Research Brief Series: Improving Mediation Effectiveness

This Research Brief Series on how to improve mediation effectiveness, jointly produced by the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) and the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), is part of a larger initiative on mediation effectiveness organized by FBA.

The motivation behind the initiative is the recognition that mediation, viewed globally and in aggregate, has a decidedly mixed track-record. By its very nature, mediation is challenging. It involves, for example, having to build relations of trust and confidence between parties who view each other with a great deal of scepticism if not outright hostility. Likewise, the geopolitical context of any given mediation effort might make the task well-nigh impossible. There is indeed a concern that prevailing approaches to mediation are out-of-step with the complexity of modern conflicts. Given such constraints, to expect a high success rate in mediation would be naïve, but there is nonetheless need for improvement.

To address this need, FBA began a series of Research-Policy Dialogues on how to improve mediation effectiveness in 2021, featuring multiple in-person and virtual dialogues of various size between academic researchers and practitioners from civil society and international organisations. This brief series is one of the results of these dialogues and is intended to provide practitioners and decisionmakers with recommendations anchored in the latest research. At the same time, the themes this series covers are outcomes of a continuing research-practitioner dialogue, and each individual brief has been subject to extensive review by both scholars and practitioners.

Introduction to the Joint Research Brief Series.

Publications in the series:

What is peace mediation? Understanding the sources of conceptual confusion in the practice and study of mediation

How to make civil society inclusion in inter-state peace mediation meaningful: Lessons from the Minsk Negotiation Process 2014-2021

Civil society protests and inclusive peace talks

Coherence, coordination and complementarity? Multi-track mediation and quality peace agreements