Report commissioned by Effective Peacebuilding Initiative

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Introduction

The peacemaking landscape is undergoing a significant reorientation. Non-western actors – from China and Qatar to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates – are playing a key role in this. This report examines not only their approach to making peace, but also how this is shaping the nature of peace itself.

While it is a very dynamic situation, it is clear that there is much variety in non-western approaches to peacemaking as well as considerable innovation. Ad hoc constellations of peacemaking actors are emerging, often involving regional actors who prioritize regional stability. There is a strong emphasis on peacemaking; that is interventions and incentives to stop fighting or facilitate humanitarian assistance. There is less emphasis on the expansive peace processes and peace accords of the 1990s and early 2000s and their emphasis on peacebuilding, rights, representation and identity. Non-western peacemaking is state-led, often involving a small circle of political elites. 

Perhaps the most striking point about contemporary non-western peacemaking is attitude: a willingness to intervene, use their access, and get things done. This optimism stands in contrast to many western peacemaking actors who seem to be suffering from a loss of confidence and are struggling to understand the emerging peacemaking landscape. The exception to this is the Trump presidency with its emphasis on dealmaking. A number of non-western peacemaking states have common cause with the Trump presidency and its interest in dealmaking without peacebuilding. 

Key Points:

Attitude

The difference in attitude between many western and non-western peace actors is stark. The can-do posture of many non-western peace actors stands in stark contrast to the pessimism of many western actors who are struggling to come to terms with the emerging peace landscape.

Ad hoc

This is an era of ad hoc constellations of peace actors coming together on specific conflicts. Highly structured platforms, such as those provided by the United Nations, seem to have less traction than flexible, temporary arrangements.  

Access

Mediation depends on access. Many non-western states have access to conflict actors whether as neighbors, on the grounds of cultural affinity, or because they take the initiative to negotiate access. In a number of cases, western state access to conflict actors is limited.

Adaptability

The dynamic peacemaking environment requires adaptability and pragmatism. It is clear that some actors, principally non-western actors, are more flexible than others.  

Similarity and continuity

While it might be tempting to see non-western peacemaking as radically different from western peacemaking, especially that of the 1990s and early 2000s, there are very significant similarities in terms of the mobilization of power, inconsistency, and transparency.  

Coming to terms with a changing context

The peacemaking landscape has undergone very significant change.¹ The comprehensive peace processes and peace accords of the 1990s and early 2000s seem a thing of the past. The United Nations has been sidelined as a peacemaking organization, and government and INGO budgets for peace-related activities are facing significant cuts. Where peace deals are being made, they tend to be stripped down and focused on humanitarian and security issues rather than a wider range of issues focusing on rights, representation and identity.

Despite the very real changes in the peacemaking context,² many organizations still regard the peace processes of the 1990s and early 2000s as a benchmark. As one interviewee noted, ‘We compare it [peacemaking] to the past and the 1990s every single time. We need to talk about the future of mediation, not the past. It says a lot about our western-dominated language and mindset and therefore it is hard to move forward.’ An entire mediation and peacebuilding sector has developed, comprised of specialist organizations, a vernacular, funding models and modes of operation. This sector is now in a whiplash moment. 

For many western actors, a profound cognitive shift is required; the peacemaking context has changed and is unlikely to revert to its former status and ways of operation. A nostalgia for more comprehensive peace accords is understandable. The challenge facing many peace actors, however, is how to navigate through the emerging landscape and advocate for initiatives that will make a genuine difference in saving and improving lives. 

An obvious, but vital, point is that many non-western peace actors are quite unlike western states. Many are not democracies, they prioritize stability over representation, they have limited media freedom, and their version of statehood (whether an Emirate or, as in the case of China, a state perpetually dominated by a single political party) is very different from western norms. As one interviewee observed, ‘They have a different view of sovereignty. They have a different worldview. They think differently. They have assets in other countries but do not see it as in other countries.’ This has major implications for how peace is made and the nature of any peace that follows negotiations. It means that many observers and policymakers need to move beyond a ‘business as usual’ approach and come to terms with the fact that they are not dealing with mirror images of themselves.

Themes/Modes of Peacemaking

Power and Politics

Peacemaking and mediation require technical skill and frequently involves appeals to humanity. However, power and politics are rarely far away. The comprehensive peace processes and peace accords of the 1990s and early 2000s masked power to a certain extent. Power, of course, was always there. The use of power, whether coercive or as part of incentivization, seems more blatant in the contemporary era. 

