This report captures the highlights of the sixteenth edition of the Oslo Forum, attended by more than one hundred of the world’s leading peacemakers, conflict actors, decision-makers and academics.
Participants included António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Hassan Ali Khaire, Prime Minister of Somalia; Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs of Oman; Rosemary A. DiCarlo, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Abdelkader Messahel, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria; Thomas Greminger, Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; U Kyaw Tint Swe, Union Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor of Myanmar; Pierre Buyoya, former President of Burundi; Augustine Mahiga, Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation of Tanzania; and Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway.
This 2018 Oslo Forum’s overarching theme was ‘The end of the Big Peace? Opportunities for mediation’. Reflecting on the increasingly atomised and internationalised nature of conflicts in places such as Libya, Syria and Yemen, participants discussed the trend away from the comprehensive peace and power-sharing agreements of the 1990s, and what opportunities and challenges this poses to peacemakers. Topics covered during the event included how local agreements can effectively help promote nationwide stability; creative entry points into stalled processes; prospects for peace on the Korean Peninsula; tensions in the Red Sea region; as well as the peace processes in Libya, South Sudan and Yemen.
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