Aims
The project seeks to address the lack of independent indigenous dialogue and mediation experts capable of resolving conflict in the Middle East and the Gulf region. There is a pressing regional need to enhance the capacity of local actors in conflict resolution on many levels. The need will remain for the foreseeable future and will evolve, over time, into a commercial practice. The object is to provide countries in the region with their own private internal mediation capacity by creating a set of professional cadres who come from all sections of society and who can mediate between and within their respective communities on an independent basis in accordance with international standards and practices. This reflects the global development of the private mediation sector in sectarian, conflict affected and conflict situations. In turn the team will be conversant with the major themes in conflict transformation and conciliation processes. They will also prepare a business plan for sustainable enterprises that will help to development of the commercial mediation industry in the Middle East.
Outcomes
The Mediation Fellowship will enable participants to:
- Participate in externally run mediation processes and projects with external partners designed to build trust and open dialogues between communities.
- Initiate and run internally generated mediation processes within and across sectarian divides and to explore the possibility of regional dialogue processes and a national dialogue framework.
- Form a group who can help design post-mediation processes for truth and reconciliation and develop legal and political models to aid the rebuilding of Trust across communities.
- Promote within their own communities the mediation and negotiation processes of family, corporate and sectarian mediation, including creating community level truth and reconciliation processes.
- Transcend their separate political identities and develop shared professional identity as mediators.
- Plan for a commercial future as mediators in family, corporate or community/sectarian mediations.
Outputs
- Individual personal development plans for participants on-going role in mediation processes
- Group proposals for the commercial development of the mediation industry
- A Mediation Reader in English and Arabic that could support further programmes
- A Residential training programme
- A series of follow-up workshops
Content
The project will identify a small core group of actors (seven from each country in each cohort) from across the different confessional and political factions in Bahrain, Iraq and Syria and take them through an intense residential fellowship programme. The programme to be delivered in London and Scotland using trainers with expertise in the national, international, community and other peace and mediation processes in a central London and secure country house location. The Fellowship will draw on extensive governmental, non-governmental and commercial expertise in mediation, negotiation and dialogue processes. This project can either run as a stand-alone project in which case we would run two Fellowships with ten people or it might be linked to other initiatives.
Methodology
There are certain key principles that underpin Fellowship Programming:
- Successful mediation only takes place when critical masses of people in key stakeholder groups adopt new ways of thinking and doing; there are limits to what any outsider can contribute to this process.
- Sustainable conflict transformation change can therefore be enhanced by external actors working with individuals to achieve their own objectives in ways that embed globally recognised standards into their mediation expertise.
- A small group working successfully across communities in one area can operate at a point some way ahead of the central polity in terms of dialogue construction.
- There is much evidence of spill over from a one functioning dialogue into others so that if one channel or track is open, others can feed off this dialogue.
There are key pedagogic principles that underpin Fellowship programming:
- Professionals learn better by doing: Experiential learning has proven to be the most effective way of engaging professionals in new material because it allows them to root their learning in their experience and in their working lives. The programme will therefore always focus around a mix of theories of mediation with practical examples, case studies and role plays. However different people learn differently so the programme incorporates theatrical models to underpin the practical approach but to also allow all participants to learn in their own way.
- Content should be useful: Participants must see the relevance to their professional development of the material and speakers they are engaging with if they are to actually use the experience to become active mediators. If the content of the programme is too academic, abstract or theoretical they will not engage with the learning experience. If the topics are generalised discussions then there will be no lasting impact on their professional development.
- The Team learns from each other: The formal delivery sessions of a programme are the beginning of a learning process and not the end. Learning occurs between participants, in networking events and in the follow-up that occurs after the event and through the alumni networks that are formed as much as it does from speakers and attachments. This process of engagement with each other does not happen by accident but is carefully built into the fabric of the Fellowship from the first time participants meet via email or social media, through the first weekend of team building and at each step along the way to their final preparations for and presentation of their action plans.
