1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:02,320 Good afternoon, everyone. 2 00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:13,620 And also to our listeners online, if there are still any thank you for your resilience to stay with us up to this this late hour. 3 00:00:13,620 --> 00:00:20,930 I'm going to to talk to you about adaptive mediation and. 4 00:00:20,930 --> 00:00:31,820 I'm focussing in on mediation because it's kind of a microcosm of what we're talking about when we talk more broadly about peace processes. 5 00:00:31,820 --> 00:00:36,770 And so I think although I'm going to focus in on mediation, 6 00:00:36,770 --> 00:00:46,370 I hope that you can scale it in your minds also when we talk about peace processes more broadly. 7 00:00:46,370 --> 00:00:55,550 And of course, I want to link it to our question, which is about who builds peace. 8 00:00:55,550 --> 00:01:01,050 And I think when we when we talk about who builds peace, it's of course. 9 00:01:01,050 --> 00:01:11,040 For me, an important and many people have mentioned it today that it's really about striking the right balance between those who are affected by 10 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:20,460 conflict and those who are there to help those affected by conflict who deal with with the conflict that they are that they're engaging with. 11 00:01:20,460 --> 00:01:31,710 And this is not black and white. This is obviously a spectrum with very many different actors and levels on that spectrum. 12 00:01:31,710 --> 00:01:40,620 We spoke today about, I think Jean-Paul Mensen used the words entangled embedded. 13 00:01:40,620 --> 00:01:45,720 If we think about these relationships that we are talking about between those 14 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:52,920 who are affected by conflict and those who are helping in one or other way. 15 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,040 We can also think in terms of scales or circuits. 16 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:04,230 And this is where I think another issue that came up a couple of times today is important is the fact that although we may be focussing, for instance, 17 00:02:04,230 --> 00:02:09,570 in dealing with a particular conflict with a community affected by that conflict, 18 00:02:09,570 --> 00:02:18,090 they are, of course, not able to at that level bring about change at other levels. 19 00:02:18,090 --> 00:02:22,650 So maybe at the regional national international level, 20 00:02:22,650 --> 00:02:27,300 although there are things happening at those level that have an influence on the local conflict, right? 21 00:02:27,300 --> 00:02:32,470 So as peacebuilding, especially that that can. 22 00:02:32,470 --> 00:02:38,470 And move between these different levels or that are located at different levels, so for instance, 23 00:02:38,470 --> 00:02:49,210 a someone like Jonathan who's sitting in in London dealing with somebody in a field office is dealing with somebody in a local community. 24 00:02:49,210 --> 00:02:53,140 That kind of organisation can work at all these different levels. 25 00:02:53,140 --> 00:02:58,330 And I think one of the most important thing we as international peace builders can do is to, 26 00:02:58,330 --> 00:03:04,870 first of all, deal with peacebuilding in our jurisdiction and our level look at. 27 00:03:04,870 --> 00:03:10,780 We may not have a lot of leverage or influence about what's happening in the local community, where we are maybe trying to help. 28 00:03:10,780 --> 00:03:17,290 But certainly we should have much more influence and leverage in our own communities where we are located in terms of 29 00:03:17,290 --> 00:03:27,710 reducing harm that our communities could be and could be causing in these local communities that we're working with. 30 00:03:27,710 --> 00:03:33,600 One thing I want to maybe preface also my discussion on adaptive mediation about is that. 31 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:39,390 When we talk about mediation, I think we can distinguish between many different types of mediation. 32 00:03:39,390 --> 00:03:48,510 Ukraine is very much, for instance, at the front of our minds at the moment, and we think about mediation in in a conflict situation like Ukraine. 33 00:03:48,510 --> 00:03:56,940 It is about trying to bring an end to the conflict, trying to bring an end to the suffering, using a very broad range of tools. 34 00:03:56,940 --> 00:04:00,210 And it's about dealing with some parties, 35 00:04:00,210 --> 00:04:07,470 typically in this kind of conflict situation that still believe they can achieve more through violence than through peace. 36 00:04:07,470 --> 00:04:13,620 And that's a very different mediation than a mediation where you are engaging with parties that have 37 00:04:13,620 --> 00:04:20,640 reached a point of ripeness where they recognise what Darkman calls a mutual hurting stalemate, 38 00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:30,240 or where they recognise that they can't achieve their objectives through violence, they have to switch to seeking a mediated solution. 