plural perspectives on mediation
We opened our inquiry with the question: “What does Mediation mean to you?”. There was consensus around mediation as a process involving non-partisan facilitation bridging divergent perspectives, and a spectrum of opinion around its objectives: to find commonality; to navigate change; to enable human connection and compassion; to resolve the conflict; to restore justice; all of the above?
This multiplicity of perspective may reflect the expanding diversity of mediators and their practices. ‘Mediation’ is experiencing an opening up to new interpreters and interpretations. How might peace practitioners harness this openness to transformation, and to what ends?
Factors challenging mediation today
One significant challenge was a general sense among participants of dwindling interest and trust in mediation processes.
One discussion group observed that interest in mediation tends to decline as societies expand and diversify: parties lean towards legal or punitive processes, perhaps as the sense of a shared future dwindles. The broad landscape of deglobalization, polarization and disconnection that are eroding our sense of a shared future emerges as a significant challenge for mediation. While these are global challenges, they each play out within local contexts by affecting individual mindsets.
Climate change and technology were regarded as two hugely significant challenges in themselves - and both also linked to disengagement and isolation of critical groups, including youth. Climate impacts are contributing to eco-paralysis, hindering engagement in dialogue, as well as obstructing meetings (for instance, due to flooding or storm-related blackouts) and exacerbating tensions (eg. due to heat stress). While technology is being used constructively to facilitate online convenings, it is also disrupting, manipulating and straining interpersonal relations, for instance through disinformation, polarization, online violence and aggression, and impacts on social cues.
We also discussed challenges arising within current approaches to mediation. For instance, mainstream approaches to mediation were critiqued for failing to recognize and value the cultural diversity of the groups they are working with, and for poor recognition of indigenous cultures and local dispute resolution practices.
Top-down approaches that depend on, or fail to challenge, power imbalance were seen as offering superficial and short-term solutions, falling far short of supporting the deeper understanding and human connection needed to sustain peaceful relations, while pandering to the interests of nation states. Mediators may lack the authority or resources to mitigate these imbalances adequately, leading to unjust decisions or settlements, and eroding trust in fair negotiations thereafter. Rising wealth and resource inequalities, exacerbated by both the digital divide and climate change, make these failures more acute.
Emerging visions for mediation
We developed visions for new approaches to mediation grounded in values and supported by societal structures. Participants’ visions were diverse and we welcomed this diversity, rather than seeking to unite visions. Nonetheless, some key principles emerged:
1. Democratization of mediation, enabling more grassroots, civil society or ‘third track’ dialogue, particularly through local ownership, contextualization and process co-creation;
2. Inclusivity and representation of diverse parties, both key to democratization, supported by participatory systems, frameworks, technologies as well as intersectional conflict analysis and actor mapping;
3. Agile, organic and responsive process co-design, acknowledging that mediation may not be the best way forward;
4. Human connection, expressed through compassion and care, and supported by both verbal and non-verbal techniques - such as arts-based and embodied practices;
5. Just, transparent and equitable processes, in pursuit of justice, equity and social cohesion, prioritising human outcomes and relations over high-level agreements.
Emerging opportunities for transformation
Participants were positive about the potential of community-led mediation hubs and capacity building programs to support grassroots and localized processes, and to enable community members to play key roles in designing and leading their own processes, while recognizing the value of impartial or non-partisan facilitation.
For instance, the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute Foundation offers a Grassroots Peacebuilding Mentors Training Program in South and Southeast Asia. Its alumni have gone on to establish local peace centres such as the Christ University Centre for Peace Praxis in Bangalore, which promotes inclusive peacebuilding by creating a safe space accessible to the youth and educators in India.
Localization needs to go hand-in-hand with initiatives to support diversity and equality, such as the nascent Network of African Youth in Conflict and the Global Alliance of Regional Women Mediator Networks. Resources are also emerging to support diversity and inclusion, such as the Handbook on Mediation co-produced by the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the AU, which includes guidelines on promoting women’s participation in mediation. (Thanks here to Dr Chido Mutagadura for this informative blog on inclusivity in African mediation, published by Conciliation Resources.)
Resources are also emerging to support emotional and mental health during mediation processes, such as International Alert’s 2023 paper, “Peace of mind: Integrating mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in reconciliation and violence prevention programmes in Rwanda and Tajikistan”. It puts forward seven elements of an integrated approach to MHPSS in peacebuilding, including: access to context-specific, culturally sensitive mental health support services; sustaining spaces for positive interaction, and local capacity building in mediation to establish a locally grown network of champions for mental health services.
The role of international players was also discussed, with participants advocating a focus on mediation support, as opposed to convening or facilitating mediation processes. For instance, the International Contact Group (ICG) in Mindanao, described by Democratic Progress Institute as “the first ever formal hybrid mediation support initiative”, developed organically over 15 years, comprising diplomats from four states and four INGOs. Its aims are to “accompany and mobilise international support for the peace process” and to “exert proper leverage and sustain the interests of the parties as well as maintain a level of comfort that restores mutual trust”.
Participants also observed that it is critical for international and non-local players to recognize and respect long-standing traditions of mediation in local and indigenous cultures. As Njoki Nyanjui, an accredited mediator with the High Court of Kenya, writes, “Mediation is not a new concept in the Kenyan culture. It was traditionally used to … resolve all manner of community disputes: domestic disputes, land issues, neighborly conflict among others.”
Beyond direct mediation, there was interest in locally led exercises to bring communities together across divides, supporting them to co-create ways forward and connect at a human level to counter ‘othering’. For instance, one participant was part of the leadership team for SocialTech Lab: “Building the next wave of peacetech innovations to empower entrepreneurship in fragile contexts and shape a more peaceful world.” Its first project was CyprusInno, a platform and physical space supporting entrepreneurship and collaboration in Cyprus’ Buffer Zone.
Finally (and this is by no means a comprehensive summary), there was interest in the use of technology to support mediation spaces and broad consultations. For instance, video conferencing is enabling parties to meet and engage in dialogue without immediate physical risk, potentially lowering the bar for enabling sufficient trust to bring parties together at all. Messaging services are being used to support familiarity, and so to increase levels of trust.
However, participants commented that online mediation only works during the initial stages of resolving or settling an issue, arguing: “There is no substitute for face-to-face mediation, because personal interaction is very important to conflict resolution.” Digitalization is also crucial to the involvement and voices of youth and remote communities (where connectivity is sufficient), and supports capacity building for localization through peer-to-peer sharing of methodologies and experiences across different local contexts.
In our final reflections, participants came back to the importance of tailoring approaches to local contexts, and the central role of diverse local actors in this.
What examples of locally led mediation, or alternative approaches to dialogue, are you involved in or aware of? What other innovations have you seen or are you developing that might support mediation to be more effective in today’s complex conflicts, and in those we must work to prevent?
Reach out to share your insights and experiences, and to explore collaborations to support constructive dialogue in conflict-affected contexts and communities.
Thanks to the Build Up team and the Build Peace community for your support and participation.on.