There was a sense among some interviewees that honesty on the use of power was to be welcomed. In relation to the world’s deadliest conflict, the civil war in Sudan, one interviewee reflected that power rather than reason would end the war: ‘This is a language these actors understand’. Another noted, ‘Now it is national interests first’.

In some cases, military power is an advantage. This is more in terms of technical skill than coercive power. Turkey, for example, has a large and advanced military and so was able to monitor the Black Sea Grain deal. A combination of Turkish military involvement, followed by mediation, was also evidenced in dealing with tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia, and in Libya. 

Learning

A recurring theme in interviews was a lack of learning and institutional memory within and between organisations. The last three decades have seen an enormous expansion of peacemaking and peacebuilding activity, with the growth of specialist institutions, mechanisms, language and personnel. While there has been no shortage of publications – from training manuals to philosophical interrogation of key principles – there is a sense that there has been limited deep learning. 

One interviewee, for example, noted that IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) kept few records of its own activities meaning that personnel were ill-equipped to learn what initiatives had worked in the past. Another interviewee noted that some mediators and envoys were appointed ‘because they had once been a foreign minister’ but had not taken the time to acquaint themselves with the context or the principles of mediation.  

Funding cuts to the US State Department and the closure of USAID were also mentioned in terms of a major loss of institutional memory. One interviewee noted how several heads of department in the US State Department had been made redundant and not replaced. It meant that the US lacked senior regional knowledge in some cases in which it was cooperating with non-western peacemakers. 

The production of written material does not equate to learning, let alone guarantee a positive impact on violent conflict. There has never been as much data available on peace and conflict, yet violent conflict is experiencing an uptick. The belief that we can ‘data our way out of conflict’ is pervasive in the academy, yet it is not always clear that the increasingly sophisticated formats of data that are available give peacemakers much leverage. 

Some non-western peacemaking states have engaged in deliberate lesson learning and their self-confidence has increased with time. Turkey and Qatar, for example, have established dedicated mediation units within their foreign ministries. This investment in people is not evenly shared across states, with some mediating states facing capacity issues. It is also notable that some organisations, especially on the African continent, engage in training after training and develop protocol after protocol but are rarely called upon to put those trainings or protocols into action.  

Fundamentally, there was a strong sense from the interviews that the lessons of the cost-effectiveness of conflict prevention from the last three decades had not been learned. 

Coordination

There is much evidence of non-western peacemakers acting alone, as a single point of mediation that does not work through international or regional organizations. This desire to work alone is often linked to obvious confidentiality and a limited circle of trust among parties. Regional competition and a desire to claim credit may also play a role.

Yet there is also significant cooperation. Qatar, Norway, Switzerland and Spain collaborated to bring about a December 2025 commitment to peace between the Government of Colombia and the EGC armed group. The United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt comprise ‘the Quad’ or a group of states involved in attempts to end the civil war in Sudan. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been involved in talks to ease tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. 

This pattern of ad hoc constellations of peacemaking actors is likely to continue. They largely operate outside of the mechanisms provided by international and regional organisations. The constellations may have few permanent features, and indeed often there is no negotiating table. Membership of these constellations is often self-selecting and based on regional interests. By working outside of existing organizations, these constellations may have a flexibility although this model also encourages ‘mediator shopping’ or conflict actors searching for actors they believe to be sympathetic to their cause. This can complicate mediation and elongate conflict.

Economics and development

While attention to rights and representation is declining in relation to peacemaking, attention to development remains strong. A number of recent peace deals have been explicitly tied to development. One senior adviser to a non-western government noted importance of ‘economic instruments’ in mediation and how economic development was ‘a way of structuring mediation around common interests of the parties’. In some cases, peacemaking has been aided by direct economic assistance although there is more emphasis on business facilitation.

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative has inspired an ambitious ‘Development Road’ project by Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.³ The idea that stronger economic ties will strengthen stability is well-rooted among many of the non-western peacemakers and is something echoed by the Trump Presidency’s approach to peacemaking in which mineral deals and free economic zones feature. 

It is not entirely clear that developmental peace, whether promoted by China or others, has worked. Often the benefits have been unevenly shared, with political elites enriching themselves and the bulk of the population left out. 

