Lack of strong political leadership bane of global peace process: Panellists

Doha, Qatar: A lack of strong political leadership and a genuine commitment to peace have been identified as some of the challenges facing modern peacemaking efforts globally.

Speaking at a panel discussion titled ‘Where Have All the Peace Deals Gone?’, ar Doha Forum on December 7, the panellists — including Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Espen Barth Eide, US State Department Special Envoy to Sudan H E Ambassador Thomas Perriello, and Co-Founder, Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators Prof. Miriam Coronel-Ferrer — noted that modern conflicts are often multifaceted, involving multiple actors and intricate dynamics. This makes it difficult to identify clear solutions and implement effective peace agreements.

The session, moderated by President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, Dr. Comfort Ero, highlighted a significant shift in the global landscape since the 1990s, noting that sustained diplomatic efforts are essential to building trust and creating opportunities for dialogue.

“While that era was marked by a relative consensus on democratic norms and international cooperation, the current geopolitical climate is characterized by increasing fragmentation and polarization. This has made it more difficult to achieve lasting peace agreements,” the panellists noted, expressing concern about the lack of international attention to certain conflicts, particularly in regions like Sudan. They argued that the global community needs to prioritise these crises and provide sustained support.

The discussion drew on historical examples, such as the peace processes in the Philippines and Colombia, to identify key lessons for contemporary peacemaking.

“I think the key point with the current realities is that there’s no argument for giving up. It’s actually an argument for just working harder and also recognising what is different. And what we have learned is that it’s important that we speak to everybody. If you actually want to get something done, you have to deal with the people who matter, even if they have blood on their arms and even if you don’t necessarily like what they’ve done or even like them. But you need to have the best ability to speak to, and if necessary, maybe discreetly to many. You need to stay long-term because sometimes being present, like in the case in the Philippines where we were involved for many years where not much happened, is important,.” the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs noted.

On the crisis in Sudan, Ambassador Perriello said that there had been a fair amount of diplomatic paralysis about Sudan, in part because there seemed to be no ability to get the two actors to the table.

“When we put together what became known as the Alps talks, nobody really thought they had a chance to succeed. We not only got the three major humanitarian groups open at those talks; we met virtually every single week with no plane tickets purchased, no issues with visas, and the rest. And part of what we knew going into that is that the parties in Sudan, the factions in Sudan, have known how to play the game for a long time in using humanitarian access as a weapon, as a diplomatic strategy, playing around with invitations and who’s getting invited this way and that way. And part of what we were doing with the talks was trying to bring the hardliners to the surface, kind of embarrass themselves, get a little more marginalised, and make room for some of the more moderate and serious people, particularly in the south side, so that we continue to have five straight months of significant gains on humanitarian access on what has effectively been a blockade of 25 million people that, of course, nobody in the world seems to know what’s going on, so nobody’s there to celebrate the progress.”