Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action
On a yearly basis, the Federal Foreign Office designs and realizes its Network Consolidation Programme for International Diplomats in close cooperation with the Center for Peace Mediation.
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The first part of the interactive seminar focuses on preconditions and pitfalls of successful mediation, offers practical mediation training and an interactive examination of conflict cases from all fields of international politics. A series of creative problem-solving formats build the second part of the workshop. Here, the participants explore new perspectives on the conflicts in their own regions in order to identify potential entry points for the future. The third part of the workshop takes place in a tailor-made 1-to-1 coaching format. It offers participants a safe and focused environment to reflect on how to apply insights and competences gained in the program in their own working context, and identify their own possible role in and contribution to future mediation initiatives in their region.
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31 August - 4 September, 2020: 15th Network Consolidation Program
Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action: Mediation Responses to Conflicts in Times of Corona
The 2020 Network Consolidation Programme will be dedicated to two seemingly distinct topics, peace mediation and COVID-19. After an initial impulse to cancel this year’s Peace Mediation Programme in the light of travel restrictions and new priorities, we do now think that mediated approaches to the implications of the Corona crisis can make a true difference, and invite you to work on context- as well as role-specific ways this can be achieved, in terms of skills, concepts and practice.
Over the last decade, in numerous countries and contexts, peace mediation has become an ever more important response to political crises. Peace mediation processes can be conducted by specialized mediation experts, diplomats with support teams and by non-governmental actors, with a wide range of possible functions and roles involved. All mediation actors and support infrastructures are well-advised to proceed on a solid normative and methodological basis as well as to coordinate their engagements carefully with the interventions of other intermediaries in a conflict system. Based as it is on principles such as inclusivity, consensus and local ownership, peace mediation – especially if put into the wider context of multitrack diplomacy – can be seen as one key method of translating the ideas of inclusive peace and constructive response to crisis into practice. As many other states as well as international and regional organizations, Germany explicitly regards mediation as an integral part of its conflict prevention capacities and as an effective instrument for re-establishing and consol- idating peace. The German Peace Mediation Framework published in 2019 summarizes Germany’s approach and will also serve as one reference frame for the program.
In the face of the unprecedented global dimension of the COVID-19 crisis, this year’s Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action Program will directly respond to concrete needs in dealing with tensions, conflicts and dilemmas that newly arise or changed their face in the context of this crisis. The prograe invites diplomatic, civil society, and – due to this year’s focus also – humanitarian/crisis response actors, to jointly explore how to use mediation approaches and methodologies for dealing constructively with crisis-driven tensions in their working context. The spectrum of possible topics ranges from reacting to new or intensified fields of conflict within and between societies over new cooperation necessities (and opportunities) in the face of Corona to the implications of digital formats in situations where honest exchange and trust are needed.
THE PROGRAMME ...
∎ will offer practical insights into the different methods, models and concepts of peace mediation, process design and dilemma management. On this basis, participants will analyze the collective and individual crisis/conflict scenarios they are facing and develop the respective skills and strategies to tackle them effectively.
∎ will take place from 31 August to 4 September in Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder). Formats will be tailored to the then-valid travel conditions of participants, most likely with a mixture of presence and online formats.
∎ requires interactive participation in and active contributions to small group exercises, problem-solving laboratories and peer coaching formats, to train skills and to jointly develop concrete responses to own and their peers` challenges.
∎ will be realized in close cooperation between the German Federal Foreign Ministry, the Center for Peace Mediation at the European University Viadrina and external experts from other institutions like the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Viadrina Logbuch: Von Krisen und Brücken: Gäste aus zwölf Nationen erkunden Möglichkeiten der Friedensmediation on Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action Program 2019
