2014

Annual Report

Peace Talks | Mediation Works | Dialogue Changes

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2014: Mediation Support in Transition

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When do transitions require mediation? When is the best moment to intervene, engage and support, and how do we do it? How do we evaluate the best moment for engagement in a peace process? Did efforts actually support, create and sustain peace? What institutions and organisations, what people and advocates do we need in order to produce more peace? How can we resource ourselves to be able to provide our services to those in need?

At mediatEUr, we provided our humble contribution to world peace in five ways:

1) Capacity building, support and training 2) Peace-coaching 3) Scoping for engagement 4) Evaluating 5) Learning

As a leader of a consortium, we support the European Union in its response to critical conflict and mediation situations. Through the provision of expertise to the EU actors, and with our institutional partners, we were able to support the EU in a number of processes, for instance, in Latin America, Mali or Yemen. Peace Mediation and training and capacity building for actors engaging in mediation has become our core activity, which

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we have provided for hundreds of civil servants from the European Union. We are in a position to provide professional peace mediation coaching to all actors in peace processes, and continue to work with envoys, ambassadors, and high level officials to ascertain their approaches in certain peace processes.

Before getting into any mediation engagement, especially in peace mediation, a clear understanding of the context, actors and existing capacities is essential to design a process. Our scoping work in Myanmar is a case example at hand. A substantial amount of time and energy in 2014 was spent on the divided Ukraine. These are decisive conflicts for the future shape of Europe, and they will continue to be a focus of attention. Understanding the impact of peacemaking/peacebuilding projects is crucial for making next steps towards a sustainable peace process, as our work in the Philippines for Nonviolent Peaceforce showed.

We have to continue learning in order to improve our practice. We have continued with our debriefing reports, applying different methodologies, in order to enhance international practice. Our investigation on the practice of Inquiry Commissions, reflecting on the case study of Kyrgyzstan in 2010-2011 will prove to be an important building block for future Commissions which are both truth seeking but are also agencies for peacebuilding.

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2014 was the year when the European Institute of Peace came into being. At mediatEUr we have been consistent advocates for years, providing services for this process and elaborating the concepts and business plans, working also to create some crucial building blocks for such an Institute. We are proud of its creation. The European Institute of Peace will hopefully become a key and critical instrument for peacemaking of the EU and beyond.

By empowering other institutions and our staff members we can plant the seeds for stronger peace. Transition means also being able to adapt and grow, and having the courage to change. Our resource base might have changed, but for us, mediatEUr, 2015 will be an exciting opportunity to adapt to these changes and to channel our expertise and energy to where we produce value added. In Peace, Antje Herrberg CeO

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About mediatEUr mediatEUr is a venture in international peace mediation. The organisation was founded and built up by a number of individuals that saw challenges in their respective fields of international conflict resolution, be that in the commercial arena or in foreign policy.

The founding idea is that promoting interest-based negotiation and mediation could make a meaningful contribution to tackling these challenges. mediatEUr was established as a forum that brings together and supports conflict resolution professionals, and helps advance the professional practice of international peace mediation. Since our founding in 2008, we have worked on a growing number of assignments and projects around the world, and have built up a solid network of professionals that act as a resource in this field.

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Our Work in 2014

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Our Work in 2014

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Through our work we help parties in conflict tackle their differences constructively. We support mediators, facilitators and international institutions improve their work in this area, and equip them with the right tools, contributing with in-depth knowledge and experience.

Our goal is to support the peaceful transformation of armed conflicts within and between states, by promoting the use of innovative and effective methods of conflict resolution, dialogue and mediation.

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This year we have supported peace efforts in the Philippines, Myanmar, Ukraine, and continued to support the European Union External Action Service in its work on peacebuilding and mediation. The following is a collection of the activities we have carried out, all of which have been supported with advisory and follow-up work throughout the year.

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Supporting a European Institute of Peace: Building Blocks and Handover

December 2013 – December 2014

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MediatEUr was asked in 2010 by the Swedish and Finnish Ministries of Foreign Affairs to support the process that would lead to the creation of a European Institute of Peace.

Our process-related role came to an end in early 2014 when the founding member states signed the EIP statutes on 18 February and as the Institute was formally taking shape.

