Dear Community,

We, Mediation support team of the EU, just concluded together with you the Community of Practice on Peace Mediation meeting, which took place on 27-29 April and kicked off an EEAS social media campaign around the world.

More than 900 people registered, with a maximum concurrent participants of 180 in a zoom call,  and actively participated in more than 20 different digital sessions (18 suggested by CSOs and 8 institutional panels) dedicated to the different dimensions of mediation. The Community of Practice for Mediation, who acknowledges and promotes the work on dialogue and mediation done by the EU, engaged with policy makers in providing concrete recommendations on how to further improve and strengthen our support on the ground.

The kick off meeting this year included a High-Level Panel with David McAllister (Chair of the Committeee on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament), Patricia Llombard Cussac (Head of Delegation/Ambassador in Colombia) and Sonya Reines-Djivanides (Executive Director of the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office). Besides two thematic Panels on Disinformation and Environmental Peacemaking, a Panel on Responsibility to Protect and Mediation were tabled on the first two days, featuring also Alice Wairimu Nderitu (UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide) and Karen Smith (UN Special Adviser on Responsibility to Protect).

High level attendance and great participation was also assured in three geopolitical panels, one on the Horn of Africa, one on the Gulf Region, including on Yemen, and one on Latin America. On the Horn of Africa,  Hanna Tetteh (UN Special Representative of the Secretary General to the AU) Dr. Monica Juma (Kenya’s Defence Cabinet Secretary). Abdul Mohammed (former Deputy Minister of Ghana), and Alex Rondos (the EU SR to the Horn of Africa). The importance of joint approaches to conflict prevention, necessity to build regional networks in assessing conflict drivers and triggers and Track II actions to this regards as through a peace observatory were suggested. Discussing the Gulf Security with the nexus to conflict prevention, an eminent Panel including Sheikha Nijla Al Qasimi (from the UAE), Dina Esfandiary (from the ICG) and Peter Semneby (Special Envoy to Yemen) highlighted the added value of the EU in Yemen, as well as the need for more engagement and coordination on networks in conflict prevention and mediation. Discussing Latin America, Francisco Díez (Senior Mediation Advisor at the UN), Sergio Caramillo (EIP), Juan Garrigues Tena (Dialogue Advisory Group) and Renata Segura (ICG) discussed the importance of personal relations, creating linkages between regional actors, and strengthening horizontal coordination.

The different online sessions produced interactive maps with main outcomes which will be collated into a final report in addition to a visual report that will be shared soon with the community to highlight main takeaway and steps for further action. A collaborative report will be produced by the Mediation Support Team to follow up on the different (many times positively creative) suggestions raised by practitioners and academics during what it is now largely recognised as one of the most influential event for mediators and peacebuilders of the year.