39 00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:35,340 So a lot of what I want to say now about adaptive mediation is really about that second 40 00:04:35,340 --> 00:04:41,550 type of mediation setting because their goal is to find a self-sustainable peace, 41 00:04:41,550 --> 00:04:48,930 not to find not to bring an end to the conflict using any means of leverage that we can. 42 00:04:48,930 --> 00:04:49,950 And it speaks a little bit, 43 00:04:49,950 --> 00:04:58,140 perhaps to the difference between negative peace and positive peace that we also mentioned at various times during our discussion today. 44 00:04:58,140 --> 00:05:04,050 And maybe the one thing I would like to say there is that I think we sometimes I think it's very useful concepts, 45 00:05:04,050 --> 00:05:10,440 but we sometimes think of them too much as a kind of a chronological dimension. 46 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:15,210 I think Jean-Paul also mentioned this morning that these things are happening at the same time. 47 00:05:15,210 --> 00:05:19,740 And I think especially when you think about sustaining a negative peace that 48 00:05:19,740 --> 00:05:24,480 is impossible to do without many elements of positive peace being present. 49 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:30,750 So I think these two are more closely interlinked and then than we often think of. 50 00:05:30,750 --> 00:05:36,330 Of course, it's interesting from a kind of analytical perspective to try to make that distinction. 51 00:05:36,330 --> 00:05:46,170 But the core puzzle I want to share with you and discuss with you and I talk about adaptive mediation is that over the last few decades, 52 00:05:46,170 --> 00:05:56,400 our attempt to professionalise mediation, I think, have had a number of side effects or negative unintended consequences. 53 00:05:56,400 --> 00:06:06,030 One of them is that. Our focus has shifted from a occupation with the conflict and the people involved, 54 00:06:06,030 --> 00:06:12,570 the parties to the conflict, to the mediator, to mediation, to peace agreements. 55 00:06:12,570 --> 00:06:18,570 We have created a lot of expectations of of what we think mediators should achieve, 56 00:06:18,570 --> 00:06:26,520 what a peace agreement should contain the ethics that the mediators should bring to them to the mediation table. 57 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:32,190 And I think the result is that many of the peace agreements that have been adopted or 58 00:06:32,190 --> 00:06:36,120 many of the actions that we take when it comes to how we engage with peace processes, 59 00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:45,280 if I make it a bit more broadly broader, reflects more what our expectations are of. 60 00:06:45,280 --> 00:06:55,650 Peace then. What they say about the local context or the interests of the parties to the conflict. 61 00:06:55,650 --> 00:07:03,420 I think in many cases, mediators and their teams have had so much influence over the process and the 62 00:07:03,420 --> 00:07:08,100 content of the agreements reached that the parties to the conflict and the 63 00:07:08,100 --> 00:07:14,370 people affected by the conflict don't recognise themselves and their experiences 64 00:07:14,370 --> 00:07:20,760 and concerns in the content of the agreement or the content of the process. 65 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:32,280 And of course, as a result, many of the peace agreements adopted or agreed to in these kind of contexts collapse soon after they've been adopted. 66 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:40,710 And that is why I've had this interest to really try to understand and think about how can we make these peace agreements? 67 00:07:40,710 --> 00:07:51,330 Or then more broader, this peace process is more sustainable, more self-sustainable self-sustainable, meaning that they are sustained, implemented, 68 00:07:51,330 --> 00:07:56,250 maintained, further developed by the people involved in the conflict, 69 00:07:56,250 --> 00:08:04,480 not as a result of external or international influence or support or encouragement. 70 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:09,460 And this this brings me to this concept of adaptive mediation, 71 00:08:09,460 --> 00:08:17,560 which is a specific approach to mediation that is based on a recognition that the social systems 72 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:24,610 that we are trying to influence through mediation or broader peace processes are complex. 73 00:08:24,610 --> 00:08:31,820 In other words, they are emergent, they are dynamic, they are nonlinear and therefore they are. 74 00:08:31,820 --> 00:08:39,500 They are inherently uncertain and unpredictable. You've mentioned this morning going to the Moon, 75 00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:50,360 so I want to use this distinction between something that is complicated and something that is complex by referring to travelling to space. 