"Managing Complexity, Breaking Deadlocks and Building Consensus "
A Background Paper for the Third Conference on National Dialogues, April 5-6, 2017

Perhaps the most outstanding characteristic of National Dialogues, as seen from a planning and facilitation perspective, is its bewildering complexity. In Burma the Panglong conference that met for the first time in January 2016 consisted of 900 representatives from the government and army; ethnic minorities and 18 armed groups; and more than 90 democratic parties/groups. In Yemen, the National Dialogue Conference had 565 representatives, representing political parties and movements, ethnic representatives, women and youth, 50% to represent the South and 30% women. Not only is the sheer size of such meetings intimidating, but more so the range of political interests, the depth of distrust, the seeming irreconcilability of competing interests and issues, and the fragility of the arrangement that must hold all together. 

It is accepted that, given the homegrown quality of National Dialogues, there will and should be no one-size-fits all answer to the above questions. There seems to be an almost naïve assumption that dialogue will be successful if only protagonists can be brought into the same room (or hall). This is not the case, as the list of National Dialogues that did not have any lasting impact is considered, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Togo, Yemen, Bahrain, Swaziland, Sudan – to name but a few.

The following dynamics regarding planning for and managing National Dialogues deserve ongoing attention:

1.    Many National Dialogues fail because of political capture. This happens when the ruling party or external actors seek to control the outcome of the process by exerting undue pressure on who to include, the formulation of the agenda, and the procedures adopted. What options are available for facilitators when faced with political capture? What rules of engagement need to be in place to ensure a level playing field?

​2.    The inclusion of the military, armed or highly radicalized groups that may resort again to armed resistance or violent disruptions, is a particularly complex and important issue. It is important to understand the drivers and root causes behind radicalization, but also how to engage in dialogue with radicalized groups given circumstances of international policies and sanctions. It is equally important to understand the dynamics of changing the “instruments” of dealing with existential conflicts (from military tools to dialogue tools). This is an acute dilemma faced by facilitators of dialogue. Ongoing reflection and research is very critical.

3.    The process of fostering confidence in dialogue as a viable option needs much attention. Military actors in particular must be convinced to move their conflict from the battlefield to the dialogue table. It implies the existence of a “table” that inspires confidence and promises better alternatives to military strategies. But what precisely does confidence-building entail? What does confidence-building mean in a context of terror attacks, drones and clandestine or open external support for military options? Is a “mutually hurting stalemate” indeed a precondition for successful talks?
 
4.    Interference in or pressure by external actors add to the stress placed on National Dialogues. The management of external actors therefore poses considerable challenges to the facilitators of National Dialogues. At the same time, few National Dialogues could take place without some form of external support, whether political, technical or financial. It is important to develop a better understanding of risks associated with undue external interference, but also of international indifference. It may also imply the development of codes of conduct for INGOs who seek to provide support, but without consideration of what is already in place and without respect for the principles of collaboration and national ownership.

5.    Essential elements that need to be agreed on in the initial dialogue framework agreement that precedes the start of the National Dialogue, include: criteria for inclusive participation; mandating of dialogue structure and outcome, and establishing formal links to constitutional, governance and change instruments; inclusive political managing structure(s) and accountability mechanisms; decision-making procedures; core principles and values; agreement on its purpose, objectives and what it is intended to change and agree on – developing an inclusive broad agenda framework; appointment of a multi-partial, non-stakeholder-driven secretariat and management; financial and administrative responsibilities; etc.

