Welcome to our annual report. Scroll through to learn about our activities.
2023 was marked by a record number of violent conflicts, underscoring the importance of the work that we are committed to. Read about how we intensified our peacebuilding efforts despite the challenges that organisations like ours currently face.
In 2023, our conflict transformation work focused on several strategic priorities: We explored how protest movements
can be integrated into peace processes and how we can strengthen their nonviolent strategies. We investigated how peacebuilders can support inclusive governance structures to mitigate corruption and other economic drivers of conflicts, and we looked into how digitalisation impacts peace processes as well as our work. We also developed approaches focusing on how dealing with past experiences and grievances from wars and violent conflicts can be incorporated into peacebuilding strategies. Furthermore, we continued to support and better understand the role of women and gender in peace and mediation processes and increased our efforts to adapt our work to rise to the challenges climate change poses to peacebuilding.
One year after the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Horn of Africa remains affected by complex conflicts. While the agreement ended a devastating war, the situation in several parts of Ethiopia remains highly volatile. While the CoHA has proven to be a promising first step in furthering non-violent means of addressing conflict, its implementation faces numerous challenges. Meanwhile, the Amhara region has experienced increased tensions and violent conflict, while the official peace talks between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) were halted after an unsuccessful second round of talks at the end of the year. Nevertheless, we also saw positive signs, such as the peace efforts in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, including the encouraging signing of peace agreements.
In 2023, we started building a network of insider peacebuilders in the Benishangul-Gumuz region comprising of local community peacebuilders, including youth and women. We also continued our work to support an inclusive, Ethiopian-led and -owned National Dialogue process mandated to address the root causes of conflicts in Ethiopia. We conducted an increasing number of tailor-made workshops with the Ethiopian National Dialogue Commission, Ethiopian parliamentarians, political party representatives, civil society organisations, and other stakeholders. Additionally, we worked with a group of high-level women, organised training sessions and workshops on various topics related to dialogue processes in the country, and supported them in their efforts to facilitate outreach and pre-consultations, ensuring women's perspectives are integrated into current dialogue processes. In Oromia, we supported the design of an inclusive dialogue process among representatives of diverse Oromo stakeholders to support and complement the official peace talks.
Countries like Iraq and Somalia – to name just two – are not only suffering from decades of violent conflict but are also disproportionally affected by the effects of the climate crisis. This is why, in Somalia, we expanded our work on climate security and environmental peacebuilding. We provided capacity development workshops for over one hundred local peacebuilders across Hirshabelle and Galmudug states. The members of our Insider Peacebuilders Network then initiated various activities in their communities, such as workshops on climate and conflict and a peace football tournament in Balad. To complement the community dialogues and reach a wider audience, amplifying the impact of our workshops, we utilised the power of the radio. Our radio programmes, “Garasho-wadaag”, which we launched in 2021 in Galmudug, and “Hiloow”, running since 2023 in Hirshabelle, feature drama sketches on the nexus between climate change and conflict, live dialogues with peacebuilders and local authorities, and audience interactions. In addition, we launched a new partnership focused on climate and sustainable peace with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) aiming for more impactful programming in the Jowhar district of Hirshabelle State. We conducted two climate security risk assessments in Adale in Hirshabelle State and Guriel/Balenbale in Galmudug State and developed climate security action plans for both districts to guide forthcoming sustained dialogue processes. Together with UNEP, we also finalised a training curriculum on climate security and conflict transformation that has now been tested and refined.
We also built a network of local mediators to strengthen peacebuilding capacities in Zimbabwe. The country is now one of the poorest countries in the world, facing deep-rooted political, social, and economic challenges. Together with the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance at Africa University, we trained a group of over 50 local mediators in a number of conflict transformation skills and approaches. Our workshops covered a range of topics, including environmental peacebuilding and how they can leverage knowledge about mental health and psychosocial support within their mediation and dialogue processes.
Since then, network members have successfully resolved conflicts on various issues within their communities. They have addressed disputes over land and resources, political conflicts, and conflicts related to environmental degradation and access to public goods.