76 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:59,430 I think we all think that we have this kind of common reference that we make that if if we want to say that what we are doing is not very difficult. 77 00:08:59,430 --> 00:09:12,000 We're saying it's not rocket science, right? Rocket science is very complicated, you need a lot of different types of knowledge to design spaceships, 78 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:17,910 to design how they should be launched and their velocities, etcetera, etcetera, 79 00:09:17,910 --> 00:09:25,960 but once you've been able to effect that, you can do that over and over again. 80 00:09:25,960 --> 00:09:31,740 In fact, I think the rocket that has been used most up to now to send people into space is 81 00:09:31,740 --> 00:09:36,330 the Soyuz rockets that's essentially been unchanged in design since the 1960s. 82 00:09:36,330 --> 00:09:47,650 It's. That's complicated, it's difficult, but it's complicated, complex like social systems mean that we, for instance, like we heard today, 83 00:09:47,650 --> 00:09:51,550 we have something like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the National 84 00:09:51,550 --> 00:09:57,390 Peace Accords that it's worked relatively well in a place like South Africa. 85 00:09:57,390 --> 00:10:01,920 But we cannot replicate it anywhere else, necessarily. 86 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:08,040 We cannot even replicate it in South Africa today because of the different context that it is in. 87 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:16,830 So this unpredictability, uncertainty and reproducibility are inherent characteristics of complex systems. 88 00:10:16,830 --> 00:10:21,540 And that's why peace is so much more difficult to deal with. 89 00:10:21,540 --> 00:10:26,520 So next time people belittle our work and say it's not rocket science, 90 00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:32,850 you can go back and tell them our work is much more complex than rocket science. 91 00:10:32,850 --> 00:10:43,140 So this this recognition of complexity, I think, has a number of implications for how we approach our work in peace processes then, 92 00:10:43,140 --> 00:10:52,830 but also then especially how we deal with mediation. And I'll I'll focus in on three implications. 93 00:10:52,830 --> 00:10:59,970 Firstly, this uncertainty and unpredictability mean that we cannot use a deductive theory 94 00:10:59,970 --> 00:11:07,170 of change when we try to influence social systems or social change processes. 95 00:11:07,170 --> 00:11:12,390 But I mean, with that is because we cannot predict what's going to happen. 96 00:11:12,390 --> 00:11:19,860 We cannot design a theory of change with linear step by step chronological interventions, 97 00:11:19,860 --> 00:11:25,770 which with any certainty is going to produce the result that we intended to have. 98 00:11:25,770 --> 00:11:30,620 And this is how. I'll use Graeme's 90 percent. 99 00:11:30,620 --> 00:11:35,060 This is how 90 percent of of of our peace processes are designed. 100 00:11:35,060 --> 00:11:43,370 Right. Because when we apply for money, we are forced to come up with a theory of change that shows the funder that we 101 00:11:43,370 --> 00:11:47,180 have a high degree in convinced the Thunder that if we take the following steps, 102 00:11:47,180 --> 00:11:57,270 we're going to have the following results. I would say that to cope with complexity, we need to use an inductive approach, 103 00:11:57,270 --> 00:12:05,920 which basically means that we need we don't know what's going to work, so we need to try a variety of things. 104 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:14,740 As we when we try a variety of things, you can call it experimentation if you like, or exploration of different interventions. 105 00:12:14,740 --> 00:12:27,340 We need to track those very closely and see which effects they have, which means we need a very, relatively short, iterative cycle of reflection. 106 00:12:27,340 --> 00:12:33,760 I've been part of a team that designed a performance assessment system for UN peacekeeping operations, 107 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:38,410 and they use a four month cycle to do this kind of reflective process, right? 108 00:12:38,410 --> 00:12:43,210 So you need to judge which of those interventions or steps or actions that you are taking 109 00:12:43,210 --> 00:12:47,920 is having the kind of desired effect that you want to have and which ones are not. 110 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:53,980 And you have to stop doing those that are not working and maybe expand and work more, 111 00:12:53,980 --> 00:12:58,120 bring in more diversity and those that seem to have the desired effect. 