Peacemaking is challenging; the complexity of the issues, managing heightened expectations and recalcitrant parties, and an increasingly crowded and fractious mediation field complicate the endeavour. In responding to Sudan’s conflicts, and supporting South Sudanese and Ethiopian peace processes, regional and international facilitators have explored new approaches: they have promoted strategic and ad hoc partnerships, established mediation panels, combined multiple formats of engagement, and pooled leverage and expertise. Yet humility is required. The effects of innovations do not always yield immediate or enduring success: a new crisis in Sudan in April 2023 brought multiple, fragmented, and largely ineffectual mediation responses. South Sudan’s parties have struggled to implement their 2018 peace agreement; while Ethiopia’s Pretoria Agreement has not yet catalysed a just, inclusive and durable peace for either Tigray or Ethiopia.

Enhancing leverage and expertise – concluding Sudan’s CPA process

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army provided for a referendum on self-determination. Preparations for the potential secession of the South were politically charged and technically complex, requiring competent oversight and close international support. In 2010, the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) mandated a High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) – composed of former heads of state Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, General Abdulsalami Abubakar of Nigeria, and Pierre Buyoya of Burundi – to support the ‘post-referendum’ negotiations.

For the AU, the panel consolidated its move away from the practice of appointing a single mediator. Conscious of the sensitivity and precariousness of the CPA process, the AU sought to harness the political experience and stature of senior African leaders to help resolve complex questions around the South’s potential secession.

Although the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) had mediated the CPA negotiations, it now partnered with the AU and AUHIP. Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, as chair of IGAD, and leader of the regional hegemon, brought real leverage, buttressed by a deep familiarity with the issues and a formidable political acumen. Mutual political and intellectual respect between Zenawi and Mbeki – both ardent pan-Africanists – sustained an effective partnership. On key issues, including the conflagration in Abyei, in the oil negotiations, and security arrangements, Zenawi’s support and advice were indispensable.

The AU also understood the importance of the leverage and backing of the international community, including on debt relief and lifting of sanctions. At critical points, the AUPSC sought UN Security Council endorsement of its decisions, including in 2012 after conflict broke out between Sudan and South Sudan around the border town of Heglig. Mbeki regularly briefed the Security Council and collaborated closely with the UN Mission in Sudan, whose leadership and staff worked closely with the Panel. The Troika of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway that had supported the CPA process again provided assistance: Norway on oil issues, and the UK on security and border questions, among others. United States envoys worked closely with the AUHIP to unlock difficult issues.

The Panel systematically drew upon technical expertise from other entities, including the Assessment and Evaluation Commission established under the CPA, and the African Development Bank – whose expertise included debt and banking issues.

This high-level AU panel, partnering with IGAD, regularly briefing the UN Security Council, and systematically leveraging other diplomatic and technical resources illustrates the possibilities of combining creative and collaborative peacemaking, without diluting political leadership and the parties’ ownership of the process.

Blended negotiation formats – South Sudan

A witty definition of a treaty is ‘a disagreement reduced to writing’. Although the August 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) addressed power sharing, inclusion, transitional justice, constitution making, a ceasefire, security sector reform, governance, and economic management, among others, this text masked deep and abiding political cleavages. In July 2016, the country returned to war, and Riek Machar, the main opposition leader, fled. Neither the UN Mission in South Sudan nor the agreement’s Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) could prevent renewed conflict.

Yet, the government refused to countenance any re-negotiation of an agreement that no longer reflected political and security realities. The immense regional and international investment in securing the ceasefire and other commitments and architectures of the 2015 Agreement risked going to waste as the country slid back into hostilities and new armed groups emerged. New ideas were needed.

The Chair of JMEC, former President of Botswana Festus Mogae, promoted the idea of ‘revitalising’ rather than ‘renegotiating’ the 2015 agreement and called for broad engagements to include ‘estranged groups’ (a moniker for new armed and other opposition groups). Thus, JMEC designed a South Sudanese stakeholder consultation, through which the idea of a High-Level Revitalisation Forum (HLRF) was conceived.

IGAD’s endorsement of the HLRF enabled a multistakeholder engagement to emerge, to include women and other marginalised constituencies such as refugees. This approach both masked and created opportunities for real political engagement on the prospect of reviving the ARCSS , beyond the reservations of the Juba government. Here too, multilateral entities invested in collaboration: while IGAD appointed a Special Envoy, it invited the AU to identify senior facilitators to assist its envoy to manage the HLRF deliberations.

