Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios

Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios is a yearbook that analyses peace processes and negotiations that took place in the world during a year. The examination of the development and dynamics of negotiations worldwide allows to provide a comprehensive overview of peace processes, identify trends and comparatively analyse the various scenarios. Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios also analyses the evolution of peace processes from a gender perspective. One of the main objectives of this report is to provide information and analysis to those who participate in peaceful conflict resolution at different levels, including parties to disputes, mediators, civil society activists and others.

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About Peace Talks in Focus:

As conflicts continued to intensify globally in 2024, the yearbook Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios remains a must-read for anyone engaged in peace and transition processes. The detailed case studies show the ongoing diversification of mediators, stalled processes in some of the world’s most violent conflicts, and retrenchment of progress in the implementation earlier settlements in others. However, the yearbook also highlights the non-linearity of peacemaking, and whilst 2024 was a challenging year in many processes, there are also stories of innovation, persistence, and hope. The contributions of civic, indigenous, and women’s rights activists to ongoing peace processes also feature in the yearbook, but sadly the featured case studies show how these important initiatives are often marginalised, which makes sobering reading for Women, Peace and Security advocates in this 25th anniversary year of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325.

Laura Wise
Senior Research Fellow, PeaceRep, University of Edinburgh

The Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios series is an invaluable resource for mediation practitioners and researchers alike. As a mediation professional with a responsibility for developing guidance and other materials on comparative practice in the field, these annual reports are a resource that I frequently return to in order to analyze trends in peacemaking at the global and regional level. In an increasingly diverse and pluralistic global mediation landscape, the annual Peace Talks in Focus reports also provides an easy to access overview of what actors are involved in which peace process.

Sean Kane
Team Leader of the Mediation Support Unit at the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA)

This yearbook, Peace Talks in Focus. Report on Trends and Scenarios, is a fundamental tool for providing a detailed overview of the current landscape of conflicts around the world and the paths to resolution that have been initiated. This yearbook, promoted by the School for a Culture of Peace and a university like the UAB, with a clearly interdisciplinary and pacifist focus, is a reference for understanding the scope of international reality and the evolution of peace negotiations and dialogues currently underway. It is clear that these conflicts, beyond the everyday violence experienced in all societies, are centered on the realm of war and, more than ever, are affecting most continents. Europe is not immune to a scenario that brings together major humanitarian crises and grim future prospects. Yet, initiatives and significant efforts can be found in any context to contribute to the achievement of peace. In the face of the exacerbation of conflict positions, peace must penetrate every gap that remains, and this yearbook offers us a magnificent opportunity to see its possibilities and the progress and setbacks around the world.

Javier Lafuente
Rector of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)