112 00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:04,420 And one thing that's important to remember in this context is that something that may be working today and tomorrow 113 00:13:04,420 --> 00:13:13,390 is most likely not going to work next week or next month because the systems we are engaging with is proactive, 114 00:13:13,390 --> 00:13:20,590 conscious human beings that are constantly reacting to how we are engaging with the social system. 115 00:13:20,590 --> 00:13:28,990 And if what we are doing is having such an effect that for which there will be winners and losers because we are trying to change, 116 00:13:28,990 --> 00:13:31,540 bring about such an change in that society, 117 00:13:31,540 --> 00:13:39,220 people will react and find ways to to circumvent or go around or find different ways to try to do what they 118 00:13:39,220 --> 00:13:46,030 would like to do and therefore even those things that we've come up with in our interventions that seem to work. 119 00:13:46,030 --> 00:13:53,740 We need to keep monitoring because we will need to keep diversifying and keep, keep evolving those as well as we go along. 120 00:13:53,740 --> 00:13:59,680 And that's also why it's important when we talk about peace agreements to think and understand 121 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:05,410 that a self-sustainable peace agreement is also an evolving peace agreement or something, 122 00:14:05,410 --> 00:14:15,740 at least that can manage during its implementation process with a changing and continuous evolving situation. 123 00:14:15,740 --> 00:14:21,410 So that's where the adaptive and adaptive mediation and adaptive peace comes 124 00:14:21,410 --> 00:14:28,250 from this this need to continuously attempt to explore different interventions, 125 00:14:28,250 --> 00:14:31,940 monitor them very closely, reflect on how they're doing. 126 00:14:31,940 --> 00:14:38,210 Introducing new adaptations, understanding that this is a continuous iterative cycle that will never stop. 127 00:14:38,210 --> 00:14:42,920 We're not going to arrive at some point with the solution. 128 00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:50,600 We need to continuously co evolve with the changing situation as we go along. 129 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:55,670 So the second implication I want to talk about of complexity and unpredictable 130 00:14:55,670 --> 00:15:03,650 predictability for mediation processes has to do with the ownership of the peace agreement. 131 00:15:03,650 --> 00:15:09,850 When we were. Thinking that as experts, 132 00:15:09,850 --> 00:15:16,990 we had this knowledge about peace and peacebuilding that we could bring to communities affected by conflict meant 133 00:15:16,990 --> 00:15:24,850 that we had some kind of a privileged experience and knowledge that we could teach or lead communities and process. 134 00:15:24,850 --> 00:15:30,400 But if we recognise the social complexity of what we working with and we recognise that there 135 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:37,540 isn't in a way of determining exactly what process will work or what the outcome will be. 136 00:15:37,540 --> 00:15:44,230 I think this shows us that the the value and the role of the communities you working with in terms of the knowledge that 137 00:15:44,230 --> 00:15:52,390 they have is at least equal to the rock through the role that international contributors to peace may or may not have. 138 00:15:52,390 --> 00:16:00,520 So to think much more in terms of breaking down this hierarchy of inequality between international peace builders or external peacefulness, 139 00:16:00,520 --> 00:16:07,170 people who have peacebuilding as a profession and local communities we are engaging with. 140 00:16:07,170 --> 00:16:08,580 But there's another, I would say, 141 00:16:08,580 --> 00:16:17,580 even more important reason to think about the local ownership and the involvement of local communities, and that is that. 142 00:16:17,580 --> 00:16:23,850 Because the process of what we the content of what we're dealing with when we come into 143 00:16:23,850 --> 00:16:29,490 engaging with peace processes or mediation processes have to be context specific, 144 00:16:29,490 --> 00:16:38,040 have to relate to the culture and history and realities and interests of the people involved in the conflict. 145 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:42,030 It has to emerge from the process from themselves. 146 00:16:42,030 --> 00:16:48,120 It can be an engagement and they were, of course, the role that mediators and external actors play. 147 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:54,120 Jonathan, I think, spoke very eloquently about the various different contributions that external 148 00:16:54,120 --> 00:17:01,850 peace builders or mediators can bring to a process and the limitations that. 149 00:17:01,850 --> 00:17:10,610 Communities or people affected by conflict may have in terms of their ability to perhaps overcome some of their challenges and so forth. 