Infrastructures for Peace at the Height of Violent Conflict: Lessons from Establishing Peace Secretariats for Track 1 Negotiations

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Notes

^*This article presents the author's personal views on peace secretariats and the concept of peace infrastructures.

¹ Muslim political parties established their own peace secretariat, hoping to be included in negotiations later.

² The author employs the term ‘peace secretariat’ for a certain type of negotiation and dialogue support organisation; these organisations often carry different titles.

³ The author uses the terms ‘infrastructure of peace’ and ‘peace infrastructure’ interchangeably; for a distinction see the author's contribution in the Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series on peace infrastructures at www.berghof-handbook.net/dialogue-series/no-10.

⁴ For a critical discussion of government involvement, see Van Tongeren's forthcoming article in Pensamiento Proprio, a journal of Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Economicas y Socialies, the Latin American partner of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.

⁵ At an early stage, the low level of trust between warring parties most often requires separate secretariats. Processes that have reached a level of consensus or are more inclusive, like the national dialogue in Lebanon, might require the creation of joint secretariats.

⁶ Such transitions bear various challenges: one concerns the changing tasks and requirements when a secretariat becomes a ministry in a post-war context; another concerns the risk of losing organisational memory and capacity when leadership and staff change.

⁷ These lessons draw on a more detailed analysis beyond the scope of this article. The full discussion can be found in a forthcoming Berghof report.