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This publication is one of six case studies – others include Libya, Mali, Nepal, Sudan, and Tunisia – that inform the Handbook’s findings. The overall aim of the project is to improve National Dialogues and enhance the capacities and contributions of conflict parties, local stakeholders and external actors towards their successful implementation.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Centro de Estudios de Guatemala (CEG), swisspeace

This publication is one of six case studies – others include Libya, Mali, Nepal, Sudan, and Tunisia – that inform the Handbook’s findings. The overall aim of the project is to improve National Dialogues and enhance the capacities and contributions of conflict parties, local stakeholders and external actors towards their successful implementation.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Bishnu Raj Upreti, Bishnu Sapkota, swisspeace

The question of dialogue has been at the heart of inter-Malian debates for many years. The deep crisis that was revealed by the events of 21 March 2012 has undermined the social fabric and peaceful co-existence, and has weakened the state and its institutions. National Dialogue has thus reappeared as an absolute necessity in order to allow for all the children of the nation to come together again and collectively set forth the new social contract which must bind Malian women and men. Based on a thorough review of the dialogue experience gained during the National Conference of 1991, this study allows us to provide perspectives for a renewal of National Dialogue in post-crisis Mali.

• Year 2016
• Author(s) Ousmane Sy, Ambroise Dakouo, Kadari Traoré

This paper takes a broad look at some of the decisive qualities needed to underpin more transformative national dialogue processes. It focuses on ownership, inclusion, legitimacy and shifting power dynamics among the key parties and the groups that comprise the society. Each of these qualities is explored conceptually and empirically. Drawing on multiple case studies, learning points are drawn out with the aim of sensitising practitioners to the importance of these qualities so they can cultivate them through strategies and practices in supporting national dialogue.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Catherine Barnes

The article considers the potential for National Dialogues to create substantial development outcomes that go beyond immediate political and security settlements. Using insights from various National Dialogue processes, the conditions, dynamics and potential barriers to these outcomes are explored. The article also describes entry points and strategies for external development actors to contribute to the attainment of substantial development outcomes in transition processes that include National Dialogues.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Henrik Hartmann

This paper looks at the National Dialogue experience of Lebanon. National Dialogues have been part of the country’s political and social fabric. They have served as an important consensus-building mechanism for core political actors to address issues of common national concern. The paper provides a snapshot of the history of National Dialogues in Lebanon during the civil war and onwards, followed by an assessment of aspects of the National Dialogue from 2008-2014, addressing its composition, themes, outcomes, support mechanisms, and consensus-building principles. It concludes with a more general reflection about challenges and dilemmas of the Lebanese National Dialogue.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Martin Wählisch

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Christina Murray

This publication is one of seven case studies; others include Guatemala, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Nepal, and Sudan. The case studies provide recommendations for on-going processes in the specific country and inform the Handbook’s findings. The overall aim of the project is to improve National Dialogues and enhance the capacities and contributions of conflict parties, local stakeholders and external actors towards their successful implementation.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Rikke Hostrup Haugbølle, Amine Ghali, Hèla Yousfi, Mohamed Limam, Nina Grønlykke Mollerup

This paper examines the unsuccessful efforts to instigate a National Dialogue in Libya over 2011-14. It uses the Libyan case to hypothesise that for National Dialogues to be successful, the context and conditions under which they are inaugurated must be favourable, and seeks to identify what conditions in Libya combined to cause its early efforts to falter. The paper first analyses what conditions existed in Libya 2011-14 and why they led to the view that a National Dialogue was necessary. It then addresses the conditions under which the National Dialogue was established, and also analyses the various alternatives to National Dialogue mooted during this time. In its conclusion, the paper attempts to extract what lessons or principles can be drawn from the Libyan case that are of relevance to future National Dialogue design processes, and to the case literature on this mechanism.

• Year 2018
• Author(s) Felix-Anselm van Lier

This case study is elaborating on the details of the new National Dialogue process in Sudan, exploring its prospects and trying to see how it differs from the previous attempts and what the lessons it will draw from them, and to see if it is capable to avoid the junctions of failure connected with those previous dialogue processes.

• Year 2017
• Author(s) Elshafie Khidir Saeid