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, 2023 began on a promising note. After years of confidential bilateral negotiations, Saudi Arabia and Iran concluded a rapprochement agreement in Beijing in March, which highlights China’s growing role in the region. However, the positive developments were overshadowed by the events that unfolded after 7 October. The attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent Israeli offensive on Gaza, both unparalleled in terms of brutality and scope, altered the situation and increased the risk of a full-scale regional escalation. While the war on Gaza affected many of our activities in the region, we were able to continue working on a regional security and cooperation mechanism in the wider MENA region. This dialogue process, which we started to support in 2021, contributed to discussions within the region and with the European Union to identify essential components for a regional de-escalation mechanism and long-term trust-building.
In Yemen, 2023 was marked by an overall positive trajectory, although there were countervailing trends in the last quarter. We expanded our political and negotiation support activities with Yemeni decision-makers, working closely with the United Nations Special Envoy. The continuation of an unofficial truce in 2023 and an apparent breakthrough in Saudi-Houthi negotiations signalled renewed political will to work towards ending the war. This allowed us to foster much-needed conversations on the Gulf region's role in supporting the peace process, for example by co-hosting a high-level dialogue event in Riyadh with Yemeni, regional, and international representatives. Any high-level political progress, however, will have to contend with growing political and security fragmentation and the presence of armed groups on the ground in Yemen. To address this, we are leading a consortium working to improve the adherence of armed groups to international humanitarian law and improve the relationship between security providers and communities. Our community safety initiatives have strengthened civil security institutions and built trust between them and the local communities to address any potential security vacuum that could arise with a ceasefire. At the same time, we continued to support local mediation efforts and locally-led efforts to restore services and improve governance to create the local prerequisites for a successful peace process.
Iraq faced significant challenges related to climate security, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and creating new risks for the country's stability. Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, and dust storms have severely impacted the country’s agriculture, water availability, and public health. As part of our climate security work, we mediated local agreements to mitigate the effects of climate change in several districts.
In southern Iraq, for example, climate change has led to displacement and migration, resulting in conflicts between internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities which arose in Zubair's Al-Fidha neighbourhood. Our team, together with our local partner organisation, facilitated a series of dialogue sessions between the IDPs and the host community. In these sessions, members of both groups formulated common needs such as improved public services, reduced unemployment rates, and enhanced community safety. They also recognised climate change as a shared issue that exacerbates their problems as they all experience crop failure, increased water scarcity, or a greater need for electricity, mainly for air conditioning in hot summer days. The communities took their shared concerns to local authorities, the community police, the local mayor who also represents Zubair in the Iraqi parliament, as well as tribal and religious leaders. They initiated a formalised process to tackle the most pressing issues and, in the end, achieved agreements on concrete measures to mitigate climate-related risks.
We continued our dialogue work towards much-needed political reforms in Lebanon. Decades of corruption and excessive spending by the ruling elites have devastated the country. Since 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost 95 per cent of its value, leaving salaries worthless and plunging over 80 per cent of the population into poverty. Public services and infrastructure have collapsed, causing acute electricity shortages. Additionally, a significant exodus of young, educated citizens is occurring, especially after the Beirut port explosion in 2020, as many have lost hope and are seeking better opportunities abroad. By bringing people together, we aim to support the development of short-term policy solutions to address the crisis and a long-term vision for the country’s future. On the national level, we created space for influential political figures to discuss essential reforms. On the local level, we organised funding for projects that promote the country’s reconciliation process and support local dialogue initiatives that build trust within communities. In May 2023, we also joined forces with 30 NGOs to draw attention to the “forgotten crisis” in Lebanon. To strengthen our efforts in the region, we expanded our office in Beirut into a regional hub that supports various projects and workstreams across the MENA region.
Turkey was struck by devastating earthquakes in the Southern and Southeastern provinces in early February. Additionally, 2023 was marked by parliamentary and presidential elections in May which resulted in the continuation of the AKP-MHP absolute majority in parliament and President Erdogan remaining in office until 2028. To provide a safe space where sensitive political issues can be discussed beyond party affiliations, we created an online dialogue platform where active and former members of parliament and diplomats can exchange with academics and civil society activists. On this platform, a diverse group addressed topics such as the impact of the election results on democratisation in Turkey, potential debates on a new constitution, and the situation of the Kurdish languages. We also formed a network for “emerging leaders” consisting of 20 young adults from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, confessions, and political affiliations. The group completed initial training sessions on dialogue facilitation and agreed to develop a “transformative scenario planning” for four future scenarios for Turkey.