While AU facilitators led the formal, large convenings in Addis Ababa, an IGAD team – comprising Ethiopia, the Special Envoy and Kenya – engaged the key parties in smaller, more focused, and often confidential, sessions. They shuttled, especially to Juba and South Africa, where Machar was confined under arrangements endorsed by the region and other international entities. Gradually, as it became clear that excluding Machar from the process was politically untenable, he was allowed to join the negotiations. Still, it took the leaders of Sudan and Uganda to secure the final signatures to the new agreement in 2018.

The disastrous unravelling of the 2015 Agreement demanded a new, credible effort to stop renewed violence, and re-secure the gains of the ARCSS . Through linguistic reformulations and adopting a flexible architecture – using multiple formats and facilitators – the HLRF was conceived to overcame acute sensitivity and resistance to reopening the ARCSS . Architectural innovation created space for real negotiations, and eventually nurtured a new political and diplomatic consensus, enabling the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (RARCSS) to be adopted in 2018.

Pooling multilateral facilitation – Sudan’s post-revolution negotiations

Following the Sudanese revolution that drove President Omer al-Bashir from power in April 2019, the AU and Ethiopia facilitated difficult negotiations between the military and civilian components, culminating in the signing of the Constitutional Declaration of July 2019. Based on these outcomes, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission to Sudan (UNITAMS) to assist in the managing of Sudan’s expected transition.

However, like South Sudan’s ARCSS , the Sudanese transition floundered: here, the reasons were complex but undoubtedly include the failure to address the decades of militarisation of Sudanese politics, a lack of genuine inclusivity, and the deficiency of guarantees and leverage for implementation of the accords. Reluctant to cede power to civilians, the military launched a coup d’état, deposing civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok in October 2021, effectively curtailing the transition.

With the collapse of the transition, UNITA MS was now thrust into an unexpected facilitation role, and sought to deploy its good offices to that end. Encountering both resistance and encouragement from domestic, regional and international actors, UNITA MS attempted to make sense of a crowded mediation space: competition for leadership of the process was intense; both IGAD and the AU announced separate initiatives.

Eventually, the three bodies agreed to set aside differences and merge efforts through a Trilateral Mechanism; a formal three-way multilateral partnership, pooling resources and leverage. Thus, through a negotiated process, a collective multilateral effort for restoring the Sudanese transition was realised. Without cultivating this consensus, institutional competition would have further hampered peacemaking efforts.

Yet, structural innovation and collaboration do not automatically translate into leverage or success: in mid-April 2023, despite other efforts by regional and international actors, fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum. Conflict quickly spread to Darfur and other parts of the country, displacing millions. Sudan has been plunged into great peril, with regional and international actors drawn into the power struggle.

Faced with a new, grave, crisis, the need for an effective response became even more urgent. Building on the Trilateral Mechanism, the AU convened an Expanded Mechanism (along with a smaller Core Group) to collaborate on exploring pathways for addressing the latest crisis. This time, however, IGAD initiated its own political track led by four regional heads of state, though Kenya’s role was resisted by the SAF, and Egypt launched a separate initiative of neighbouring states. In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the United States convened talks on a narrow set of issues around the delivery of a humanitarian assistance and a potential ceasefire.

With the League of Arab States, the UN, AU, IGAD and others pressing for involvement, the prospects for a coherent international response, that also amplifies the voices of civilians and non-armed actors, remained uncertain. Achieving consensus on a credible and coherent strategy to address the multiple dimensions of the crisis, with meaningful participation of civilian actors and other Sudanese stakeholders, including women, is a critical first step. All this would require innovative efforts and creative modes of collaboration from the various initiatives seeking to respond to Sudan’s crisis, based on recognition of comparative advantages.

Securing consent, seizing opportunities: Ethiopia’s Tigray negotiations

After conflict broke out in Tigray in November 2020, the AU appointed former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as High Representative for the Horn of Africa, charged with facilitating the resolution of the Tigray conflict. Months passed without a process taking shape, while the casualties in a particularly bloody conflict piled up. Perceiving the AU and its envoy to be inclined towards the government in Addis Ababa, the Tigrayans remained deeply sceptical of the AU initiative and Obasanjo’s role, preferring an international architecture whose impartiality would be assured.

An impasse ensued. Each side held out for a decisive military outcome, while battlefield fortunes fluctuated, and a horrendous humanitarian situation unfolded. In the background, United States facilitators pursued de-escalation, even convening secret negotiations.

Under growing international pressure, the parties agreed to be convened by the AU after it appointed two additional facilitators, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, and South Africa’s former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Tigrayans saw both as counterweights to Obasanjo.