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Throughout 2014 we supported the handover to the EIP team. We kicked off the year on 20 January with a meeting of mediatEUr’s informal Advisory Council to generate ideas for the set up of the Institute. We continued offering advisory support during its first months of operation, and worked on two new debriefing publications. We also produced a series of lessons-learned reports from previous building blocks (scoping missions and dialogue initiatives) for the EIP.

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Conflict Prevention and Mediation Support to the EU: Access to Expertise (2013 – 2014)

August 2013 – July 2014

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Responding effectively to emerging or on-going crises requires identifying people with the right profile and expertise at the right time, and ensuring they can be where they are needed most, at short notice. This is a key challenge.

Given this challenge, mediatEUr, together with partners Berghof Foundation, ESSEC-Irene, and swisspeace, embarked on a project to provide conflict prevention and mediation support to the European External Action Service (EEAS) and its partners.

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The objective was to provide high quality, timely and tailored external expertise and technical assistance in the areas of conflict prevention, peace mediation and dialogue support. We provided training, conflict analysis and facilitation to EEAS staff and partners in Brussels and in different EU Delegations, including Mali, Niger or Guatemala.

The project was successfully accomplished in July 2014, with 16 assignments on 9 different countries.

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Training Programme on Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding in the Andean Region

January 2014

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mediatEUr collaborated with the European External Action Service and the Folke Bernadotte Academy for a week-long training on Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding in the Andean Region of Latin America.

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The programme, attended by EU Representatives from Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Colombia, focused on dialogue and mediation, management of natural resource conflicts, and Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) of former combatants.

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Monitoring and evaluating third party support to peace process mechanisms is an important aspect for the professionalisation of international peace mediation.

mediatEUr embarked on a project with Mindanao-based partner Initiatives for International Dialogue to evaluate Nonviolent Peaceforce's work in Mindanao, Philippines.

The aim was to enable Nonviolent Peaceforce to draw pertinent lessons from its work in the Philippines, with a view to informing its future practice.

Evaluating Third Party Peace Process Support – NP Philippines

February 2014

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Third Party Inquiries: Lessons Learned from the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission of 2011

February – April 2014 (Publication November 2014)

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Synthesising and sharing the lessons from peacebuilding and mediation efforts is crucial for the promotion of good practice in the field. mediatEUr was awarded a grant by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland to gather the lessons learned from the

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Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission (KIC)'s work. A report was published on 26 November 2014 in an event with members of the KIC and experts on international human rights and peacebuilding.

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Supporting Peace in Myanmar through Dialogue and Mediation: Opportunities and Risks for the EU

June 2014

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Since the acceleration of the reforms and peace talks in Myanmar, a host of third-party interventions have been put in place rapidly and by a range of local, national and international actors. The international community has taken political and financial risks in supporting significantly innovative and new practice in this regard.

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In light of these developments, mediatEUr carried out an assessment mission to Myanmar, to learn lessons from the past two years of peace process support, and identify opportunities for enhancing future support through dialogue and mediation, in particular by the EU.

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Amidst the crisis in Eastern Ukraine, mediatEUr initiated a fact-finding process to assess dialogue efforts and capacities in the country, in cooperation with the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS) and Interpeace.

The aim was to help refine methods and options for dialogue that can support and complement existing initiatives with a view to longer-term peacebuilding.

We undertook two missions to Kyiv and Kharkiv to identify potential Dialogue Champions and initiate several pilot dialogue meetings.

Ukraine Fact-Finding Process

May - October 2014

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Conflict Prevention and Mediation Support to the EU: Access to Expertise (2014 – 2018) July 2014 – July 2018

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In July 2014 mediatEUr was awarded a 4-year framework contract to continue supporting the European External Action Service (EEAS).

This project brings together the long-standing experience, expertise and logistical capacities of a consortium of five leading European organisations (mediatEUr, Berghof Foundation, ESSEC IRENE, swisspeace and CITpax) to provide conflict prevention and mediation support services to the EEAS.

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As consortium leader, mediatEUr has the overall responsibility for the contract, including content guidance, compliance, assignment planning, contract management and coordination.

To this date, mediatEUr Consortium has already performed more than eleven assignments, including conflict analysis workshops, knowledge products, technical advice and specific facilitation support.