A number of non-western peacemaking states are major overseas development assistance donors,⁴ often routing aid directly and bilaterally rather than through international organizations. Importantly, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia explicitly mention ‘peace’ as one of their aims for development assistance.⁵ Thus it is worth looking beyond the narrow lens of mediation and instead seeing some non-western peacemaking as part of wider strategies of international engagement.

Economic interests explain much non-western peacemaking. Businesses in the United Arab Emirates, for example, have substantial agricultural and infrastructure interests in east Africa – partly explaining an interest in the Sudanese civil war. Similarly, Turkish businesses have an interest in Somalia, Syria and elsewhere. The Abraham Accords, aimed at normalising relations between Israel and a number of Arab states, had little content beyond seeking to ease economic transactions.  

A recurring theme in interviews was the frustrations of Generation Z and how political systems were not delivering for them. Many conflict-affected contexts have young populations and a very uneven distribution of resources. Peace accords and ensuing political arrangements that do not deliver employment and services are at risk. Efforts to reach peace in Libya, for example, did not have an economic track and so failed to develop beyond a ceasefire.

As one interviewee noted, ‘dialogue on its own is not enough’. He went on to identify corruption as ‘the biggest spoiler’ to peace and development. 

Transparency

Interview respondents mentioned a lack of transparency in much non-western peacemaking and mediation. Yet confidentiality and outright secrecy have long been deemed essential features of mediation.⁶ This is not a feature specific to non-western peacemaking. By its nature, mediation is sensitive. Leaders in governments and militant organisations who wish to investigate conflict de-escalation may be out-of-step with colleagues and so may have to tread carefully until they conduct consultations or can report good news. 

It is worth noting, however, that many non-western mediating states have political and media cultures that are restrictive. The media may be controlled, or monitored, by the state and so only a very parsed version of events may be released. The United Arab Emirates, for example, says virtually nothing about its work in brokering prisoner releases between Russia and Ukraine. In part this is understandable given the delicate nature of negotiations leading up to these exchanges, but it also fits with the Emirates’ wider media culture of saying little on most issues related to government. 

One exception to the minimal reportage of mediation is Qatar, with the state justly proud of its long-standing mediation efforts. While it does not produce a running commentary on its mediation, and only releases post-facto information, the state has a mediation museum in the Sheraton Hotel in Doha – the site of many mediation talks – and finances an annual mediation forum in which it seeks to showcase its efforts.⁷  

The multiplicity of mediating actors, together with a competitive dynamic among some, meant that some interviewees noted that some mediation is subject to leaks and mediation being played out in the media. 

Inclusivity

Inclusivity was increasingly a watch word of peace processes of the 1990s and early 2000s. The logic was that a broadly based peace process was more likely to survive than a narrowly based one. If potential veto-holders were included in a negotiation process then they would have fewer incentives to collapse a peace process. There was also evidence that involving women in peacemaking made the peace more sustainable.⁸ 

To a large extent, peacemaking has always been the preserve of elites. Ultimately it has been political and military leaders who have had to make decisions on whether to investigate negotiated outcomes with their opponents. This trend is continuing and there are few examples of non-western peacemaking involving non-core actors. This has profound implications for the politics that is to follow any peace agreement.   

While western governments and some international organizations have placed emphasis on the Women Peace and Security and the Youth Peace and Security agendas, these have not featured heavily in non-western peacemaking actions or funding. The funding evidence suggests that these agendas are overwhelmingly pushed by western states.⁹ 

It is also worth pointing out that inclusive processes do not guarantee inclusive outcomes. There has been considerable democratic backsliding in contexts that have reached peace accords over the past three decades.¹⁰ 

Peacemaking versus Peacebuilding

The peace processes and accords of the 1990s and early 2000s were often reinforced by referendums, a reset of the polity through elections and a wider range of reforms and peacebuilding measures designed to bolster public support for a peace accord. Non-western peacemaking places much less emphasis on peacebuilding.

Some interviewees recognised that earlier peacemaking initiatives, and particularly the United Nations, were overloaded. Peace processes became unwieldly and contained impossible goals. One interviewee noted, ‘The UN was trying to do too much, it was overloading processes … always with a totally unrealistic timeframe.’ At the same time, a number of interviewees pointed to the minimalist version of peacemaking that is often on offer now. 

