Mediation and dialogue play an essential role in peace-building processes in war-torn states and countries affected by (ethno-)political conflict. In the field of development work, conflict often obstructs projects on the ground. Development programmes are therefore becoming increasingly conflict-sensitive, and may even mediate or initiate mediation processes between their partner organisations, stakeholders or groups of beneficiaries.
Inmedio's activities in the field of peace and development include (please click the headlines to learn more):
Supporting mediation programmes
- Ethiopia: A 20-day professional mediation training course organised and funded by the Civil Peace Service/GIZ included participants from national and regional governmental institutions, parliamentarians, traditional leaders, and CSO and church representatives. Experience with traditional (wise-elder) mediation was shared and the “modern” (facilitative) concept of mediation was introduced. The idea of a merger (facilitative wise-elder mediation) was elaborated and a dialogue between the official (governmental) and unofficial (traditional) strands of conflict resolution was held. Both resulted in the forthcoming establishment of an Ethiopian association for mediators and the production of a manual and documentary
- Nepal: Through training and consultation, inmedio supported a community mediation project in eastern Nepal and a country-wide courts-annexed mediation programme.
- Croatia: As part of the democracy-building process, inmedio designed and conducted several mediation training and train-the-trainer programmes in a country-wide court-annexed mediation programme.
Supporting dialogue projects
- Balkans: inmedio implemented a conflict transformation programme for war refugees from Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo which took place in refugee camps in Switzerland and Austria. Dialogue and peer mediation were combined with psychotherapeutic trauma counselling
- Turkey/Armenia/Azerbaijan: Inmedio is/was involved in three different dialogue projects which attempt to tackle issues affecting the Turkish-Armenian relationship, the Azerbaijan-Armenia relationship and relations between different ethnic, political and religious groups within Turkey.
- Nepal: Technical support to a high-level political dialogue forum.
Teambuilding
- Teambuilding is often hard to carry out in the field, because facilitators are not easy to access. At the same time, there is a huge need for teambuilding, because teams are supposed to address sensitive conflict issues in extremely politicised and often violent contexts, which may well have repercussions even within the team due to team members’ different social, political and ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, expats, locals and people from different professional backgrounds (e.g. social workers, engineers, the military) have to collaborate effectively, which creates various challenges. In the last 12 years, inmedio has provided teambuilding in Indonesia, Kenya, Kosovo, Nepal and Palestine
Capacity-building
- Over recent years, inmedio has provided mediation/facilitation/communication skills training as well as leadership training for grassroot networks, CSOs, donor agencies and ministries, e.g. in Ethiopia, Nepal and Sri Lanka, ranging from 2-day events to fully fledged 20-day courses. If designed as in-house training courses, these events can easily be combined with teambuilding elements.
- In Berlin, we are running a 13-day training course in Multitrack Peace Mediation in cooperation with CSSP and Berghof Peace Support
- In Switzerland, we have delivered a 200-hour mediation qualification programme in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs/Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC/DEZA) for 10 years
Strategic planning/organisational development/coaching
- In consultation processes, e.g. in Indonesia, Palestine and Nepal, inmedio applies a systemic constructivist approach and makes use of the methodology developed by the Reflecting on Peace Practices Project