Transforming the sole-facilitator role into a panel and moving the talks to South Africa were intended to increase confidence in the process after the Tigrayan side had resisted the AU-appointed mediator. And, indeed, the contribution of President Kenyatta and Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka, alongside dogged background work by South Africa, the United States and the United Nations observer, proved instrumental to securing the Agreement for Lasting Peace through a Permanent Cessation of Hostilities after a week of negotiations in November 2022.

The Pretoria Agreement took many, including Ethiopians, by surprise and indeed generated criticism for its lack of inclusivity and its modest content. Building on the previous secret talks enabled by the US, the parties appeared to have seized the opportunity to lay down the building blocks for de-escalation, each having realised that the political, security and humanitarian costs of the conflict in Tigray had become unsustainable. Perhaps they also recognised that their other common challenges, including Eritrea’s involvement in Ethiopia and Tigray, required collaboration between Tigray and the Federal Government of Ethiopia.

Though a relatively short text, the Pretoria Agreement set the stage for military de-escalation in Tigray, the establishment of a new Tigrayan government, and practical security guarantees, including the adoption of international monitoring mechanisms. It also committed the parties to other key processes including transitional justice, and a roadmap for further bilateral negotiations. It deferred important questions of detail and implementation.

After Pretoria, the talks moved to Nairobi where negotiations on security arrangements, and tensions, continued. With Kenya hosting, the parties reaffirmed the Pretoria approach; they clarified sequences for disarmament, modalities for joint implementation, and endorsed international oversight mechanisms, thus further consolidating the process.

A notable feature of the Tigrayan talks was the preference of the parties to hold direct negotiations. Building on historical relationships between the key negotiators and their prior secret talks, the parties often chose to negotiate without the presence of third-party facilitators, speaking local languages. By acquiescing to these requests, facilitators judiciously applied a light touch, recognising the value of direct interactions in which negotiators could exchange assurances and uncover common interests for themselves much faster than through a mediator.

The AU overcame Tigrayan resistance to a single mediator by establishing a panel of facilitators picked to ensure the concerns of each side would be addressed. Choosing additional facilitators from two key countries also allowed Pretoria and Nairobi to host the negotiations, and thus bring to bear their leverage, which was critical for achieving outcomes at each stage. An enlarged facilitation architecture did not need to tread heavily; mediators wisely allowed the conflict parties to negotiate directly, and clearly more effectively. However, the minimalist approach reflected in the Pretoria text may have foreshadowed, or contributed to, subsequent implementation delays.

Innovation, practical collaboration, and leadership

Multilateral peacemaking no longer enjoys automatic deference. As the world faces ever more complex conflicts, increasingly assertive states and other entities are vying for mediation roles, often bringing self-interested leverage and influences to bear on the parties and shaping the trajectory of the conflict. How to counter fragmentation and competition with effective cooperation and coordination has become a critical collective obligation, requiring creativity.

The capacity to respond in novel ways to contemporary mediation challenges is an attribute of individual and institutional leadership. In Sudan, South Sudan and, belatedly in Ethiopia, multilateral institutions established joint oversight of peace processes, established panels, and harnessed leverage and support from different sources to overcome fragmentation and invigorate processes.

Beyond formal collaborations, key facilitators also brought to bear strategic vision and made critical creative interventions to initiate or bring focus to negotiations. In the Sudan post-referendum negotiations, Mbeki led an inductive process helping the parties to articulate a common vision and organising principle for the process: ‘two viable states at peace with each other’. This brought much-needed conceptual clarity to a complex and politically challenging process, which could easily have suffered from a piecemeal approach.

For the stalled South Sudan agreement, Mogae helped IGAD to frame the process as a ‘revitalisation’ rather than a re-negotiation; through a novel mix of formats and political realism, IGAD gradually coaxed a new deal out of the South Sudanese stakeholders, including ‘estranged groups’. In the Tigray process, the AU appointed additional facilitators, who enhanced the credibility of the process, and encouraged direct and incremental negotiations.

International and regional responses to Sudan in 2023 demonstrated the consequences of the failure of cohesion and effective collaboration among peacemakers. Although different facilitators brought some attention to a deepening crisis, their impacts remained negligible. But other contexts illustrated that where multiple mediation entities recognised the importance of collaboration, and explored novel ways to pool efforts, they registered successes. While innovation and creative adaptation are not panaceas, they are essential ingredients for harnessing the contribution of multiple mediation stakeholders in complex peace processes.