Most of us feel ill-equipped to broker peace agreements between warring parties, yet one mediator explains how powerful the skills she gleaned from her IMA New Mediator training were to her work in fostering peace in Zimbabwe. Patience Chiradza never expected to become a peacebuilder, but a high-level government position in her country presented opportunities she did not anticipate. The skills gained while mediating real-life experiences combined with the training she received from us ultimately transformed her into a highly respected international mediator. 

Although she only participated in formal mediation training in 2020 through Interaction Management Associates, Patience has been working with parties in conflict since 2009. Most cases involved political leaders and marginalized communities in her home country of Zimbabwe. Patience’s reflections about the importance of mediation reveal that it is a dynamic field, but due to the confidential nature of the profession, requires the mediator to be satisfied with receiving little recognition for their work once a resolution is reached. 

Patience’s Journey to Mediation

Before exploring the possibility of pursuing a career in mediation, Patience was working in the software industry. Sensing a need to transition out of the software industry, Patience stumbled across the mediation profession. Shortly after being introduced to the peacebuilding space, she was hired to join the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC). This committee, according to Michael Abbey, was established by “signatories, guarantors, and stakeholders of peace treaties and global political agreements.” The motivation to create this committee was to ensure that conflict would not resurface after the signing of resolutions between deeply divided political rivals. Patience explains that this platform for leaders in Zimbabwe is intended to “monitor the implementation of political agreements.” 

Peacebuilding in Zimbabwe

Patience found herself mediating conflicts with those in the general community and within her workplace. She held the title as the Head of the National Coordinator, also known as the Head of Secretariat. Working with her in the office were three political appointees and one person who handled communication. Her first tasks in this position included addressing complaints at the community level, between her staff, and the political leaders. Before Patience took over this new role with the JOMIC, the government had started a land reform project, which resulted in violent conflict between older and new farmers. Along with attending to these conflicts, she was also responsible for mediating lingering disputes from the previous violent election. Many of these residual disputes were caused by fighting over political affiliations which manifested in destruction and violence such as houses being burned. 

Additionally, since her staff consisted of three people who had an alliance with three different political parties, they were initially resistant to working in the same physical office. However, through workplace mediation, they are now close friends. Central to the work done with the JOMIC was the desire to train political leaders to productively manage conflict. Patience explains that this required teaching the leaders that “conflict is part of us but we need to find ways of resolving it for the benefit of the community.” She continued by stating that training the political leaders received focused on finding “ways to sit down and talk about differences and figure out a way of solving them.” These efforts were successful and contributed to a peaceful election in 2018. 

In 2016, Patience was appointed to a five-year term with the National Peace Consolidation Commission and worked on conflict prevention. Rather than working solely with existing conflicts, she set up systems to identify early warnings and responses to conflict. This involved building the local capacities for peacebuilding and the infrastructure needed to prevent conflict from evolving. Working to build the capacities of community members can prevent conflicts from escalating and drawing in more parties. Patience understands this to be a sustainable approach to peacebuilding because it empowers the community to address the conflict rather than waiting for an outsider to facilitate mediation. The impact of these efforts is attractive to Patience and has convinced her to dedicate the remainder of her career to equipping members of the community at the grassroots level with the skills needed to navigate their differences. As a mediator in a variety of different roles, Patience facilitated the peacebuilding process by aiding the parties involved in a conflict to close communication gaps and explore a path forward. 

Expansion of Mediation Capabilities 

To be effective in these various mediation and peacebuilding roles, Patience has completed a variety of training programs.

During her time with the JOMIC, she participated in a conflict transformation course through the ACTION Support Center in South Africa. This training equipped her with the theoretical background for the work that she was already doing.

She also completed Mediation and Negotiation training through the Clingendael Academy in the Hague, Swisspeace, and UNITI.

Most recently she completed the mediation training course through Interaction Management Associates.

These different training programs have been critical to gaining multiple perspectives about how to mediate complex conflicts. 

Realizing Peace

Patience is working toward creating “work where there is the elimination of violence.” This includes gender-based violence, violence against children, and political violence. By eliminating violence, Patience believes that more women will have the ability to participate in leadership positions. Many women avoid taking leadership positions because they have observed fellow women experience both emotional and physical violence. Patience is motivated to eliminate obstacles that exclude women from peacebuilding processes “so that they can fulfill their potential. Peacebuilding must be done at every level to destroy the barriers that prevent women from having the greatest possible impact.”