Rather than comprehensive peace accords, there are often frameworks, statements and rather thin ‘deals’ that staunch the conflict but do not offer a clear pathway to more substantive outcomes. In many cases that is all that can be achieved in the absence of well-funded actors willing to offer long-term peace support and with leverage to guarantee security. Although minimalist, this peacemaking can make a real difference on the ground if it allows communities and institutions a respite and the possibility to recover. It is a case of two cheers for negative peace. 

In Syria, Sudan and elsewhere there have been numerous local-level deals allowing humanitarian corridors, temporary ceasefires and prisoner exchanges. In many cases, this is all that is possible. As a senior figure in a non-western government told the 2025 Doha Forum, ‘We’re firefighting. Finding a way to help the aggressor to kill less people, and finding a way to get the issue off our desks for a few months.’ This is a long way from a comprehensive peace agreement, but such interventions do make a real difference. The challenge for peacemakers is to normalize building humanitarian standards into war in a context in which international humanitarian law is under threat. 

Neutrality

In theory, neutrality has a role to play in mediation. In reality, peacemaking and mediation are highly political processes and neighbors (thus interested parties) are often involved. This has always been the case and so the emerging peacemaking landscape is not changed in this regard.

Regional dynamics mean that it is often difficult to stay uninvolved and to remain neutral. One Turkish interviewee described the ‘tough neighborhood’ they operated in, while another interviewee noted that it would be remiss of Kenya not to pay attention to the dangers of conflicts to its north spilling over.

What does seem vital is that neutral spaces remain open in times of conflict. This is especially the case for organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent that are active in multiple conflict zones and work on prisoner exchanges, prisoner visits, and family reunification.¹¹ 

Transactionalism

Contemporary peacemaking has been criticised as being ‘transactional’ in which actors engage in short-term and self-interested trades to reach a peace deal.¹² There is also a moralizing tone on commentary on transactional peacemaking, regarding it as somehow unseemly. Any trend towards transactional peacemaking is not particularly novel. Peacemaking has always involved dealmaking and tough trade-offs. Moreover, even where there are deals, parties are usually acting in a strategic manner and have an eye on long-term consequences. 

The transactional nature of peacemaking may be more apparent because economic issues are more prominent and incorporated into core peacemaking business. As issues of rights, representation and minority protection take a back seat, the transactional nature of peacemaking becomes clearer. Yet a transactional lens only goes so far. Much peacemaking relies on notions of humanity, dignity, and cultural affinity that go far beyond dealmaking. 

Funding

The funding environment for peace activity is changing. The United States has drastically cut much peace and development-related funding. For example, it has stopped paying its dues for the United Nations mission in South Sudan. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and many European countries have similarly cut their peace and development budgets.¹³ This has an especially severe impact on INGOS and in-country NGOs who have service delivery mandates in relation to peacebuilding.   

Some interviewees saw the changing budgetary landscape as an opportunity to enact localization strategies and move operations to regional hubs. Kenya, for example, wants Nairobi to become a mediation hub and host to United Nations agencies. Others saw it as a chance to re-evaluate and operationalize all of the resilience

 plans and training that have been rolled out over the past decade. As one interviewee noted, ‘When USAID pulled out, society still continued to move on – they had their own resilience.’ Most interviewees thought it was too soon to get a picture of the financial re-ordering of the sector.¹⁴

There is a definite sense than many western organizations are looking to Qatar to fund their mediation activities. Although if these organizations do not have access to conflict parties it is worth asking questions about their added value.

Much elite-level mediation is conducted at head of state level, or through diplomatic channels, and so has been relatively immune to budgetary pressures. Turkey, Kenya and Qatar are among the states with specialist mediation units within their foreign ministries. Indeed, Turkey has the third largest diplomatic network on the planet 

International and Regional Organizations

A notable feature of the interviews was the relative lack of reference to the United Nations, nominally the world’s principal body charged with securing international peace. Many interviewees expressed a wistfulness that the United Nations was not more active in peacemaking and pointed to its funding crisis and the readiness of many states, including Permanent Five members, to bypass it. Others were less sympathetic, pointing to a weak Secretary General and a lack of leadership. According to one interviewee morale within the UN was low, ‘Failure has generated a disinclination to engage. There is fear and ineffectiveness. You will get burned so stay away.’

Certainly many United Nations missions were extremely ambitious and struggled to deliver on ever expanding mandates. Mandates stretched into development, reconciliation and social cohesion, all tasks that take time and resources. As one interviewee noted, ‘The UN took on too much with integrated missions and they did not deliver.’ Expanding missions raised expectations that were rarely met. Another pithily noted that many conflict parties welcomed ‘No more UN blah, blah’, or the conditionalities and peacebuilding and development add-ons that United Nations involvement entailed.

