Newsletter October 2019

International peace mediation

Effectiveness of mediation in the world of work

Table of contents

  • International peace mediation – What is it about?
  • Background to the development of international peace mediation
  • How can Germany fully utilise its potential in peace mediation?
  • Concepts for mediation: Part 10 – Concept of inner drivers

Centre of gravity: International peace mediation

On the one hand, the field of international peace mediation is about Official peace and ceasefire negotiationsbut also to dialogue formats such as round tables, dialogue conferences, informal dialogues or networking activities, which in turn are intended to build, expand or even establish peace infrastructures.

It is a fragmented field of mediation with many players that has only begun to professionalise and organise itself in recent decades.

  • The United Nations (UN) For example, it was only in 2005 that we set up the Mediation Support Unit (MSU), which has mediation teams on call ready to be deployed anywhere in the world within 48 hours. Link
  • Also Germany is professionalising and organising itself – with the Federal Foreign Office – in charge of International Peace Mediation & Mediation Support. read more
  • The Guidelines of the Federal Government in this field you will find here.
  • Trained Peace mediators are trained at the ETH Zurich.   read more
  • The first course started in Zurich in 2017. read more
  • Website for the study programme at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.read more (English)
  • In Germany is above all the Centre for Peace Mediation at the Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder. read more

Background to these developments in international peace mediation

Worldwide increase in war refugees and people born and living in crisis areas. In summer 2019, the UN Refugee Agency reported that more than seventy million people were displaced for the first time in over 70 years. read more

How can Germany fully utilise its potential in peace mediation?

  1. Effective use of networks
  2. Long-term financing of mediation processes
  3. Inclusion of unpleasant negotiating partners
  4. Expansion of capacities for mediation
  5. Publicly effective communication that mediation is used for international peace
(from: Peace Mediation. Germany's ace up its sleeve, from Dr Almut Wieland-KarimiManaging Director of the Centre for International Peace Operations (ZIF) in Berlin. read more)

Concepts for mediation

Part 10: The concept of inner drivers

Transactional analysis provides a wonderful concept for analysing individual Solution approaches and procedures that only make the (conflict) situation worseand to make it understandable on a psychodynamic level – .

The driver concept is one of the best-known TA conceptswhich are also used in other contexts. For example, it is regularly part of the content of Burnout prevention.

We have already honoured it here at INKOVEMA as a blog post and want to take it up again in our series „Concepts for Mediation“.

read more