Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action
On a yearly basis, the Training Academy for International Diplomats of the Federal Foreign Office designs and realizes its 5-days Network Consolidation Programme for International Diplomats in close cooperation with the Center for Peace Mediation.
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Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action 2020:
Mediation Responses to Conflicts in Times of Corona The 2020 Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action Programme was dedicated to bringing together peace mediation and COVID-19. After an initial impulse to cancel this year’s week in the light of travel restrictions and new priorities, the Center decided to put the health crisis and resulting political and societal tensions and dilemmas in the center of the workshop. |
From August 31 to September 4, 2020, 22 diplomats, civil society and security actors from 18 countries jointly explored how to use mediation and other problem solving methodologies for dealing constructively with crisis-driven tensions in their respective professional roles and working contexts.
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The spectrum of scenarios addressed by the participants ranged from the intractable challenges of managing a health crisis in a stuck violent conflict (such as in Yemen) and societal polarization triggered by Corona-policies (such as in Germany) to new cooperation dilemmas (such as in developing a COVID-19 vaccine) and opportunities to use the health crisis as a stimulus for change (such as in Pakistan`s tree planting programme or with regard to migrant workers in the EU).
Tailored to the COVID-19 restricted travel conditions of participants, the programme was held a mixture of presence and online formats. It was realized in close cooperation between the German Federal Foreign Ministry, the Center for Peace Mediation at the European University Viadrina and external experts from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. |
Viadrina Logbuch 2020: 22 Teilnehmende, 18 Länder, eine Pandemie - fünftägiger Workshop des Center for Peace Mediation macht Covid-19 zum Thema
Märkische Oder Zeitung 2020: Europa-Uni in Frankfurt (Oder) als globaler Krisenberater
Märkische Oder Zeitung 2020: Europa-Uni in Frankfurt (Oder) als globaler Krisenberater
Peace Mediation & Crisis Diplomacy in Action: The Programme
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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 consolidating peace. The German Peace Mediation Framework published in 2019 summarizes Germany’s approach and will also serve as one reference frame for the program.
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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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