Mediation in fragile contexts: when local convening power is the differentiator
Field observations from Women, Peace and Security programming across Somalia's federal member states, on why the ability to convene the right people in the right room outperforms imported methodology, and what that means for how mediation support should be designed and procured.
The methodology is not the scarce input
International mediation practice has a rich toolkit: interest-based negotiation frameworks, dialogue sequencing models, do-no-harm analysis. These are genuinely useful, and our teams are trained in them. But in every mediation process we have supported in Somalia, the binding constraint was never the framework. It was whether the convener could get the actual decision-makers, elders with settlement authority, business figures financing the dispute, women with cross-clan family ties, into one room and keep them there through the difficult sessions.
That convening power is built over years and is held locally or not at all. It cannot be flown in, and it cannot be substituted by venue quality or facilitation technique.
What women's networks contribute that is routinely undervalued
Women's peace networks in Somalia hold a specific structural asset: marriage ties that cross clan lines give senior women credible channels into multiple parties simultaneously. In several processes we supported, the pre-negotiation phase, establishing that both sides would attend at all, ran through these channels, while the formal talks were later credited to the male principals at the table.
Programme results frameworks that only count women's presence at the formal table therefore systematically undercount their contribution. We now document the pre-negotiation phase explicitly, including who carried messages and who guaranteed safe passage, and report it as a programme outcome in its own right.
Implications for donors and implementers
First, procure convening power, not just facilitation expertise: assess implementers on demonstrated access to the specific parties in the specific locality, not on generic mediation credentials. Second, fund the pre-negotiation phase properly; it is slower and less visible than the dialogue events, and it is where the outcome is mostly determined. Third, protect local mediators' independence. A convener seen as a donor subcontractor loses the neutrality that made them useful, so keep branding requirements away from the process itself.
- 01Assess and procure convening power for the specific parties and locality.
- 02Fund and document the pre-negotiation phase as a result, not an overhead.
- 03Count women's cross-clan channel work as a mediation outcome.
- 04Keep donor visibility requirements out of the room.