HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation (HSI) has been actively involved in a unique local peacebuilding and governance program in the Kayes region of Mali for over ten years now.

The program has set up consultation forums, where alternative conciliation methods are used to mediate between conflicting parties. Based on this model, the government has been organizing land commissions involving state-employed mediators advised by members of the program since 2010, with government and non-governmental actors coming together to settle conflicts with the help of traditional conciliation methods. For example, Kotéba – a traditional Malian form of participatory theater – has been used in mediation processes to demonstrate different perspectives on a conflict or to investigate possible alternative solutions.

HSI, one of four international partners involved in the consortium for the program, which is funded by the Swedish government agency Sida, has been responsible for the conflict sensitivity dimension of the program from the start. It has trained the consortium staff and local partner organizations in how to apply its three-step conflict-sensitive approach. This is something that HSI intends to step up even further in Mali.

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) has recently pledged financial support for HSI in Mali to carry out scientific research in relation to this work. This will focus particularly on what traditional conflict resolution mechanisms are applied in the land commissions and how, and what effect this can have on the conciliation process. The lessons learned from this research may also be relevant to the peace process at national level.