Sudan’s pro-democracy activists have faced oppression, systematic targeting, massacres and coups. From mid-April 2023, they have faced the impacts of a national war between their main oppressors, Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ‘Hemedti’ of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), respectively. This long-anticipated rupture in the security forces was precipitated by the failure to reconcile the irreconcilable – the ambitions of the generals, their civilian junior partners and foreign backers – following the coup in 2021.

Africa’s approach to mediation has become more inclusive over the past two decades. Impetus for this shift has come from within Africa: driven by the practice and activism of civil society, women and young people demanding to be heard; anchored in the evolution of continental norms such as the move from ‘non-interference’ to ‘non-indifference’ and the promotion of ‘African solutions’; and embodied in the African Union’s (AU) ‘roadmap’ for inclusive and sustainable development, Agenda 2063, and the 2019 Continental Framework on Youth, Peace and Security.

In Afghanistan, we suffered war for more than four decades. When the Taliban got strong enough to challenge the government, especially after 2010, different countries wanted to mediate. President Hamid Karzai established the High Peace Council. But it was unable to mediate with the Taliban, partly because of interference from other countries like Pakistan. And in 2011 the Taliban in Pakistan assassinated the chair of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani. Different countries wanted to mediate – Germany, Norway and some others during Karzai’s time in office.

Human history has always evolved in back-and-forth steps. Major breakthroughs and innovations typically have to overcome resistance from those who want to preserve the status quo. Innovative thinking, especially during times of crisis, has helped our survival and development.

The reach and type of mediators is changing, with a shift to the South and East and, as Mateja Peter and Sanja Badanjak’s analysis of ‘what the data says’ sets out, a new prominence of regional or ‘middle power’ mediators.

Many of our most persistent and intense violent conflicts have an evident worldview dimension; the parties, or significant subgroups within them, make meaning and orient to the world very differently. What is less evident to many is that each of the common approaches to mediation of these conflicts is itself grounded in a particular worldview with embedded assumptions about why and how parties experience conflict, the building blocks available to construct a resolution of it, and the proper design goals and methods for assembling those building blocks.

Latin American and Caribbean countries are embroiled in a crisis of armed violence: home to a mere eight per cent of the world’s population but 29 per cent of its homicides, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The lion’s share of these deaths is linked to armed organisations ranging from gangs to drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and insurgents, most of which have not traditionally fallen within the purview of peacemaking and peacebuilding.

Mediating conflicts involving non-state armed groups proscribed by the United Nations Security Council presents difficult and distinct challenges. These groups are overwhelmingly listed for their association with Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (ISIS).