Policy Mediation

What does policy mediation entail?

A policy mediator deals with power imbalances. Often, it’s also not entirely clear what the problem exactly is. There are many stakeholders without a clear delineation of responsibilities. Multiple policy domains are involved, including multiple levels of government authority. The issues at hand also influence each other. It is important to establish the governance frameworks beforehand.

A policy mediator conducts a conflict analysis. Based on this analysis, they initiate a collaborative process to map out the conflict. Once this is clear, conflicting parties brainstorm possible solutions. Then conflicting parties negotiate, make decisions, and reach agreements.

Reasons to choose policy mediation

Policy mediation makes sense when conflicting parties are interdependent for a solution: when they want to think proactively about the future, prevent further escalation, and have a genuine need to come to an agreement together.

The advantages of policy mediation are:

• The problem and its stakeholders are identified
• The governance frameworks are adhered to.
• Multiple competent bodies brainstorm about various solutions, taking into account different interests.
• Conflicting parties make their own decisions and agreements to partially or fully resolve the problem.