In 2023, the normalisation process with Syria
gained significant momentum as several Arab states restored or improved diplomatic ties with Damascus. This shift was driven by the need to address regional stability, refugee crises, and the illegal drug trade, particularly involving Captagon. However, as expectations towards these issues were not met, the overall political deadlock persisted. To address the priority needs of the population and initiate political reform debates, we focused our work on the economy and the role of local and diaspora business people. Alongside local and regional consultations on the private sector’s role in improving the Syrian people’s well-being, we concluded several regional dialogues with stakeholders from the wider Gulf and MENA regions on the future and prospects for peace in Syria.
To commemorate the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine in February 2023, we highlighted the various ways Ukrainian civil society organisations have supported their communities during the war in a series of articles. We spoke with activists and representatives of NGOs working on topics ranging from youth empowerment and support for the LGBTQIA+ community to dialogue and trust-building between different religious communities. During the war, Ukrainian women and women’s organisations have also assumed significant responsibilities, from organising and distributing humanitarian aid to documenting war crimes, bolstering social cohesion, and representing their country abroad. We have therefore discussed what a feminist response to the war would look like and how the meaningful inclusion of women and marginalised groups in reconstruction efforts and important decisions related to the future of their country can be ensured.
In partnership with The Reckoning Project, we hosted a second symposium on accountability and justice in Ukraine, which brought together international experts to examine ongoing efforts in the field of criminal justice and innovative uses of open-source technology, as well as potential avenues for ensuring accountability for the environmental impact of the war and how to support the healing of the social fabric of Ukrainian society now and in the future. In December, we convened a group of Ukrainian civil society activists in Lviv to explore how environmental peacebuilding approaches could be applied in Ukraine to strengthen social cohesion as well as support environmental restoration and sustainable and inclusive reconstruction.
After almost a decade, our programming in Georgia and Abkhazia came to an end in 2023. Since 2014, we have established an oral history archive comprising around 1,000 interviews with individual memories from the Georgian, Abkhazian, and Ossetian perspectives in close cooperation with our local partners. Our work in the region was based on the premise that lasting peace can only be achieved through a reconciliation process in which past grievances are not denied but openly discussed and acknowledged by all sides. Our materials are living testimony that when people come together and share their stories, they can build trust and empathy for former enemies and reconcile their wounds from a violent past.
A deadly series of earthquakes struck Afghanistan in 2023, claiming the lives of over 2,000 people. While the European Union, the United Nations, and others quickly pledged humanitarian aid for the victims, the limited attention and restrictions on recovery assistance highlighted the dire need of the country and its people for a long-term stabilisation perspective. Despite the political stalemate between the Afghan authorities and Western governments, we continued our engagement with a broad range of Afghan stakeholders and relevant international actors.
We also expanded our activities to the wider region. Many shared challenges, such as managing water resources or addressing the effects of the climate crisis, can only be tackled if neighbouring countries work together. With the support of regional governments, we explored opportunities for expert exchanges on a range of relevant themes as well as Afghanistan’s role in the region.
In Latin America, we worked on the intersection of women, peace and security and the environment. Based on our long-standing contacts with various stakeholders in Colombia, we provided capacity-building support to peace negotiation teams, their technical advisers, and members of the National Participation Commission on the meaningful inclusion of women in peace processes and how to ensure positive environmental impact while addressing the effects of the climate crisis.
In Germany, our peace education team experienced an increasing demand for their workshops and education materials in 2023. The escalating war in Israel-Palestine, the rise of far-right parties, as well as racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia in Germany, along with hate speech and violence online, have made preventative peace education work an urgent necessity.
Throughout the year, our team facilitated nine “Peace Days” at various schools in Germany where students and teachers learned about peacebuilding approaches, constructive debate culture, and critical methods to address hate and agitation online. We published a “Peace Guide” with 26 ideas for actions that students can undertake to promote peace in their schools.