“Self-mediation” procedures and design elements in National Dialogues

One of the many consistent patterns in failed or weak formal National Dialogue processes is the absence or under-development of deliberate, integrated and coherent designs of “self-mediation” components and procedures. We will outline a few here for discussion:
 
a.    The strategic process, dialogue roadmap and facilitation strategy that is implemented has been shown to have a determining impact on the outcome of dialogue processes. There are various matters in need of ongoing discussions and joint learning in this respect, including:
•    The most appropriate and contextual infrastructure for the talks, including the formation of management and facilitation task teams, the structure of the table (or conference room), facilitation strategies, committees, expert panels, and procedural rules.
•    Consistent and structured practices regarding the generation of options (research, consultations, comparative studies, stakeholder proposals, hidden messages, technical committees, drafting committees, etc.)
•    The procedures, techniques and structures for decision-making, deadlock-breaking and consensus building (One Text, technical experts, options generation, indabas, dialogue circles and trees, interactive multi-track processes, etc.).
•    Decision-making arrangements (full consensus, sufficient consensus, voting for consensus, 2/3 majority, or a scale or combination of options).

b.    The role of shared knowledge creation to enable dialogue participants to operate from a basis of credible and jointly owned knowledge is increasingly recognized.  Attention to this aspect would include:
•    identify information gaps; 
•    Structured and systematic ongoing mapping of stakeholder proposals, positions, interests; their common ground and differences (to feed into the facilitation strategy design and One-Text decision-making process)
•    enable joint knowledge creation and “fact discovery”; 
•    move from “facts and perceptions”, to “facts and facts” — acknowledging and seeing each other’s realities; 
•    technical information and common understanding of conceptual frameworks and systems; 
•    jointly developing inclusive agenda frames that acknowledge the needs, hopes, brokenness and expectations from all sides;
•    Ongoing joint conflict assessment and facilitation strategy development by Secretariat, Facilitation Task Groups, Technical Committees and Consensus-building bodies.

c.    The National Dialogue should also enable people’s voices to be heard. This includes linking tracks 1, 2 and 3; welcoming and respecting submissions from the public; and ensuring a constructive media policy.

Working towards a working definition of formal National Dialogues – evolving common understandings from past two conferences:

Following the discussions and reports from the Helsinki National Dialogue Conferences in 2014 and 2015, some shared understandings have emerged that we cover in this section.  There remain, however, significant areas that needs joint reflection and research to capture the extent of these instruments’ extraordinary complexity.  The recent publication of the Berghof/Swisspeace handbook for practitioners, the HD publication for third parties support, and the ongoing development of the Peace and Dialogue Platform have all contributed significantly to the evolving body of knowledge emerging from these processes.

In order to define formal National Dialogues a number of distinctions were made during the past conferences. First, a National Dialogue is a highly inclusive process involving, as far as is possible, the complete spectrum of political diversity in a society. It is therefore to be distinguished from processes, often conducted by external mediators, that engage only with armed actors or the most prominent protagonists. 

Second, the objective with National Dialogues is to arrive at a new constitutional dispensation or a fundamental re-organisation of the political and statutory landscape. It can therefore be distinguished from, for example, international mediation interventions that have the intention to achieve a very specific political or military settlement (such as, for example, SADC’s mediation of the crisis in Madagascar) that do not necessarily require a substantive revision of the constitutional foundation of a society. 

Third, these dialogues, as in Myanmar, South Africa, Yemen and Lebanon, have a formal character, meaning that they are set up in order to impact on the statutory landscape and that have, therefore, to feed into formal legal procedures. They are therefore to be distinguished from informal or Track Two dialogue processes. 

Fourth, formal National Dialogue processes, especially those that have been successful, may not be restricted to a once-off event, but may evolve through different formats and conclude in a constituent assembly. In both South Africa and Nepal the National Dialogue took a decade to produce a new constitution, relying on different iterations of the dialogue platform across this period. In some countries, such as Lebanon, a National Dialogue platform has been established to pursue ongoing dialogue in the aftermath of a political settlement. 