It is notable that the United Nations has not been involved in attempts to end conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel and Hamas and many other conflicts. Its last major attempt to mediate a conflict, in Libya, failed. Non-western peacemakers tend to bypass the United Nations. This is an era in which peacemaking without the United Nations has become normalized, a trend with profound implications for the organization and the idea of multilateralism.

It is important, however, not to write off the United Nations, despite the contraction experienced by its sprawling integrated missions. Its reporting mechanisms, especially from its peacekeeping missions, are unmatched. Moreover, its civilian protection activities provide a thin blue line between minority populations and armed groups, militias, and predatory governments. At the diplomatic level, it provides a behind-the-scenes permanent platform for the exchange of ideas. 

The African Union, and regional organizations like IGAD (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development) and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), have made impressive strides in establishing mediation platforms and peacemaking protocols, but they are prisoners to regional politics. They can only operate if they are called upon and the call rarely comes. As one interviewee observed, ‘IGAD is a vessel. It is available. But until someone invokes it, it is absent.’ 

Moreover, the African regional organizations operate in a worsening funding environment and so the opportunity for them to undertake large-scale operations seems limited. One observer noted of the African Union, ‘They do not have money, same with IGAD. As there is no money, there is no team behind them.’

The European Union is perhaps the most advanced regional organization and has sophisticated conflict and crisis response mechanisms. The organization has largely been captured by the Ukraine-Russia war with the result that it has limited bandwidth for other conflicts. It does have a sophisticated, if slow moving, crisis response mechanism. The fact that a 27 member state organization can reach any decisions at all is remarkable. EU pre-occupations leave spaces for non-western actors to take the initiative. 

Consistency

There are variable degrees of consistency among non-western peace actors. China has largely been consistent in a strategy of emphasizing non-interference in the sovereign affairs of other states while intervening economically. Qatar has been consistent in offering its services as a mediator and keeping open lines of communication, even when this proves controversial as in the case of Hamas and the Taliban. 

Other states are engaged in genuine humanitarian and mediation work in some conflict spheres while, at the same time, engaging supporting belligerent actions elsewhere. The United Arab Emirates, for example, has been facilitating high number prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine. These exchanges often run into many hundreds of prisoners and make a genuine humanitarian difference.¹⁵ At the same time, the UAE is actively supporting, with armaments and troops in advisory and training roles, one side in the Sudanese civil war.¹⁶ 

Yet the lack of consistency is also reminiscent of western peacemaking actors in the 1990s and early 2000s. A number of states were simultaneously peacemakers and warmakers. Western involvement in Afghanistan, for example, saw many programmes associated with development and peacebuilding run parallel with a counterinsurgency campaign. The notion and practice of war and peace being blurred is not new.

Similarities and Continuities

There is a sense, among some commentators, to exoticize non-western peacemaking or to dismiss it as ‘petro-dollar diplomacy’. Yet many elements of the non-western approaches to peacemaking (to the extent that these approaches can be easily summarized) are similar to the western approaches that have been prominent over the last several decades. Both states of peacemaking have always been elite-led. The elite-led nature of much western peacemaking has been leavened by peacebuilding programs but this did not detract from the fact that the peace agreement was often forged behind closed doors in a diplomatic capital.

A second, and related, continuity is in the lack of transparency in peacemaking. Western and non-western peacemaking depends on trust and therefore the need for confidentiality is universal. A third continuity is found in the transactional nature of peacemaking. This transactionalism is more visible with a recent emphasis on mineral extraction and access to markets. Yet, peacemaking of the 1990s and early 2000s was full of transactionalism whether through ‘buying off’ militants through Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration programs, extremely intrusive World Bank restructuring programs, and even the non-material transactionalism of western states building kudos for their mediation roles. Just as Qatar is justly proud of its mediation record, it should not be forgotten that Norway invested considerable energy into advertising its mediation in relation to the Sri Lankan state and the Tamil Tigers.

A fourth continuity stems from a lack of consistency among a number of both western and non-western states in relation to peacemaking. Some have been able to simultaneously maintain both war-like and peace-promoting stances. Indeed, some states have combined their ability to threaten with their ability to mediate. 