The event gave me a lot of ideas on how I can contribute to peaceful coexistence in my daily life.
A student after taking part in our Peace Day at Max-Ernst-Gymnasium in Brühl, Germany
We also launched a toolbox that helps teachers in Germany discuss conflicts and wars with their students. This toolbox includes various teaching materials such as posters and explanatory videos, as well as 20 conflict analyses that convey comprehensive knowledge in an accessible way. By using our materials, teachers can easily integrate lessons about current and past conflicts, from the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Ukraine to the conflict in Northern Ireland, into their curricula. The conflict analyses receive over 50,000 clicks per month. More than 4,000 copies of the poster “How to analyse a conflict” have already been distributed. With the Service Centre for Peace Education, we held 75 workshops in schools all over Baden-Württemberg and 21 teacher training sessions in all three phases of teacher formation. We certified three schools as “model schools for peace education.”
As part of our work against conspiracy theories, our team, together with a pool of peer-trainers, held 50 workshops across Germany using the interactive toolkit on how children and teenagers can identify false information and counter conspiracies on social media. Based on #vrschwrng, the project "Digital.Truth" was developed, which aims at parents, teachers and multipliers with the objective of strengthening their resilience against disinformation and conspiracy theories.
In 2023, we continued to offer negotiation support to resistance and liberation movements (RLM). We conducted tailor-made training sessions to support groups during negotiations and hosted the annual RLM network meeting in collaboration with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Representatives from 11 movements came together to deliberate with international mediation practitioners as well as leading scholars on how to negotiate conflicts around self-determination.
This was done in parallel to negotiation support dedicated to women from such movements who joined our week-long workshop to discuss women’s meaningful participation in negotiations and post-war leadership. They exchanged and shared their experiences on conflict transformation and we provided tailor-made sessions on topics ranging from communication skills, peace leadership, women’s participation in politics, to gender-sensitive peacebuilding.
Together with UN Women, we have sought to support women's active and meaningful participation in peaceful protest movements. Based on case studies from Iraq, Thailand, and Venezuela, we aimed to better understand women's roles as insider mediators within peaceful protest movements and the respective conflict contexts. We also sought to explore the gender dynamics that shaped and informed these roles and their impact on women's leverage.
We continued our participatory research in Myanmar and expanded our research focus to Yemen. In collaboration with our project partners and local researchers, we explored how armed and political movements can implement UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security in the areas they control and how peacebuilders and international organisations can collaborate with these groups to strengthen protection and participation of women and girls from diverse ways of life. We continued to co-develop policy recommendations for international actors based on our findings.
The way women are portrayed during and after wars and violent conflicts has a huge influence on which issues are considered during peace processes. If women are only seen as victims, they will be treated as such when designing post-war societies, and many of the issues they advocate for during the conflict will be overlooked. Our research team produced a documentary in which former women combatants from Colombia and Uganda shared their stories.
The women discussed their experiences during the conflict, the peace and reintegration processes, and the ongoing challenges they faced while rebuilding their lives after the war. Our team distilled learnings on how women ex-combatants can successfully overcome these challenges and on how participatory methods can best be used in peacebuilding work.
We know from our research and our experience in supporting peace processes around the world that outcomes tend to be more sustainable if peacebuilders manage to include everyone who is affected during the process. This also holds when applying digital peacebuilding approaches. Together with Plattform Zivile Konfliktbearbeitung (Platform Peaceful Conflict Transformation), we looked into what our discipline needs to keep in mind to ensure digital peacebuilding programming really is inclusive and does not reproduce already existing inequalities.
The question of how to deal with grievances from a violent past is a challenge which societies must master after peace agreements have been signed and armed conflicts have ended. Since the 1990s, we have seen various transitional justice efforts, from truth-seeking commissions to criminal procedures. But how can we ensure that these efforts amount to more than a box-ticking exercise and keep those who are affected in mind? Together with its partner organisations, the Global Learning Hub for Transitional Justice and Reconciliation gathered over 70 transitional justice practitioners from around the world in Berlin to discuss together with policy-makers how people-centred approaches for dealing with the past can help to ensure sustainable peace.