Fifth, and very important, National Dialogues are homegrown and self-managed processes. In Myanmar 5 stakeholder groups from more than 90 parties, government, army and armed groups designed their own dialogue frameworks. Collectively, they spent the last two years negotiating the final dialogue and change instruments. While national stakeholders may accept external support in some or other form, a National Dialogue is not mediated by external actors nor designed to meet international interests or concerns. It is, first and foremost, a national attempt at solving its own contradictions. Part from its formal constitutional role, the National Dialogue also becomes a shared space for reconciliation and to develop common visions for their future.

A working definition of a National Dialogue is, therefore, that it is a formally mandated process of political dialogue that is inclusive, self-mediated and aimed at forging broad consensus in a highly diverse and polarized society on the values, principles and rules that should govern peaceful co-existence. A National Dialogue may take place at various stages of a peacemaking process and need not take place in the same format. It is therefore an open, adaptive process that should be defined by its broad objective and thrust and not by the particular format it takes. 
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The questions and considerations for this session include: 

-    what are the planning, management, facilitation, shared knowledge and procedural measures that must be in place in order to manage the complexity of National Dialogues? 
-    what are the key structural and “self-mediation” elements that needs to be built-into formal National Dialogues to enable consensus-building, common understanding of issues, and deadlock-breaking?
-    National Dialogues as third-party instruments for mediation; and National Dialogues as sovereign “self-mediation” instruments;
-    comparing negotiation, mediation and dialogue across tracks.

Two-thirds of U.S.-based nonprofit organizations working abroad are facing problems accessing financial services, according to a comprehensive report released by the Charity and Security Network.  (The Peace Appeal Foundation is a member of the network, and serves on its Executive Board.)  The study illustrates a growing challenge to peacebuilding and humanitarian relief organizations working in conflict zones globally.  Though focused on US-based organizations, the challenge to US  organizations is part of a broader trend restricting the operations of civil society organizations globally.

The report, Financial Access for U.S. Nonprofits, is based on the first-ever empirical study of the global phenomenon known as “derisking,” as it relates to U.S.-based NPOs. Derisking refers to financial institutions terminating or restricting business relationships to avoid rather than manage risk. The report also reflects information from numerous focus group sessions and interviews with stakeholders over the last year. It outlines and analyzes the scope, frequency, and prevalence of various financial access problems, including delayed wire transfers, account refusals and closures, and unusual additional documentation requests. The report also provides recommendations to address these challenges. Author Sue E. Eckert of the Center for New American Security noted, “At a time of unprecedented need in regions of conflict, humanitarian crises, and natural disaster, American charities’ efforts to save lives and prevent the further erosion of democracy and human rights are being stymied unnecessarily. The data are clear: there is a serious and systemic problem that must be addressed.”

Among the major findings:

• 2/3 of all U.S. nonprofits that work abroad are having financial access difficulties
• Delays in wire transfers, which can last up to several months, are the most common problem, affecting 37% of nonprofits
• Problems opening and maintaining accounts affect 9.5% and 6.3% of NPOs, respectively
• 15% of nonprofits report having these problems constantly or regularly. Transfers to all parts of the globe are impacted; the problem is not limited to conflict zones or fragile and failing states
• NPOs, categorically treated as high-risk, are sometimes forced to move money through opaque channels as a result of delays in wire transfers and requests for additional documentation.
• When money cannot be transmitted in a timely manner, 42% of nonprofits report that they sometimes carry cash.
  

“The details here are frankly disturbing. We are undermining the networks that support development and that hold the world together. Most policymakers in Washington have no idea how bad this is,” said Brian Atwood, Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, and former Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

These challenges have made it difficult for nonprofits to access the financial services necessary to provide life-saving aid to people in global hot spots where the need is greatest. For example:

• One NPO was prevented from sending immediate relief to populations in Myanmar, in the midst of a dire humanitarian crisis. Timely transmittal of those funds might have saved lives, the charity’s director explained.
  