- The different elements of the programme are reinforcing: The individual mentoring that takes place during the Fellowship program is focused on the fellows as leaders in their field and their potential to build successful businesses in this area. It is also reflected on and through the evolution of the Fellows’ personal development and action plans. Fellows are focused on a project – the creation of a mediation team – that they want or have to implement on their return home. From the beginning of the Fellowship through to the final presentation they reflect on this project and how they can improve its design and achieve its delivery. Fellows diagnose their problems during a range of activities, each designed to reinforce the effect of what went before — individual tutorial sessions, facilitated group workshops and role plays, business planning sessions and the informal learning environment of the Fellowship cohort. They are also asking themselves what they are trying to accomplish, what stands in their way of achieving these objectives, what must they realistically work around and what can they confront through new ways of thinking and communicating and through sessions with leading practitioners in the field.
Indicative Curriculum
Pre-Fellowship
When the Fellows are first selected for the programme they will be given an extensive set of guided reading to complete. The Mediation Reader will be prepared by the team and translated into Arabic so that much of the theoretical background and competing approaches will have been explored by the participants. The Reader will not be overly academic but will cover the major sources and areas, often in the form or short reviews and think pieces rather than full blown texts.
Residential Programme Modules
On arrival in the UK the participants will complete a series of connected modules which will be delivered in overlapping sessions that taken together will cover all the relevant material. They will be delivered primarily in a seminar format with role plays, small group work and presentations as necessary.
Mediation in context:
This Module will build on the guided reading and discuss the Fellows questions and comments on that reading; the module aims to bring the team up a similar point of knowledge and understanding of the mediation process. It will explore:
- The theoretical and historical framework of conflict transformation and the different types, approaches and outcomes from mediation processes.
- Negotiation theory, negotiation diagrams, and sources of power in negotiation processes.
- Examples of community engagement theory and practice.
- Examples and issues arising from truth and reconciliation processes.
Mediation Processes:
Understanding and exploring the different stages of mediation:
- The opening and closing of each session
- Basic and advanced reframing of issues
- Mandate building through trust building
- Building to agreement and the mediator’s role at each of these different stages.
- Exploring the “getting past no and getting to yes” paradigm
- Examples of transformative versus problem solving mediation.
These processes will be explored through case studies covering such areas as communal and international mediation, dialogue processes, cultural approaches, partnerships, networking, and mandate building – long term and mitigating interventions compared – national and local dialogue processes.
Skills and Techniques
These sessions will explore:
- The centrality of communication skills, emotional intelligence and the different dimensions of communicating: active listening and the language of diplomacy.
- How to keep the mediator’s own issues out of the room while identifying defining issues and shared/common positions.
- How to think through and plan the content of each session against realistic goals that build on each other over time and through which the participants can see movement and the sense of a journey.
- Skills in eliciting recognition of own and others positions.
- Witting and unwitting skills in trust building.
- Dealing with emotions, containing violence and facing violence and abuse.
- Figuring out the facts from the postures and building rapport with both sides so that you ensure your own side is travelling with you.
- Understanding the flow of a mediation process and learning to read that flow.
- Exploring the mechanics of role play and scenario training and the importance of being flexible enough to move things forward but not too flexible that your designated targets are not being achieved.
- In turn, this means understanding the importance of achievable goal setting and expectation management.
- Tactics to deploy when stuck and how to generate options
- Moving participants from positions to interests
- Options to consider when at an impasse and the tactical use of brainstorming
The communication skills that are needed outside the mediation context:
- Lobbying
- Media management.
These will be explored in a series of exercises to build skills sets.
After mediation, building peace
These sessions will explore the truth and reconciliation processes at community and national levels, and national dialogue processes, suggesting that there is a need to link together a series of processes and national, regional and international interventions and policies which are too often seen as separate and unconnected. States in recovery cannot shape the ethos and legal requirements of international institutions but they can do a great deal of working out their own needs and agendas and presenting international actors state and INGOs with requests, demands and menus rather than simply receiving their pre-packaged programmes. To be able to both manage the reform and reconstruction process of their own institutions and effectively manage the interface with the international community, this module will explore the extent to which recovering states need their own capacity in nine interconnected areas of policy and the extent to which the team could develop an overall strategic vision of how these areas fix together.
