Conflicts are increasing worldwide and solutions are missing. Many wars are forgotten as soon as a new one emerges. The diverse MOOT conference in Berlin examines how peace can succeed.
A conference entitled “Reshaping Peace” starts today in Berlin – translated: reshaping peace. The goal: Experts from all over the world will spend two days developing new solutions for peace processes.
They want to look beyond traditional peace and conflict politics, with representatives from private business, climate policy or even neuroscience.
Andrew Gilmour, director of the Berghof Foundation, which organized the “Berlin Moot” conference, sees it as a complement to the Munich Security Conference: “Our tune is a little louder in the area of peace, the Munich one in the area of security.”
Peace processes on the test bench
The organizers describe their motivation for the conference. There has never been a time since the Second World War in which so many conflicts have existed at the same time. The idea came about two years ago.
“It’s very clear that the traditional ways of restoring peace no longer really work,” says Gilmour. Our assumptions about how peace processes work need to be tested. We’re looking for improvements.”
The director of the Berghof Foundation, Andrew Gilmour, sees the tune of the MOOT conference “louderly in the area of peace.”
Berghof Foundation mediates in conflicts
The Berghof Foundation was founded in 1971 and is an independent non-governmental organization financed by public funding. The Foreign Office is a major donor. But other European countries also support the work, such as Norway and Finland. Individual projects are always funded, not the foundation as a whole.
The organization has made a name for itself as a mediator between conflicting parties. In 2023, the Berghof Foundation was active in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Somalia, among others – all conflicts that have now been pushed into the background in view of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Andrew Gilmour experiences this again and again when he speaks to parliamentarians about why the foundation’s work is important. “I was always willing to talk about fifteen other conflicts, but people wanted to talk to me about Ukraine because that was the main conflict. Today it would probably be Gaza.”
Forgotten conflicts in view
Discussions with MPs or donors in other countries are crucial when it comes to approving new money. According to Gilmour, one of his main lines of argument has always been: “We are helping you with our work, because countries outside Europe are getting the impression that you are turning away from forgotten conflicts.”
But that’s not good, he continues to argue. You can see this in the fact that the Europeans have lost a large part of the world on the Ukraine issue. “For me it is incredibly sad that there is such a divide between NATO members and many other regions in the world, both when it comes to Ukraine and Gaza.”
German politics benefits
Precisely because the Berghof Foundation, as a German organization, shows that it is still interested in Ethiopia, Somalia or Afghanistan, this is also good for German politics. “I think politicians accept that argument,” says Gilmour.
Financing peace work is always an enormous challenge – especially in times like these, when strict austerity budgets force all ministries to rethink their spending. “Governments in the European Union often fund projects like ours from year to year,” said Gilmour.
But peace and reconciliation that are sustainable would take 20, 30, 40 years, the Berghof director knows. “We are fully aware that it takes a lot of time to change people’s consciousness so that long-lasting peace is possible.”
Experts from various disciplines are looking for new approaches to peace solutions at the MOOT conference.
War costs more than peace
Gilmour is familiar with the accusations on the Internet, among others, where critics consider investments in peace projects to be a waste of money. He counters that the sums spent on peace efforts are incredibly small – “really tiny.”
The turning point proclaimed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz is great, but “we could simply spend one percent of the 100 billion euro program on peace. That would have an enormous impact. One billion euros for peace processes in Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, even Palestine, that could bring about a turning point, would be a ‘game changer’.”
Mediation against fears of parties to the conflict
Charlotte Hamm worked in the Berghof Foundation’s Afghanistan team for four years. She explains what mediators do. “It’s about finding out what moves the parties to the conflict, what motivates them, what their fears are and what commonalities can be identified and then built on.”
You have to be patient because the processes are long and tough. “As a mediator you have to be open to listening to everyone and talking to everyone. Even if some of them are people who have committed war crimes.” In Ethiopia and Yemen, for example, mediations conducted by the Berghof Foundation were successful.
There were also initially positive signals with regard to Afghanistan. The first intra-Afghan dialogue between the government and the Taliban in Doha was organized by Germany and Qatar; the Berghof Foundation supported him.
When representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban met for the first time, only Berghof Fopundation employees were allowed to stay in the room. All other international players had to leave. The fact that both sides started talking to each other was a success at the time, even if it didn’t stay that way.
Neuroscience against Dehumanization
At the conference in Berlin, actors who have not previously been involved in peace processes will now have their say. The private sector, for example – or neuroscientists.
When asked what science can contribute to peace negotiations, Charlotte Hamm explains that neuroscientists study intensively the dehumanization of the enemy, something that happens in war. “During peace negotiations, enemies who have dehumanized each other often meet for the first time,” said Hamm.
They sat at the negotiating table, had lunch together and sometimes even stayed in the same hotel. “Through the time spent together and all the little interactions, a process of rehumanization begins,” says Hamm. What sounds abstract is, according to science, detectable in the brain.
Meeting with concrete recommendations
By the way, “MOOT”, the name of the conference, is an old English word that actually refers to a community meeting in which local matters used to be discussed and then decided. This is important to the organizers of the conference: not just talking, but recommending concrete things. From 2026, Andrew Gilmour hopes to organize the MOOT conference annually.