Event Date: April 3, 2023 - 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Location: FSS 4004

Presented by CIPS and Ottawa Dialogue

Can informal actors such as NGOs mediate peace agreements? If so, how does it work and what are the consequences for international peace mediation? This book tackles these questions and more through looking at the role of nongovernmental (NGO) mediators in promoting “inclusive peace” to negotiating parties in Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) negotiations from 2011-2015. This book shows that NGO mediators, traditionally seen as part of civil society or as weak mediators with little power or leverage, have become established mediation actors alongside more formal actors and are redefining the mediation field through norm promotion. However, even if NGO mediators can promote norms, the book questions whether they should promote norms in the first place, as the NCA process shows how the promotion of inclusivity contributed to a more exclusive outcome of years of peace negotiations in Myanmar.

This in-person event will take place in English.

Speaker: 

Dr. Julia Palmiano Federer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) and the Head of Research at the Ottawa Dialogue. Her research interests include normative and decolonised approaches to inclusive peace processes and the role of nongovernmental organizations producing knowledge and expertise on peacemaking. She has published academic articles and policy papers on diverse topics in mediation including inclusion, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, counter-terrorism and Myanmar politics in numerous leading journals in conflict resolution and mediation. Until 2019, Dr. Palmiano Federer was a Program Officer in the mediation team at the Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace). In this role, she provided support to civil society actors and the negotiating teams involved in Myanmar’s peace processes.  

Moderator: 

Dr. Peter Jones, Full Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and Executive Director of Ottawa Dialogue.