A final point to make is that while western states and western-led institutions were the main promoters of peacebuilding, it is noticeable how easily much of the peacebuilding funding and infrastructure has been swept away in the recent past. Certainly many within western foreign policy establishments had long-regarded peacebuilding as an awkward addendum to peacemaking. It was difficult to measure, could demonstrate few tangible results and its long-term nature meant it always asked for more money. 

It is worth asking if peacebuilding ever took root. The leading peacebuilding scholar-practitioner, John Paul Lederach has referred to peacebuilding’s ‘fifty year arc’,¹⁷ noting the similarities between 1975 and 2025. 1975 saw a rise of authoritarianism, major conflicts, shuttle diplomacy, and peacebuilding – in its modern sense – very much in its infancy with little funding or infrastructure. Fast forward fifty years and there are striking similarities. What is different is that a peacebuilding infrastructure has been developed but it faces serious retraction in the face of a funding crisis that many western governments find easy to ignore. The key point is that it can be argued that there has always been a western ambivalence to peacebuilding, thus making western approaches to peace not unlike many non-western approaches.   

Prospects

Amidst the obvious pessimism about rising levels of violent conflict, it is important to recognize and celebrate where peace is being made. Ceasefires, humanitarian access and prisoner exchanges are all potentially transformative at the level of individuals and families, but also at the wider level. This might be limited peace, but it is a version of peace nonetheless. At the same time, it is always important to ask if peace can be expanded.

Western peacemakers and observers face a threefold task. The first is to stay fixed on core values of peace and peacemaking. There is still a role for 

ambition and advocacy for the extension of rights, gender, representation and key public goods. This task of advocacy may require a change of language and tack to achieve key goals of civilian protection and minority safeguards. The second task is to identify points of commonality with non-western peacemakers – and there are many. There are signs of collaboration between some Gulf monarchies and western states and INGOs in peacemaking, and there may be future opportunities to extend this towards peacebuilding and development. Collaboration in many cases, however, is likely to be task-orientated. The pattern of constellations of peacemakers, many with a national interest not far from the surface, is likely to persist.  A third task is to keep open lines of communication.

A key lesson from peacemaking over the past three decades is the importance of long-term networks that enable communication between conflicting parties. These networks or venues for dialogue may be informal and deniable. They may be silent for extended periods but prove useful when opportunities for conflict prevention, peace talks or prisoner exchanges arise. With the sidelining of established, formal international organizations as mediating bodies, it is important that actors invest in these platforms.

This is an era for adaptive strategy, and a flexibility based on an understanding of a complex and dynamic peace landscape. For many actors in the peacemaking and peacebuilding worlds it is a time for a weak smile and a hard swallow. This is especially the case for western actors. Long-cherished notions and practices are being jettisoned, ignored and defunded. 

Just as the prominence of peacemaking actors is changing, so too is the nature of peace. As peace is a political and social concept, this should not be surprising. Concepts that have been predominantly forged in western settings, such as human rights and formal justice procedures, are not major features of many non-western peacemaking processes and outcomes. It is worth noting that these concepts have always had a contested place in peacemaking. 

Non-western peacemakers are shaping peace in their own image. Often there is an emphasis on security and stability. For populations coming out of sustained periods of violence, security is often the number one priority. A number of non-western peace actors also promote the notion of dignity, or affording people in war-affected contexts a respect to get on with their lives in the way they want to live it.¹⁸ While the concept is woolly, it often has traction at the community level.

Past (western) notions of peace have been associated with philosophical traditions and complex theories of justification. Often the theories were much more sophisticated than the actual peace. It is probable that we find ourselves in a similar situation today with somewhat futile attempts to find an ‘inner meaning’ to non-western peacemaking. We can scaffold non-western peacemaking with a variety of theories and cultural origins. But the evidence of what is being done points to much more pedestrian explanations: an interest in stability, national interest and humanitarian motivations. 

China is under-represented in many analyses of non-western peacemaking.¹⁹ In part this is because much of its activities are more easily bracketed as development programming and in part because its hyper-bland foreign policy language  (non-interference, stability, harmony, prosperity) does not always neatly fit into discussions of peace and conflict.

What Works?