Project outline
Phase 1:
Identification and selection of individuals from participating countries, to form cohorts with sufficient English language capability and connection with key communities to take part in the training programme.
Preparation, editing and translation of the Mediation Reader, establishment of social media community with participants and online discussion of reader content.
Phase 2:
Residential training programme:
| Indicative Programme: The Mediation Fellowship | |
| Day | Content |
| 1 Sat | Arrival – Informal welcome dinner |
| 2 Sun | Team Building, Team formation and business development workshop part 1 – introduction |
| 3 Mon | Introduction – the theoretical and historical framework of conflict transformation, different types, approaches and outcomes from mediation processes, community engagement theory and practice to truth and reconciliation processes, introduction to case study and role playing approaches to training. |
| 4 Tues | Communication Skills: active listening and the language of diplomacy, exercises, basic reframing, mandate building, trust building Mediation basics and role play 1: figuring out the facts & building rapport. The flow of a mediation, review, communication skills, role play mechanics and debriefing at the end. Goal setting and expectation management. |
| 5 Weds | Negotiation theory, the introduction and role play 2: dealing with emotions, containing violence and facing violence and abuse, negotiation diagrams, sources of power. Mediation Processes: stages – advanced reframing, agreement, video demo, opening and closing of each session, building to agreement, the mediator’s role. |
| 6 Thurs | Keeping mediator’s own issues out and role play 3: identifying issues & shared/common interests Personal approach to conflict Tactics When Stuck & Role Play 4: generating options, moving from position to interests Options to consider when at an impasse & brainstorming |
| 7 Fri | Mediation types and role play 5: eliciting recognition, transformative vs problem solving mediation, “getting past no and getting to yes” – discussion and role play 6 (informal): different perspectives. After mediation, building peace – truth and reconciliation processes at community and national levels, national dialogue processes – models and examples. |
| 8 Sat | Business Development workshop part two |
| 9 Sun | Free day and Cultural programme in Edinburgh |
| 10 Mon | Case studies 1 in communal and international mediation and dialogue processes Trust building, advocacy, lobbying, media management and session planning, training the trainers programme After mediation – dimensions of reconstruction and reconciliation |
| 11 Tues | Case studies 2 dialogues, cultural approaches, partnership and networking, mandate building – long term and mitigating interventions compared – national and local dialogue processes, training the trainers completed After mediation – legal and political processes |
| 12 Weds | Final Role Play – Day long mediation role play and presentation of awards. |
| 13 Thurs | Travel to London. Reception in Central London |
| 14 Fri | Business Development Workshop part three |
| 15 Sat | Presentation of Business Plan to panel of business experts |
| 16 Sun | Departure |
Phase 3:
Network maintenance and development, follow-up workshops on further dimensions of mediation and engagement with business development experts.
The Fellowship is supported by partners with long experience in mediation and negotiation processes globally, with extensive expertise in Fellowship design and network maintenance and private sector expertise in business development.
Beyond Borders has extensive contacts with other projects being run in the region and can draw on expertise and support, including projects run by Intermediate, the Democratic Progress Institute, the Bar Human Rights Committee, Chatham House, the D Group, the D Academy, the John Smith Memorial Trust, John Taylor International Partnership, Integrity Research, the Delfina Foundation and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.
| Indicative Programme Implementation Cycle for the Mediation Fellowship – Cohorts 1-2 | ||||||
| Year One | ||||||
| Month | Planning | Selection | Residential Programme | Selection/ Follow-up | Residential Programme | Joint Workshop |
| 1 | Reader Prep | Scoping | ||||
| 2 | Reader Prep | Scoping | ||||
| 3 | Reader Prep | Cohort 1 | ||||
| 4 | Reader Prep | Cohort 1 | ||||
| 5 | Cohort 1 | Cohort 1 | Scoping | |||
| 6 | Cohort 2 | |||||
| 7 | Cohort 2 | |||||
| 8 | Follow-up Cohort 1 | Cohort 2 | ||||
| 9 | ||||||
| 10 | ||||||
| 11 | ||||||
| 12 | Follow-up Cohort 2 | Cohort 1 and 2 | ||||
