Dialogue Facilitation

Ethiopia has been facing persistent conflict, and maintaining peace and harmony has been a challenge. However, genuine efforts are made to address both old and recent root causes of conflict through dialogue at the local, regional, and national levels. Among these efforts, the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) at Addis Ababa University has teamed up with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and Inclusive Peace to create a dialogue facilitation manual.

And based on this manual, thanks to the financial support of USAID/Dexis, two Training for Trainers (ToTs) were conducted to train national dialogue facilitators from all over Ethiopia. These trainers who were selected through a series of exams went on to train community-based mediators who will facilitate and mediate conflicts in different social groups within their respective localities. The training for the local community was carried out in Dire Dawa, Asosa, Zway, Jigjiga, and Harar.

Below is a roster that contains the profile of the core Dialogue Facilitation trainers (experts from the Institute for Peace and Security Studies), thirty-nine national level dialogue facilitators, and one hundred community-based mediators. Although we acknowledge that there still may be challenges ahead, and we remain committed to addressing them through an ongoing dialogue and collaborative effort, we hope Ethiopia is on its way to finding sustainable peace and harmony with this team in place.