• Two clinics for Syrian refugees, one in Saida and another Akkar, were forced to close because NPOs could not get funds to the clinics.
• Working in dangerous and uniquely challenging environments, NPO staff and contractors can face physical jeopardy when funds are not available. One recounted a situation in the field where people expecting to be paid showed up with guns.
• A children’s charity was informed by their financial institution that operating in Afghanistan raised their risk profile, and would lead to difficulties with their other accounts globally. So the charity reluctantly closed down the Afghan literacy program for nomadic children and returned funds to the donor. “If we’re not in there, the Taliban will be,” a representative from the charity said.

These examples are representative of the consequences of NPOs’ financial access difficulties, which stem from excessive regulatory expectations and lack of clarity. Without greater certainty, enabling banks to offer services to NPOs, financial institutions’ risk-reward calculation will continue to be weighted towards derisking. “Financial access is essential to the global economy and the banking industry needs regulatory clarity in their risk management process for it to occur,” according to John Byrne EVP of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists, “and that certainty does not exist today.”
Because nonprofits contribute to peace and security around the world, “finding a solution to the problem should be a priority for the U.S. government,” said Kay Guinane, director of the Charity & Security Network.

Regulators are tasked with ensuring the safety and security of the banking system,” explained Scott Paul, senior humanitarian policy advisor at Oxfam America. “In doing so, they impose steep penalties for undercompliance but none for overcompliance.”

To read the report, go to charityandsecurity.org/FinAccessReport

This past November, Nepal celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord, which brought a formal end to Nepal’s decade long civil war.  To commemorate the occasion, the Nepal Transitions to Peace Institute with the support of the United States Agency for International Development, the Swiss Foreign Ministry and the European Union, hosted a multi-day international conference in Kathmandu from November 16-18.    Attending were many of the inside actors who participated in formal and back channel talks and negotiations, as well as national and international advisers and facilitators.  The Peace Appeal’s Hannes Siebert and Andries Odendaal were invited speakers.   Siebert, who along with Swiss Envoys Guenther Bachler, and later Markus Heiniger, played a senior advisory role in supporting many of the talks leading up to the Accord and in the months and years following.  Odendaal worked extensively with Nepali counterparts in the preparation and planning for a nationwide network of local peace committees.

10 years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord, Nepal's path towards peace is still a work in progress.  The country only approved a new constitution in 2015.  It was met with significant opposition by some parties in the country.  This past year saw the much delayed launch of official processes of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has in the last months received over 57,000 complaints, and it’s Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared (an estimated 1,300 people disappeared in the country’s civil war).  Transitional justice processes are slow and difficult, and are under great scrutiny by both Nepalese and the international community.  Though there are inspiring examples of community level reconciliation efforts, too few communities have been reached. Justice in Nepal, and greater opportunity for its deeply impoverished rural communities, will require sustained effort for years to come. ​

Burma's Historic National Dialogue
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Update from Yangon
September 30, 2016

After 50 plus years of conflict between Myanmar/Burma's central government and many of its ethnic minorities, the newly elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy (the "NLD") hopes to fulfill the promise of the country's fledgling peace process.  Earlier this month, 700 representatives of the country’s ethnic parties, armed groups, the Myanmar Army, and the Burmese government concluded the second round of the Union Peace Conference.   This historic conference and the ongoing political dialogue processes taking place nationally and regionally within Burma is mandated to resolve the ethnic conflict and design the structure of the new “Democratic Federal Union”.  The gathering highlighted new challenges to the peace process, as Burma's ethnic alliances continued to splinter. Though substantial progress has been made over the last three years, the NLD government must navigate a political transition that has entered a more complicated and challenging phase.   