150 00:17:10,610 --> 00:17:19,040 But taking all of that into account, we are not going to arrive at a self-sustainable peace process if the content of that peace 151 00:17:19,040 --> 00:17:25,040 process or peace agreement has not been generated by the people engaged in the process. 152 00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:32,240 If the content comes from the mediators, then we will see the kind of relax and peace agreements that we've seen before. 153 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:40,670 So that is a critical element if we want to achieve self-sustainable peace agreements or peace processes. 154 00:17:40,670 --> 00:17:51,440 Lastly, the role of the mediator has to because of this importance of the. 155 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:57,350 Parties affected by the conflict, the parties to the mediation because of their importance in the process. 156 00:17:57,350 --> 00:18:04,910 The last thing I want to emphasise is then the role of the mediator. What is the appropriate role of the mediator or the peaceful? 157 00:18:04,910 --> 00:18:12,010 I would say that it's important that that role should be limited to process facilitation. 158 00:18:12,010 --> 00:18:16,030 And it's difficult to put a hard line on it. 159 00:18:16,030 --> 00:18:19,420 Of course, that needs interpretation in different situations. 160 00:18:19,420 --> 00:18:29,600 But the what I would try to say is that mediators peacefulness should stop short of providing content. 161 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:35,090 Content needs to come, the process can come from the mediators with content needs to come from the local context, 162 00:18:35,090 --> 00:18:44,060 from the engagement, from a selfie emerging process of of the engagement of the local actors or the parties to a mediation. 163 00:18:44,060 --> 00:18:53,000 So adaptive mediation is a specific approach to mediation designed to cope with the complexity and 164 00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:59,540 to generate peace processes and peace agreements that are locally grounded and self sustainable. 165 00:18:59,540 --> 00:19:07,220 That, to me, is the essence of what I'm trying to convey when I talk about adaptive mediation or adaptive peace process. 166 00:19:07,220 --> 00:19:15,810 Am I doing on time? OK, I'll just wrap up in. 167 00:19:15,810 --> 00:19:24,350 So one thing is, I know when I talk about it in the way that I spoke to you about it now, it could sound quite theoretical. 168 00:19:24,350 --> 00:19:27,210 But I want to bring it down to a practical example. 169 00:19:27,210 --> 00:19:37,290 I think one one example we heard today that really inspired me in this process as well is the the National Peace Accord 170 00:19:37,290 --> 00:19:43,920 and the kind of infrastructures for peace that came out of this African experience that Liz told us about earlier today. 171 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:47,880 And that was, of course, not designed as an adaptive process. 172 00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:49,230 But I think in reality, 173 00:19:49,230 --> 00:20:04,020 it really shows the the content of the of the type of process that I'm describing because you had at the local community on a continuous basis, 174 00:20:04,020 --> 00:20:09,690 key actors from the local community coming together, whether it's religious leaders, 175 00:20:09,690 --> 00:20:15,420 mayors of town, community leaders, the pull, the head of the police, 176 00:20:15,420 --> 00:20:22,890 the army, if they were around and other all kinds of other community leaders that came 177 00:20:22,890 --> 00:20:29,760 together on a continuous basis to either respond to a particular challenge that 178 00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:35,490 has emerged from the community or that as a discussing the fault lines that they 179 00:20:35,490 --> 00:20:40,110 may see and try to prevent future disputes from arising in their communities. 180 00:20:40,110 --> 00:20:43,890 And this is something that is happening irritably all the time, 181 00:20:43,890 --> 00:20:51,150 and that is something happening all the country and then generating information up to the regional and national levels. 182 00:20:51,150 --> 00:20:58,030 And so for me, that's a very practical example of a process that is very iterative. 183 00:20:58,030 --> 00:21:02,590 That is learning that is trying different ways of managing this crisis, 184 00:21:02,590 --> 00:21:09,310 that they are experiencing and learning from that and bringing them forward to the next iteration. 185 00:21:09,310 --> 00:21:16,900 The lessons learnt from the previous experience. So that's maybe one of the the examples you can you can keep in your mind when you 186 00:21:16,900 --> 00:21:24,730 think about how this kind of adaptive peace adaptive mediation process can be. 187 00:21:24,730 --> 00:21:30,344 Imagined in everyday will let me stop there, thank you very much.