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Executive SummaryIn April 2009, the UN Secretary General underlined the centrality of the UNin providing mediation and mediation support in his report on enhancingmediation and its support activities. The Mediation Support Unit (MSU)within the UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA) serves as a central pillarto enhance and guide mediation efforts.Background of theMSU SBTThe Mediation Support Unit (MSU) Standby Team of Mediation Experts(SBT) project was established in April 2007. The project was originallysolely funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and based upona Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United Nations andthe Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). In the second year of the project,the European Commission also provided financial support to the team.The Standby Team of Mediation Experts is a specialised resource whichcan be rapidly deployed to the field upon a temporary basis in order toprovide technical advice to UN officials and others leading mediation andconflict prevention efforts. The SBT is managed by both the UN MSU andthe NRC to allow for flexible and rapid deployment, as well as to provide adegree of autonomy to the experts.SBT members are contracted full-time for a period of 12 months, thus atdisposal fully and at all times, and on standby to be deployed within 72hours for up to one month (renewable) to a specific location.Purpose andMethodology of theEvaluationNRC initiated the external evaluation in consultation with MSU. After atender was published in summer 2010, Dr Oliver Wils (Berghof PeaceSupport) and Dr Antje Herrberg (MediatEUr) were chosen for this task.The evaluation aimed at contributing to the improvement of mediationsupport services through taking stock of the lessons learned of the SBTproject and recommendations for improved practice. The evaluation wasbased upon the OECD criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency andsustainability and focused upon three main areas:1) Management and support of the SBT project including co-operationand co-ordination between the NRC and the MSU/UNDPA.2) Outcome of the mediation support to a mediation effort provided bythe members of the Standby Team when deployed to the field.3) Conceptual development of the SBT project.During September and October 2010, the evaluation team conductedextensive desk research of background material provided by the NRCincluding all end-of-mission reports, statistics, contractual documents,relevant notes, memoranda and written communication as well asmanagement documents from the MSU. The team conducted 40background discussions and interviews with key stakeholders to the SBTproject in Oslo and New York as well as by telephone and Skype. A draftevaluation report was submitted at the end of November and the findingswere presented to NRC and MSU in Oslo on 15 December 2010.Main FindingsMediation Supportin the UN SystemTo date, there is no single definition of mediation support. We considerUN mediation support to consist of two interrelated but also distinctareas of support which are a) support to a mediation team in the field; andb) support to a broader mediated peace process (advisory, logistical,financial and or assistance to the parties).The recent establishment of the MSU was accompanied by a number oforganisational challenges in a complex political environment. For thisi
eason, the MSU had to proceed carefully in inserting itself within the DPAsystem. Its main challenge was to show that mediation support does notcompete with but complements and supports existing capacities within theDPA, thus providing value added to the already existing work. As a result,the MSU took a cautious approach in deploying members of the StandbyTeam based upon clear requests from clients. This approach followed therationale of providing first-class technical or process related advice to theenvoy or the SRSG but not necessarily work outside of this framework.This more technical understanding of mediation support (i.e., support tothe mediation team/field mission) can be viewed in contrast with a morepolitical understanding of the concept (i.e., support to the process/directengagement with the parties) which was shared by the first SBT and theNRC. This latter attitude was influenced by the press statements andarticles such as Top UN Mediation Team Now Calls for Crises around theWorld. These two different concepts of mediation support help tounderstand the considerable gap in the expectations between the first SBT(and the NRC) and the MSU as to how the team was going to work. Theyalso explain why the NRC emphasised the need for a team which has acertain independence from the UN system whilst the MSU was, at least inthe beginning, very keen to have clear control over SBT activities as wellas restricting them. Three years into the project, with a firmly establishedMSU, these tensions have eased considerably.Relevance of theMSU SBT To October 2010, the SBT team has been deployed 77 times in close to 30countries (mainly Africa and Central Asia) and serving at least 18 clients ofwhich approximately half were non-UN actors, mainly in the form ofregional organisations on the African continent (but also foreign ministriesand non-governmental organisations).The two teams differed in type of thematic expertise and in structure: Thefirst SBT (2008-2009) was composed of a core team of five experts (TeamLeader/Process Expert, Power-sharing, Constitution-making, TransitionalJustice and Human Rights and Security Arrangements) whilst a furtherposition was divided into two areas of expertise; that is, Water-sharing andHousing, Land and Property (hired for a period of four months in a secondrecruitment process). The second SBT part 2 (2009-2011) includes fourmembers within Constitutional Issues, Power-sharing Issues and SecurityArrangements (two positions). In addition to the SBT administered jointlywith the NRC, three further experts on Gender and Water and a part-timeland consultant work directly under the MSU.Based upon the interviews and statistics, the thematic expertise in the SBTis relevant for the mediation processes and the field missions alike.According to MSU statistics, process support was by far the most relevantexpertise which the SBT was requested to provide (followed by securityand water).The SBT is also of high relevance for the positioning and profiling of theMSU within the DPA as well as for the DPA to concretely implement its newoperational remit. As underlined by many interviewees, the SBT is the mostimportant instrument to which the MSU can refer for offering supportservices.The SBT s work for developing a conceptual approach to mediationsupport is relevant although the potential of the experts has hitherto notbeen tapped sufficiently. Although the MSU has grown in its number ofstaff, it still seems to be under heavy human resources constraints. In orderto use the privileged access to the senior experts and their relatedexperiences (also on mission), a more systematised internal learningapproach is required.ii
Page 2: Evaluation of theMediation Support
Page 7 and 8: deployment rate of the first team w
Page 9 and 10: 1 Introduction: Mediation Support i
Page 11 and 12: 2 Background of the MSU SBTThe Medi
Page 13 and 14: 3 Purpose and Methodology of the Ev
Page 15 and 16: interviewing process was to be qual
Page 17 and 18: MSU as Part of the New PMDSenior an
Page 19 and 20: peace process which could be logist
Page 21 and 22: Thus, the expertise within the SBT
Page 23 and 24: Box 5: Geographic Involvement of SB
Page 25 and 26: these activities and the related kn
Page 27 and 28: strategy framework and was able to
Page 29 and 30: 4.4 Efficiency of the MSU SBTThe ef
Page 31 and 32: The SBT has been considered as a pi
Page 33 and 34: take place in a conducive atmospher
Page 35 and 36: function of the Standby Team. The S
Page 37 and 38: good way of improving co-operation
Page 39 and 40: Whilst the MSU has appreciated the
Page 41 and 42: approach. The SBT is not just anoth
Page 43 and 44: Because the MSU has developed its o
Page 45 and 46: Annex I: Terms of Reference(attache
Page 47 and 48: Annex III: List of Documents Review

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