Project

Target and Impact Analysis of Mediation as an Instrument of German Foreign Policy

Flags at the Expo City on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 30, 2023. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto)

In recent years, Germany has become increasingly active in efforts to resolve crises and violent conflicts through international mediation. Mediation and mediation support have been conceptual, institutional and, in some cases, operational components of German foreign policy since 2015. In the mediation project, the Advisory Board is working on the validation of existing impact assumptions and the development of recommendations for the further profiling of German mediation practice.

Mediation efforts in Germany’s mediation engagement are mostly hidden from public view in detail, although there are also some examples of greater visibility, such as in the Normandy format or the Trilateral Contact Group or at the conferences on ending the civil war in Libya, which Germany played a leading role in preparing.However, the criteria for the selection of suitable cases of intervention and the concrete implementation of the instruments of mediation and mediation support still appear undefined.The aim of the Advisory Board’s planned study is to examine the Federal Government’s aforementioned assumption of effectiveness at the strategic and implementation levels. Experiences with the instruments of mediation from concrete cases of application with and without German participation are to be used and reasons for successful or failed mediation efforts are to be identified. An impact analysis of mediation efforts undertaken with German participation is not yet available. However, the past practice of approximately ten years provides sufficient empirical evidence to validate impact assumptions, evaluate implementation in practice and develop recommendations for the further profiling of the instruments and mediation practice.

With this working project, the Advisory Board would like to put German mediation practice to the test and develop it further. This includes the political-strategic level, the implementation level and the monitoring level of German mediation engagement.The end result will be concrete recommendations for the effective application of mediation instruments in the practice of the German government as well as for emergency services, institutions and individuals