Applying the skills gained through the IMA New Mediator training, Patience hopes to focus her efforts on developing the peacebuilding capacities of women in surrounding communities. As a member of Femwise-Africa, she is committed to expanding the presence of women in peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Understanding the role of women in the community, Patience is aware that developing female capacities to mediate conflicts is “most effective because they are the primary caregivers and normally remain at home.”

Addressing conflict at the grassroots level has the potential transform entire societies. Patience discusses the reality that conflict has interrupted and prevented Zimbabwe from developing. A peaceful society will support the economic development efforts, which will result in legitimate benefits for the nation. 

Reflections 

With extensive training and experience, Patience has had the opportunity to reflect on different mediation strategies. One conclusion drawn from this background is her understanding of the power of voluntary mediation. In her role with JOMIC, the parties did not always attend voluntarily. For example, she explains that “oftentimes you will see there is an intervention from a body that appoints the mediator and says that the situation needs a mediator.” Since the mediation is imposed, it tends to “take a long time for parties to move from their position.” To help the parties “move from their position”, the mediator often suggests multiple solutions that the parties may want to agree to. In contrast,

Patience remarked that the voluntary mediation simulations included in IMA’s training are particularly effective because the mediator does not provide suggestions on how to address the conflict. The parties are much more inclined to adopt and implement the agreements. In effect, voluntary mediations are more likely to result in sustainable peace agreements than the agreements produced from nonvoluntary mediations.

Over the last decade, Patience's experience has taught her pivotal lessons in creating spaces for disputants to work through their differences and come to a satisfactory agreement. Most poignant is that mediation is “not a loud space.” Patience delved into the reality that when you are a peacebuilder, most of the work happens behind closed doors and is not publicly recognized. Once a resolution is reached, the mediator’s work is done. Underlying this is the understanding that mediators are expected to keep confidential matters discussed throughout the process. The public may not always fully recognize the value of the mediator’s work, and take the resulting peace for granted. Ultimately, Patience understands that “if you want to be an effective peacebuilder, you have to stay in the shadows.” Patience acknowledges that this lack of praise for mediators can be hard. However, her fulfillment comes in knowing that she contributed to creating a peaceful society. 

Complementing the need to sacrifice public affirmation to gain the trust of parties, is also the need to be continuously learning and analyzing the environment. The context of the environment in which the conflict is occurring, significantly informs the details and trajectory of the dispute. To remain in a position that is eager to learn more about the environment, Patience explains the benefits of assuming that you, as the mediator, are always missing some of the facts even when you think you know all the facts. Ultimately, “even as you engage in conflict resolution, you need to analyze the facts, issues and see how that is building in your process.”

Lastly, Patience emphasized the importance of outside stakeholders. To be an effective mediator, “always, always, always be mindful of the silent actors.” Silent actors are those that are not necessarily present in the mediation but have significant involvement in the conflict. However, it may not be obvious that they are influencing the conflict. Being aware that there may be invisible parties influencing the conflict or its outcome is essential to progress toward a solution. Patience also explained that this reality often results in agreements being made in an informal setting rather than the formal mediation setting. The formal mediation setting can pose a barrier to establishing a resolution because the parties may experience pressure to “say what they think the mediator wants to hear” instead of their true desires. Patience gleaned this insight from her time mediating disputes with political leaders through the JOMIC. 

Advice for Mediators 

For those who do not feel sufficiently equipped to be a mediator, Patience believes that you should get involved and “just go for it!” Start where you are and do not get paralyzed with where you want to be. Begin with formally or informally mediating cases with family, friends, and colleagues. These mediations are a great opportunity to practice and incredibly important. Conflicts within the home and workplace can escalate quickly and result in significant consequences. Every mediation helps you become a better mediator and helps you progress professionally. For example, Patience hopes “to one day lead high-level mediation processes at the UN.” She argues that “sometimes you do not start where you want.” To reach this goal, Patience has prioritized finding mentors so that she can learn from their body of knowledge and avoid mistakes that they endured. 

It is important to be in a constant state of learning new strategies and refining existing strategies through reading. Lastly, Patience explained that “sometimes you may feel like you don’t qualify, you might be surprised.” In other words, get involved, educated, and believe in yourself. Considering this advice, what steps, large or small, can you take to build peace in the world around you?