Berghof Foundation: 50 years of conflict transformation

National Dialogues
2017
A model for
inclusive
political
negotiations
and multiparty
talks?
An expert panel at the Roundtable on Emerging National Dialogues in Berlin, 2015. Photo: Berghof Foundation
Peace talks are becoming more complex. While
they have traditionally focused on ceasefires and
frameworks for political reform, current negotiation
processes include many more topics, ranging from
power-sharing mechanisms, reform of governance
systems, constitution-making, transitional justice and
economic aspects to restructuring the security sector.
Peace talks are also becoming more
inclusive. Talks between a government on the one
side and a rebel or insurgency movement on the
other are more the exception than the rule. Local and
traditional actors, civil society, victims and women
groups all want to have a stake in the process and
representation at the table, or at least want to be
heard and consulted on specific topics. Inclusivity is
increasingly becoming a normative pattern. It offers
many benefits as it positively affects the acceptance
and sustainability of agreements.
Developments towards more complex and
inclusive negotiation processes started 30 years
ago, when a number of countries in Eastern Europe
set up roundtables with hundreds of participants to
negotiate and manage the transition from communist
rule to more democratic political systems. In the
early 1990s, a series of national conferences also
took place in Africa, starting in the Francophone
countries and later extending to the multi-party peace
negotiations in South Africa in 1992-99.
These National Dialogues — or similar
processes under different names — gained in
popularity during the Arab Spring, when there were
calls for National Dialogues in nearly every country
of the Middle East and North Africa. In 2015, the
Tunisian Quartet received the Nobel Peace Prize in
appreciation of their work.
However, planning and facilitating complex,
inclusive negotiation or dialogue processes is a
major challenge. What can be done to ensure that
the process has sufficient legitimacy while still being
effective enough to produce the desired outcomes?
A successful National Dialogue needs careful
preparation and a considerable amount of creativity.
It cannot replace or create the necessary political will,
nor is it a substitute for the courageous leadership by
key parties that is required for a successful process.
In order to help parties in conflict to address
this set of challenges, the Berghof Foundation has
provided strategic and process advice for over
20 years. We began in Sri Lanka in 2001, when we
initiated and facilitated the Resource Network for
Conflict Studies and Transformation, which offered
space for dialogue to all conflict parties (including
the Muslim minority) on all major topics of the peace
process; later in Lebanon, we partnered with UNDP
to support the National Dialogue process that had
begun in 2008. From 2012-2014, we supported the
preparation and implementation of the National
Dialogue Conference in Yemen. A number of
additional National Dialogue support activities in
Sudan, Mali, Afghanistan and Ethiopia followed.
Since 2008, we have been providing strategic
coaching to conflict stakeholders on inclusive
national dialogue formats, as well as to international
actors such as the EU, UN, the OSCE and a number
of Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Since 2015, we have
been running an annual one-week training course on
National Dialogue and Peace Mediation in partnership
with Swisspeace.
The flagship of our support, however,
is the National Dialogue Handbook: A Guide
for Practitioners, which was finalised in 2017
after intensive consultations and case study
analysis involving academics, practitioners and
representatives of the UN and the World Bank. The
Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art
overview of key elements of National Dialogues and
includes 19 country case studies. It has become an
important reference document in many National
Dialogue processes and has been translated from
English into Arabic, French and Spanish.
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