The increasing complexity of Burma's political transition has deep historical roots, as well as more recent origins.  Prior to the inauguration of National League of Democracy government, the government of former General Thein Sein had entered into a national ceasefire negotiation with the country’s ethnic armed groups, many of whom had negotiated separate, individual bi-lateral ceasefires with the government previously.  Despite broad agreement on core principles by nearly all parties, ultimately only eight groups signed the "nationwide ceasefire agreement" with the government.  Others opted out, some indicating that they preferred to wait for Aung San Suu Kyi’s party to assume leadership of the country before proceeding.  However in the months since the NLD government took office, no new signatories have been added, and in several areas of the country occupied or controlled by the non-signatories to the ceasefire, violence has flared up, most recently resulting in the dislocation of thousands of civilians along the country’s border with Thailand.

How to move the peace process forward at both the national and state/regional level at this juncture is the central challenge.  Both the nationwide ceasefire agreement and subsequent talks laid out plans for a national dialogue process, of which the recently concluded session of Union Peace Conference is one part.   With the changing environment, these plans are being revised, but it is anticipated that Burma's national dialogue process will continue for at least three to five years at both the national and sub-national levels.  Its fundamental purpose is to provide a forum for a more consensus driven redrawing of a federal Burmese State.   Bringing all parties to the table is critical.   In the initial session of the Union Peace Conference held last January (before the NLD assumed leadership of the government), only those ethnic armed groups who were signatories to the ceasefire attended as full members.   In this month’s sessions, after much government outreach and support from international governments, including China, nearly all ethnic armed groups attended in some capacity.

However the Union Peace Conference showed that the envisioned participation of Burma’s many ethnic armed groups and political parties in the current national process will not be as a unified entity.  Indeed some walked out of the Union Peace Conference.  Three likely blocs are emerging; each with distinct views on how to engage in the future process and varying ideas of what a new Burmese State should look like.   These blocs include: the signatories to the original ceasefire (comprising some of the largest  ethnic armed groups, including the Karen National Union and others); a second bloc representing those non-signatories to the original process who are nonetheless willing to engage with the NLD government, including the Kachin, Mon, and Kayah ethnic groups; and a third set of parties, representing ethnic armed groups, such as the United Wa State Army (an ethnic armed group located in territory bordering China), who are more reticent to join in the process.  Balancing these interests, those of the military which still holds 25% of the seats in Parliament, and those of her own constituents in the National League of Democracy, will be a massive challenge for Aung San Suu Kyi, in her capacity as State Counselor.  Much support has been given to date, but even more will be needed if this transition is to be successful.    

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Photos: Aung San Suu Kyi addressing Union Peace Conference and delegates at the Union Peace Conference courtesy of KNU Headquarters.

The Peace Appeal Foundation is pleased to announce that Kristiina Rintakoski has joined the organization’s Board of Directors. Kristiina brings a wealth of experience in peacebuilding globally. She presently works as a Director for Peacebuilding and Advocacy at the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, one of the largest Finish civil society organizations working in global development. She has over 15 years of experience in policy analysis and programme planning in mediation support, peacebuilding and national dialogue processes. Regionally much of her work has focused on Myanmar, Syria and Nepal. Before joining FELM, she served as Programme Director at the Crisis Management Initiative for 10 years, leading the development of CMI’s crisis management, conflict resolution and peacebuilding projects and activities. Prior to that, she worked at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She holds Master’s degrees in International Relations from the University of Tampere, Finland and in Human Rights from the University of Padova, Italy. 

​In this season during which people of many cultures and faiths celebrate renewal, we share with you a poem written by Fr Michael Weeder, a board member of the Peace Appeal Foundation.   Michael is Dean of St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, a church once led by Archbishop Tutu. The poem was written in Helsinki, Finland at a conference on the role of dialogue in peace and national change processes.   It was started in the hours after the attacks in Paris and Beirut.   

Michael's poem echoes the work and values of many, including Aung San Suu Kyi's recent remarks on the need to reach out to Myanmar's former rulers, as well as to the words of Archbishop Tutu and his daughter Mpho, in their powerful recent book, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World. Its theme of forgiveness is central to the work of peacemakers everywhere, to the possibility of renewal more broadly, and to hopes for peaceful coexistence in our tumultuous world. 