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Creating a Common European Space for Peace? Roundtable on EU-Russian Mediation Perspectives

October 2014

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International peace and security and the major advances of the last 20 years in terms of universal freedoms and rights have been brought into question by recent events in Eastern Europe. Russia has gone in less than two years from being a partner in security issues to a potential threat to the transatlantic area.

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What would it take to generate greater cooperation in matters of international peace and security between Russia and the European Union? Key European and Russian experts addressed this and other questions in a roundtable organised by mediatEUr on 20 October 2014 at the European Institute of Peace.

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Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3

Supporting a European Institute of Peace

Conflict Prevention and Mediation Support to the EU (2013 – 2014)

Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission of 2011

NP Philippines

Training in the Andean Region

Myanmar Assessment Mission

Ukraine Fact-Finding Process

EU-Russia Roundtable

Conflict Prevention and Mediation Support to the EU (2014 – 2018)

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Our People in 2014

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mediatEUr is its people. Our core team combines sound experience and knowledge across the fields of international peace mediation, and relevant thematic expertise such as transitional justice, policy advice, process design, facilitation and information and data visualisation.

Together and individually, we are committed to providing a professional service of the highest quality and continuously improving our work.

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In 2014, we continued to cultivate a network of experienced mediators and institutional partners that work with us to complement our expertise. We also counted on the support of an intern, Evgenia Lavrinenko, in the last quarter of the year.

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Consolidating and reinforcing the cooperation with the European Union Institutions, helping them in their foreign relations by providing external expertise in the field of conflict prevention and mediation support — this is for me one of the major tasks in which mediatEUr brings the complementarity for a better world, helping reduce conflict and increase stability.

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Nuno Costa is our Project Manager in Brussels. He manages the Framework Contract with the European External Action Service, guarantees the correct delivery of services to the EU, and supports our organisational development.

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2014 was a year of growing responsibility — a year of creativity and reflective thinking to inspire positive change and help make the world a little more peaceful.

Miguel Varela is our Mediation Support Assistant in Brussels. He coordinated our efforts in Ukraine and assisted the projects on the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission and on the European Institute of Peace. He also leads the production of visual information at our office.

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Leading up to the founding of the European Institute of Peace was very exciting as people all over Europe contacted us to find out what the EIP was and how it would work. To know that there is a European institution dedicated to mediation and dialogue is very inspiring.

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Juan Díaz is the Leader of our project to support a European Institute of Peace. He is mediatEUr’s Berlin Representative, and is the head behind mediatEUr’s training initiatives and some of our key events this year, including the roundtable on 20 October on EU and Russian perspectives on mediation.

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Looking at the world through mediatEUr’s window, 2014 was a year when the idea of mediation flickered like a little flame, a small but hopeful light in very dark times.

Brendan McAllister is mediatEUr’s Senior Associate. This year he led our work on the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, as well as one of the phases of our mission to Ukraine.

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An inspiring group of people, with authentic intent and the ambition to make a meaningful contribution to help people and groups handle their conflicts more constructively and avoid violence.

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Canan Gündüz acted as CEO between March 2013 and March 2014. She worked on all of our projects, and led our Myanmar Assessment Mission and our work in the Philippines.

In September 2014, Canan joined the European External Action Service Division for Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Mediation Instruments. Canan has been a key asset and a driving force to mediatEUr; the EEAS gains a great facilitator, colleague and expert.

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Partners and Funders We express our gratefulness to he following organisations and institutions for funding and supporting our work:

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Berghof Foundation CitPax Toledo Centre for International Peace Club of Madrid ESSEC/IRENE EU-Russia Centre European Commission European External Action Service European Institute of Peace Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Folke Bernadotte Academy

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ICPS Ukraine Initiatives for International Dialogue Institute for Conflict Management/University Viadrina Institute for Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding Interpeace Nonviolent Peaceforce Peace Nexus Swisspeace Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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A journey of a single step begins with a thousand miles

mediatEUr (2014) Third Party Inquiries: Lessons Learned from the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission of 2011 “

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© European Forum for International Mediation and Dialogue e.V. (mediatEUr), 2015 mediatEUr in Brussels:

Avenue des Arts, 24, 10th floor, letterbox no.8 B-1000, Brussels, Belgium

Phone: + 32 2 230 00 15 E-Mail: info@themediateur.eu

Web: www.themediateur.eu