Viadrina Mediation Hub at the German Federal Foreign Office

In 2008, the CPM conducted the research project "Evaluating Peace Mediation" in cooperation with the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at the ETH Zurich and swisspeace. The resulting study identified factors that need to be taken into account when evaluating peace mediation in an international context. A large number of parameters relevant for a systemic approach to and evaluation of peace mediation were examined, such as actors, mandates, symmetry of the parties, process organization and the determination of appropriate time frames. With the aim of contributing to a higher quality of mediation and more transparency, the study provided a general framework for the evaluation of peace mediation.

Since 2008, the CPM has been also supporting the German Federal Foreign Office in the area of conflict mediation and crisis diplomacy. On the one hand, the Hub's researchers supported the Federal Foreign Office in internal dialogue and strategy processes. On the other hand, the Hub advised and supported the Federal Foreign Office, process-implementing German diplomats and civil society actors in methodologically challenging mediation processes.

The war waged by Russia in Ukraine 2022 quickly polarised public debates between the seemingly opposing goals of deterrence and dialogue. These discussions were characterised by numerous assumptions that ultimately reduced the scope for political action to the security dimension. And although the implicit prioritisation of military/security policy measures over civilian/peace policy measures contradicted the fundamental convictions of many, it was considered to be without alternative.

With this in mind, the Berghof Foundation and the Center for Peace Mediation, with the participation of the IFSH Hamburg, invited foreign and security policy experts from the government parliamentary groups to an expert exchange in May 2022. The focus was on both the specific approach to the war in Ukraine and the general direction of the National Security Strategy. The results of the exchange were summarized in a short non-paper, which was fed into parliamentary networks.

In 2022, the Mediation Hub conducted a series of discussions and interviews with experts from the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on the German government's engagement in Afghanistan.

The common interest focussed on the reasons for the unmanaged complexity, the lack of controllability and the abrupt end of key parts of the engagement. The aim was (1) to filter out insights for the German government's future engagement in fragile contexts, (2) to develop ideas for the strategic further development of the operational interaction between ministries and (3) to examine their relevance for the National Security Strategy process.

Since 2021, the Center for Peace Mediation contributed each year to the annual three-day seminar "Interministerial Action in Fragile Contexts", organized in cooperation with the RSF Hub and the SSR Hub. The workshop on security policy issues and interministerial cooperation brings together staff from the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College, the Federal Ministry of Defence and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. 

Germany´s engagement in fragile contexts goes across departmental boundaries. Colleagues from various ministries, the Bundeswehr, the police and subordinate areas and implementing organisations often work at different ends of the same problem. The pilot project "Interministerial Peer Groups" offered a space to informally exchange own experiences at these different ends and to jointly develop exemplary solutions for specific individual challenges.

The peer groups took place on a regularly basis, each with its own focus, and were supported and accompanied by trained moderators familiar with the respective field. The meetings focussed on the individual concerns of the participants, which reflected the core issues of interministerial, and in some cases also interdepartmental collaboration: What are the different priorities from the departments involved? What dilemmas are we struggling with? How can actors work better together?

The Mediation Hub developed and coordinated the pilot project in collaboration with the Foreign Office and the RSF Hub and SSR Hub. Anne Holper and Anna Dick facilitated the peer group "Contributions to Conflict Resolution" with a focus on formal Track I / II mediation, development cooperation and peace operations.

Jointly with the Berghof Foundation, the Center for Peace Mediation invited experts in the field of crisis and peace mediation from the German Federal Foreign Office, the EU, the United Nations, academia and civil society to a confidential round table in Berlin in August 2021. The exchange took place against the backdrop of the military and security policy failures in Afghanistan but went far beyond this in terms of the topics discussed.

The aim was to stimulate an exchange and develop innovative proposals for a more clearly defined, stronger mediation role for Germany in international peace mediation and to feed them into the next German government's exploratory discussions. The Berghof Foundation published insight into the results.

In the anthology "Peace Mediation in German Foreign Policy", the Mediation Hub compiled the results and findings from the last five years of collaboration with the German Federal Foreign Office.

This volume is dedicated to the field of peace mediation, which has rapidly developed and become professionalised in recent decades, both internationally and in Germany. In bringing together the history and status quo of the field plus the prospects for its future development, the volume has three special features: It combines a critical theoretical and a practical assessment of recent and ongoing political developments. It offers a selection of the ‘Fact Sheets on Peace Mediation’, which have been elaborated by the Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the Initiative Mediation Support Deutschland (IMSD). And it provides concrete ideas on how Germany's peace mediation profile and methodology can be further heightened and translated into effective and responsible political practice.

With contributions by Marike Blunck, Sebastian Dworack, Anne Holper, Lars Kirchhoff, David Lanz, Christoph Lüttmann, Simon J.A. Mason, Dirk Splinter, Luxshi Vimalarajah, Julia von Dobeneck, Brigitta von Messling, Carsten Wieland, Almut Wieland-Karimi and Felix Würkert.

 In 2019, the Mediation Hub provided conceptual support to the German Federal Foreign Office in developing the "Peace Mediation Framework". The framework spells out the German approach to peace mediation and embeds it in the stabilisation approaches of the Federal Foreign Office.

The framework was one of the first state third-party actors commitments that took a transparent approach to the role and management of their own political interests in mediation: “We do not engage as a mediator in, or supporter of, mediation processes out of purely altruistic motives; rather we act on the basis of our own interests and values, which we convey in an open and transparent manner to the conflict parties and the international community. We are committed to the principle of multipartiality. We assess carefully whether our own interests in the course and outcome of a process or our obligations resulting from political alliances and multilateral treaties run counter to the interests of the conflict parties. If this is the case, we will choose a different role in the peace process concerned, such as supporting only one conflict party or focusing on security-related efforts or military engagement.” (Peace Mediation Framework, p. 1)