A confident Suu Kyi has since urged the NLD’s newly elected MP’s to join hands with those once responsible for persecuting members of the party. For Suu Kyi, forgiveness is a necessary step toward national reconciliation: “Whatever mistake they have made in the past, we need to give them the chance to change, instead of seeking revenge. If they are doing nothing wrong at the present time, they can join hands with us.” 

The Military Government of U Thein Sein that opened the “democratic space” over the past four years did not expect such a dramatic defeat at the polls. And, the provisions of the current 2008 Constitution provide that the Military still holds 25% of the seats in Parliament and will keep control of the defense, home affairs and border affairs ministries when the NLD takes over the reins in April of next year. Suu Kyi’s relationship with Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing will be the center of attention for the months to come. Thus far, their relationship is off to a promising start. In their first meeting after the elections, both leaders expressed their willingness to cooperate. The military assured her that it will no longer play a “political” role.

On the international front, the NLD will face critical choices. Whereas the Military Government maintained close relations with China, the NLD is much closer to the West. The challenge for the NLD-led unity government will be to manage its engagement with the West and at the same time strengthen its relations with China. The NLD believes it would be a fatal mistake to choose between the West and China; rather, it should work hard to maintain good relations with both.

To meet the future challenges of Myanmar/Burma’s political transformation, the NLD will need to expand, strengthen and consolidate the peace process. Here are some key goals: bringing all of the ethnic armed groups who have been at war with the central government for decades into the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement; creating an inclusive National Dialogue process bringing together all the groups and people of Burma to jointly agree on a future vision and a new constitutional foundation for the country; working towards national reconciliation; creating a strong judiciary that will root-out corruption and ensure justice, fairness and equality for all; and restructuring the economy to ensure that the country’s rich natural resources benefit all its people.

Whereas outgoing President U Thein Sein’s government focused on ending the civil war, the challenge for the new NLD government will be to build a sustainable and just peace process. This peace process must address the deep structural challenges and societal divides in the country. The next phase will have to go beyond the agreements of the past four years and build on the achievements of the democratic movement and the ethnic struggle of the past six decades.

Edited by Rami G. Khouri, Karim Makdisi, Martin Wählisch
Publication Date: March 2016
Link: ​Amazon

Description: This collected volume presents reflections from prominent international peacemakers in the Middle East, including Jimmy Charter, Lakhdar Brahimi, Jan Eliasson, Alvaro de Soto, and others. It provides unique insights and lessons learned about diplomacy and international peace mediation practice based on real life experience. The personal stories offer a critical analysis of successful and unsuccessful peace processes, as well as the chances and limits of solving the most intractable conflicts in the region and other parts of the world. The talks in this edited volume were part of the Bill and Sally Hambrecht Distinguished Peacemakers Lecture series of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

The Burmese “Framework for Political Dialogue” (FPD) was finally agreed upon yesterday, December 16th, by the Union Peace and Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) in the country’s capital. The Framework was handed over to the President who will publicize the Framework and call for a political dialogue in mid-January 2016. The UPDJC will be mandated to hold the upcoming political dialogue with the participation of 700 representatives from the government, parliament, defense services, ethnic armed organizations, political parties, ethnic leaders and special invitees.
 
The final framework was drawn from the 5 frameworks developed by the main stakeholders over the past three years – military, NLD, political parties and ethnic armed groups. Over the past 8 months the representatives from each of these groups developed a common framework draft that formed the basis of this agreement. The meeting in January will be an initial meeting to comply with the provisions of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement signed on 15th October this year. The formal dialogue process will start in late 2016 with the aim to develop a new constitutional framework guaranteeing equality to all the diverse ethnic groups, addressing the shortcomings in the current 2008 constitution and addressing the deep-rooted causes of conflict of the past 6 decades.