Despite evidence that the world is experiencing more violent conflicts, that they tend to be more deadly, and that they tend to be long-lasting, significant levels of peacemaking are underway. As explained above, while much of this peacemaking is humanitarian in nature and tends not to include an expansive list of people-oriented programs associated with peacebuilding, this peacemaking is saving and improving lives. Ceasefires are reached, humanitarian corridors are put in place, prisoners and hostages are released and belligerents agree to stop fighting. By November 2025, over 1700 Ukrainian children had been repatriated from Russia – processes that are utterly transformative at the individual and family level.²⁰ All of this must be regarded as a victory for peace and peacemaking. 

The key elements of peacemaking remain unchanged. Lines of communication remain vital and some non-western peacemakers have been able to leverage their access and cultural affinity to forge and maintain contacts with warring parties. Courage and pragmatism are also required. Turkey, for example, took risks in opening up links with Somalia, links that have proven useful in subsequent regional peacemaking. Qatar has endured much criticism for hosting Hamas and Taliban negotiators, yet such lines of communication have proven useful. 

Indeed, the examples of Turkey, Qatar, China and number of other non-western states point to the importance of persistence and patience. While much contemporary peacemaking shows an interest in quick deals, some actors have a different sense of temporality that is based on the longer term and waiting for parties to acquiesce to mediation. 

While some states can be criticized for having a status-seeking motive behind their peacemaking and mediation efforts, if their actions save and improve lives then such criticisms need to be placed in perspective. 

Humanitarian motives and actions as part of peacemaking must not be under-estimated. In Sudan alone, it is estimated that about 12 million people have been displaced by war. While humanitarian actions on their own can be criticized as a band-aid approach that does not entail a long-term solution, sometimes humanitarian outcomes are all that are possible. They require diplomacy, courage, access and heft and, in some case, it is non-western actors who are able to provide those skills. 

Concluding Points

It is worth revisiting an opening point: western and non-western peacemaking and peacemakers do not constitute homogenous units and so any analysis must be cautious about over-generalization. This is a period in which all peacemaking actors, however, labelled, are coming to terms with new-found powers and limitations. 

It is important to emphasize that considerable peacemaking is underway by multiple actors using multiple channels. While it is possible to be nostalgic about earlier, more centralized and formal, systems, these systems had considerable dysfunction. The emerging system is dynamic, uneven, and – like the system it is part replacing and part augmenting – is a site of competition and collaboration. The challenge for all peacemaking actors is to embrace it. 

Note

This report was compiled with the support of the Effective Peacebuilding Initiative. It is based on a series of interviews conducted in late 2025 with diplomats, practitioners and scholars. It also draws on a series of interviews, again supported by the Effective Peacebuilding Initiative, in 2024 and resulting in a series of reports available here: https://effectivepeace.org/policy-briefs/

How to cite

Roger Mac Ginty (2026) ‘Non-western peacemaking: Challenges and opportunities’, An Effective Peacebuilding Initiative report, January.

