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).

A broad international consensus on the benefits of inclusion – evident, for example, in the twin resolutions on ‘sustaining peace’ adopted by the UN General Assembly and Security Council in April 2016 – belies considerable confusion as to who is to be included in what, and how. Mediators have long prioritised the inclusion of conflict parties necessary to stop the killing.

Since the Cold War, peace processes have focused on reaching accords among the main conflict parties. These operated partly as contracts between the parties, partly as road maps for social change, and partly as pre-constitutional agreements that would lay the foundation for turning an elite political-military bargain into a social contract.