The Pyidaungsu Institute for Peace and Dialogue (PI) in Burma has an important role in developing shared knowledge and the tools for facilitation, such as the single text document on NCA (Nationwide Ceasefire) or on the FPD (Framework for Political Dialogue). PI analysis, mapping and knowledge tools are the facilitation documents used in facilitation, or in supporting facilitation strategies for key negotiations between the various Burmese stakeholders. PI has also been working systematically for almost two years on the thematic and technical files identified on the negotiation agenda by the stakeholders. It links this work with the 7 ethnic and regional Common Spaces.

​http://en.pyidaungsuinstitute.org/

A tribute by Dean Michael Weeder, December 5 2015

For a moment in our post-apartheid history we lived in the Camelot-like days of Nelson Mandela who had “showed us the way to freedom”.

Perhaps this moment, like a dream come true with its grand narrative of messianic proportions lulled us into a passive observer distance from the heart of ongoing and permanent revolution.

We forgot that Madiba did not free himself. We forgot that he, of whom we sang, had walked through the prison gates that we - the organised, freedom-loving South Africans – had helped to open.

It was part of a grail-like quest for one who “shall execute justice and righteousness in the land”. But the angels of such virtues are elusive, occasional creatures of our collective imagination fired into flight by our longing. 

We contribute to the messianic complex when we joyfully allocate our social and justice responsibility to political parties and its leadership. 

Was it all worth it? The long struggle against the systemic stripping of our dignity, the deaths in detention, the banning orders, the countless detentions? Our answer is determined by our wounds and the scars of the battles we deemed worth fighting for.

Freedom will always have to be in our hands. It extends beyond the securement of democracy which, we can see, is easily up for sale and commandeered by elites skilled in framing (but never really delivering on) our expectations.

The anniversary of the passing of Madiba stands at the end of a week wherein two significant events were observed. The first is specific to the history of South Africa’s slave-descendant community. On the eve of Emancipation Day, Monday 30 November a few hundred Capetonians gathered in the Strand Street Quarry.

We have done so over these past 9 years with minimal capital and without political patronage. In the process we have reclaimed our freed selves and in so doing bulwarked our understanding of freedom and the power that secures it: the people organised along with its vanguard of servant leadership. 

The other event speaks to a bondage that is ongoing, the impact of which is experienced in all our communities - World Aids Day. On December 1 we are especially aware of the pain and suffering of HIV and the particular way it is evident in the lives of women and children. 

There is no Great Chinese Wall between the narratives associated with the communities affected by these events. Those who bear history’s weight of suffering – whether from the savagery of our colonial past or the immediacy of a betrayed hope - are most susceptible to HIV.

Yet we find humbling evidence of great faith amongst our families and friends affected by the Aids pandemic, amongst our loved ones confronted by the invasive illnesses such as the presence of cancer in their lives.
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Saint Augustine, writing in the 5th century, summons us to secure the fullness of freedom when he reminds us that "God without us will not; we without God cannot". Or, in a more contemporary expression, “We are the ones whom we have been waiting for”.

PRIO conducted a seminar on "the many facets of dialogue processes – with regards to Tunisia as well as elsewhere." The seminar focused on the following points:

• What is a National Dialogue?
• Are National Dialogues replacing traditional peace mediation?
• What does the Nobel Peace Prize mean for the democratic process in Tunisia?
• What are the implications for other peace processes, in Colombia, Myanmar, Syria and beyond?

The key contributors were Hannes Siebert, Ghazi Gherairi, and the chair was Kristian Berg Harpviken, PRIO Director.

The event was conducted at PRIO, Oslo. 