Footnotes

1. For more on peace fragmentation, see PeaceRep (2025) ’Key findings on peace fragmentation’, https://peacerep.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/PeaceRep-Peace-Fragmentation-key-findings-A4-DIGITAL.pdf and Mac Ginty, R. (2025). The liberal peace is over and it is not coming back: hybridity and the emerging international peace system. Third World Quarterly, 46(16), 1999–2018. https://doi-org.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/10.1080/01436597.2025.2559376; Björkdahl, A., Bliesemann de Guevara, B., Cheng, C., Lee, S., Millar, G., & Paffenholz, T. (2025). Peacebuilding round table. Peacebuilding, 1–11. https://doi-org.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/10.1080/21647259.2025.2597728
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2. A very frank account of the peacemaking landscape is available in Matt Waldman (2024) Peacemaking in Trouble: Expert perspectives on flaws, deficiencies and potential in the field of international mediation. Harvard Kennedy School/Belfer Center. https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/2024-10/peacemaking-in-trouble-waldman.pdf
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3. World Bank Group (2025) ‘Iraq: New US$930 Million Project to Extend and Modernize Railways, Promote Regional Connectivity and Boost Growth’, June 25, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2025/06/25/iraq-new-us-930-million-project-to-extend-and-modernize-railways-promote-regional-connectivity-and-boost-growth.[↩]
4. For 2023 figures, see https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/foreign-aid-given-net?focus=~Non-DAC+countries.[↩]
5. See https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/the-ministry/the-foreign-policy/development-assistance; https://www.qatarfund.org.qa/about-us/; https://www.sfd.gov.sa/en.[↩]
6. Wanis-St. John, A. (2011) Back channel negotiation : secrecy in the Middle East peace process. 1st ed. Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press.[↩]
7. See https://cultura.acciona.com/en/projects/pathway-to-peace-en. The program for the second Qatar Mediation Forum can be found here https://chs-doha.org/en/Events/QatarMediationForum/SecondRound/Pages/AgendaPage.aspx.[↩]
8. Krause, J., Krause, W. and Bränfors, P. (2018) ‘Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and the Durability of Peace’, International interactions, 44(6), pp. 985–1016. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2018.1492386 and Paffenholz, T. (2014) ‘Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Beyond the Inclusion-Exclusion Dichotomy’, Negotiation journal, 30(1), pp. 69–91. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/nejo.12046. See also, Anderson, M.J., Urlacher, B.R. and Swiss, L. (2025) ‘Institutionalized but Under Implemented: Factors Affecting Women’s Inclusion in Peace Negotiations Between 1975 and 2020’, The Journal of conflict resolution [Preprint]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027251355747.[↩]
9. PRIO (2025) ‘New report raises alarm for lack of progress globally for women’s rights and wellbeing’, https://www.prio.org/news/3647.[↩]
10. On democratic backsliding see Kyle L. Marquardt, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen, and Yunus Orhan (2025) ‘Global Trends and Expert Perceptions: Pessimism and the Assessment of Democratic Backsliding’, V-Dem Institute Working Paper 154. See also https://democracylighthouse.com/.[↩]
11.  ICRC (2025) ‘Access beyond front lines: How neutrality in conflict helps us reach those who need us most’, ICRC, April 16, https://www.icrc.org/en/article/icrc-neutral-intermediary-action.[↩]
12. For more on transactional approaches, see Hellmüller, S. and Salaymeh, B. (2025) ‘Transactional peacemaking: Warmakers as peacemakers in the political marketplace of peace processes’, Contemporary security policy, 46(2), pp. 312–342. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2024.2448908.[↩]
13. OECD (2025) ‘Cuts in official development assistance: OECD projects for 2025 and the near term’, June 26, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2025/06/cuts-in-official-development-assistance_e161f0c5/full-report.html.[↩]
14. Hamann, S. 2025. “Foreign Aid at a Crossroads: How Funding Cuts Reshape Global Development Cooperation.” Global Policy 1–12. https://doi-org.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/10.1111/1758-5899.70116.[↩]
15. See, for example, Reuters (2025). ‘Russia and Ukraine stage new prisoner exchange after UAE mediation’, August 24, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/russia-ukraine-stage-new-prisoner-exchange-after-uae-mediation-2025-08-24/.[↩]
16. Amnesty International (2025) ‘Sudan: Advanced Chinese weaponry provided by UAE identified in breach of arms embargo – new investigation’, May 8, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/05/sudan-advanced-chinese-weaponry-provided-by-uae-identified-in-breach-of-arms-embargo-new-investigation/. The UAE denies this, United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2025) ‘UAE Concludes Investigations into Military Equipment Smuggling to Port Sudan Authority and Refers the Accused to Trial’ , November 14, https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/mediahub/news/2025/11/14/14-11-2025-uae-uae.[↩]
17. Lederach. John Paul (2025) ‘The fifty-year arc: A practitioner’s adventures with peace processes’, The Kroc Cast: Peace Studies Conversations. The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. https://think.nd.edu/the-fifty-year-arc-a-practitioners-adventures-with-peace-processes/.[↩]
18. For more on dignity, see Hicks, D. and Tutu, D. (2021) Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict. 1st edn. New Haven: Yale University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1v08zgd, and Donna Hicks (2025) ‘The Path to Peace is Paved with Dignity’, Harvard review of Latin America, March 13, https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/the-path-to-peace-is-paved-with-dignity/.[↩]
19. A good primer is Abb, Pascal and Xinyu Yuan (2025) Chinese Conceptions of Peace Historical foundations and implications for contemporary conflict agency, FriEnt, the Working Group on Peace and Development,  https://frient.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/FriEnt_Study_Chinese-Conceptions-of-Peace_20251112.pdf.[↩]
20. Vincent, Faustine (2025) ‘“It’s like they’re coming out of a cult”: Ukraine tackles Russian indoctrination of repatriated children’, Le Monde, November 6. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/06/it-s-like-they-re-coming-out-of-a-cult-ukraine-tackles-russian-indoctrination-of-repatriated-children_6747195_4.html.[↩]