We collected lessons learned on questions ranging from how young generations deal with past conflicts, how violence can affect different genders in different ways, which strategies survivors can use to overcome being silenced, and how to prevent violence from breaking out again in a four-part podcast series.
In autumn 2023, members of the Hub travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to discover first-hand how memorials can be both sites of commemoration that bring people together but also markers of divisions in society. Read more about their trip.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was also one of the seven focus countries of our PAVE research project that came to an end in 2023. Together with 12 research partners, our team produced in-depth analyses, training modules and policy recommendations on how to prevent radicalisation and violent extremism in four countries in the Western Balkans and three in the Middle East and North Africa region. Our findings highlight the need for multi-stakeholder coordination and the important role of civil society when tackling violent extremism. The edited volume “Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism – An Actor-centric Approach”, published together with Routledge, comprises the key research results of the consortium’s work. In another research consortium, we are currently investigating with international researchers how the European Union can foster democracy in neighbouring countries.
We highlighted another crucial but largely unexplored topic: The connection between human rights and mediation. Even though the human rights and the mediation communities both strive to end war and foster sustainable and inclusive peace, they often question each other’s approaches. In her latest book, Katarina Månsson challenges the assumption that human rights are a “complicating factor” for mediation by analysing how they supported conflict resolution in past mediation processes. You can read the book or watch the recording of our launch event.
In 2023, we also started an exciting new line of research which focuses on harvesting insights from psychology and neuroscience to create refined knowledge on high-level peace negotiation. In-depth interviews with mediators and negotiators from across the world about triggers, tipping points and dynamics of dehumanisation, re-humanisation and other patterns in peace negotiations promised actionable recommendations for better negotiation and mediation support practice.
In peacebuilding, National Dialogues have become a well-recognised tool for settling complex and protracted conflicts. But too often practitioners struggle to integrate cross-cutting topics into the design of a process. Our team published a series of papers to address this gap. We compiled the latest insights and lessons learned on how National Dialogue processes can successfully address questions like how to work towards inclusive change through the involvement of protest movements, how societies can tackle the impacts of climate change and mitigate vulnerability through National Dialogues, or how digitalisation can be used to support such processes. Find out more in our publication series “National Dialogues at crossroads”.
This is just a glimpse of what we did in 2023. Find out more about our work and ongoing projects.
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We believe in the power of collaboration. Throughout 2023, we strengthened our existing partnerships and forged new ones with local organisations across the globe, alongside esteemed international counterparts, governments, multilateral agencies, and global networks.
By uniting our efforts, we have advanced the field of conflict transformation and delivered tangible assistance to countless individuals affected by conflict. We are grateful to everyone who has placed their trust in us.
We closed the fiscal year 2023 with an operational deficit of €246 thousand. The many evolving crises in the world highlight the necessity for constructive interventions for peace. This is not reflected in the current funding landscape, creating many challenges for us and our sister organisations. You can find our annual financial statement for download below.
As an organisation, we consistently strategise, adapt, and respond to the evolving circumstances and contexts surrounding our work. Ensuring the long-term sustainability of our operations remains our priority. Only with the unwavering commitment of our longstanding partners were we able to achieve our accomplishments in 2023, and we extend our gratitude to our key partners:
To the individuals and institutions who share our dedication to peacebuilding, we express our sincere gratefulness for their support and partnership, which enables our work towards peace. We are happy to have gained new partners and supporters in 2023 for the preparation of The Berlin Moot, our 2024 flagship conference.
None of our endeavours would be feasible without the extraordinary efforts of our team, which in 2023 was represented by a diverse body of over 120 people. We extend our appreciation to our Board of Trustees, whose invaluable guidance has bolstered our work throughout the year.
In 2024, we are amplifying our positive impact on conflict-affected communities across the globe. Numerous projects within our portfolio await your support. Join forces with us with your contribution towards a more peaceful world.
Learn more about our finances:
Are you interested in finding out more about our work? Take a look at the annual reports from previous years and read stories about the impact of our work.
Photo: Shir, a traditional Somali community assembly, in Mataban, Somalia. Photo © Berghof Foundation