By Hannes Siebert
Published on the PRIO Blog

In the last century, peace was far more likely the product of victory on the battlefield than a negotiated settlement. From 1940 until 2002, the world witnessed more than 370 state-based conflicts. At any point in time over the last decade, the world hosted nearly 30 armed conflicts simultaneously — many of them “check book wars,” with external powers funding and supplying arms to different internal factions in order to enhance their access to the beleaguered state’s resources.
In this “post-post-colonial” era we are witnessing the post-colonial government incarnations of the colonial “strong man” being replaced by new democratic forces. These new movements are re-defining democracy; they are innovating new forms of representative government; and many are re-considering the nation-state concept. As each of these countries attempts to cut the umbilical cords from their former colonial powers, we see a reduction in external foreign mediation and an increase in mass people’s movements and national dialogues as tools of political transformation. With these significant phenomena, local and national peacemakers and concerned parties work together to resolve their conflict through the creation of joint “self-mediation” instruments, different types of national dialogues and various forms of supporting peace infrastructures that emerge out of these local contexts.

National Dialogues have become a common part of many post-conflict and post-crisis transition processes. These broad-based stakeholder dialogues are usually mandated to define key aspects of the political or constitutional future of a country and are commonly the center-piece of post crisis transitions. In countries with multiple political, non-state and governing stakeholders – varying between 7 and 94 in number – national dialogues are emerging as the only mechanism that can manage and facilitate large complex political transformations and change processes. Some are supported by the United Nations and regional organisations, but most formally mandated National Dialogues have been designed, managed and implemented by the national stakeholders themselves – such as in South Africa, Nepal, Tunisia, Lebanon and Burma.

The composition and management of National Dialogues present extraordinary complex challenges in terms of constructing and managing dialogue between multiple delegations representing a variety of social formations. Their development and design is determined by the dynamics of the past conflict, the depth of the broken relations between groups, the multiple layers of inequality and loss of human dignity, and the failures of existing constitutional and governing instruments.

If one takes a closer look at the change narratives or agenda of their committees and structures, these mandated dialogue structures not only provided new constitutional frameworks, addressing the root causes of the conflict or constitutional failures; they served a much broader function. They also served as spaces and instruments for reconciliation, developing joint visions between former enemies, and slowly evolving an understanding of the needs, perceptions and perspectives of the “other”.
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As change and “self-mediation” processes, National Dialogues have been highly undervalued, mainly because they are often insulated from the outside (and less susceptible to international intervention), and also because they usually take an extraordinary amount of time and effort. National Dialogues are also less directed towards the conclusion of agreements (only) than is international mediation. Rather, they aim at establishing an environment for long-term stability, improved relations between state, community and non-state actors, and open communication between all of a society’s major actors on issues that divide them or are of common national interest. The strength of National Dialogues is that they establish a consistent structure deeply rooted in that society that becomes the mechanism to address and agree on fundamental structural change.

Report by Shirley Moulder to the ​Helsinki Conference on Reconciliation as a part of a National Dialogue Process.

Background Material

In conflict resolution and peacebuilding circles, reconciliation is a notion commonly associated with transitional justice; with mechanisms like Truth and Reconciliation Commissions that are implemented after a civil war has ended, or after mass atrocities have been committed, and a nation is attempting to mend social relations within a new, post-conflict political framework. While it is something of a truism to say that parties are building relationships as they negotiate, most of us working in the conflict resolution and peacebuilding fields likely imagine something deeper when we talk of reconciliation, and we generally assume reconciliation in this deeper sense is something parties cannot be expected to achieve as a new political framework is being developed.

ND Conference Workshop D on Tuesday 17 November 2015: Building capacity for self-mediation, deadlock-breaking, consensus-building and people’s participatory processes into the change mechanisms

Experiences from Nepal’s National Dialogue Platform

The Second Conference on Non-Formal Dialogue Processes and National Dialogues: Experiences from countries in transition

16 November – 18 November 2015

The House of the Estates (Säätytalo), Helsinki

Building capacity for self- mediation, deadlock-breaking, consensus-building and people’s participatory processes into the change mechanisms 

by

Founder Chairman & Executive Director/CEO
Dr. Thusitha Tennakoon
One-Text Initiative (OTI), Sri Lanka