Context

In recent years, mediation has become a word, a concept, a method and a tool for development, teaching, public policy and interventions, in which the content and skills necessary for greater effectiveness in dealing with security and community life issues are sought. There are several technical and political dimensions that give rise to this theoretical recurrence around the word or even this political rhetoric.

First, the Sahelian and even coastal national contexts of West Africa are increasingly plagued by social insecurity for public services in general and populations in particular. We are seeing a meteoric rise in social radicalization led by armed terrorist groups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, but also in Benin, Togo and, to a lesser extent, in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. The first and quite often the last tool deployed by states and their partners to deal with the consequences of these conflicts (such as hostage taking). For the past decade, Sahelian states have been exploring international mediation to recover hostages from jihadists.

Second, the public services in these states, regardless of the security context, are plagued by recurring conflicts within the state and between officials and users. The conflicts concern careers, working conditions and various rights. As in France, these States have instituted a mediation, that of the Republic, to bypass the civil judicial procedures whose outcome is unsatisfactory for the parties. This mediation of public services, or institutional mediation, is still technically, politically and institutionally in progress, one can say!

Also, family life, in villages, in cities, etc., is marked by conflicts. Couples in separation or in the process of divorce, conflicts between parents and children, conflicts between ethnic communities (e.g., between farmers and Peulh herders in Sahelian and coastal countries, between Christian and Muslim communities, between sects and other members of village communities, etc.), between health workers and users, between teachers and learners, between producers and environmental protection associations, etc. In villages, as in cities, land tenure generally poses a serious problem of cohabitation, with public space such as the edges of major roads being illegally occupied by citizens who certainly need it. To solve these recurrent problems with immense social consequences, technicians and politicians use alternative methods of conflict resolution (compromise, arbitration, etc.) and mediation. PASAS Minka published in 2019 a report of experiences in this area "Mediation and conflict management. A micro-level perspective on the relationships between presence of armed groups, armed conflict violence" https://pasas-minka.fr/fr/ accessed on 28 March 2023. But generally, mediators in this case have not always received adequate training for an appropriate method and a sustainable result.

Also, in development interventions, the export of "development models" to contexts that are often inappropriate encourages conflicts of meaning. For some years now, social science researchers, notably those at LASDEl, have been talking about the idea of training social mediators who would work in synergy with facilitators to enable developers and development users to understand each other in order to change problematic situations. But what would these social mediators do? How would they do it? How empirically based would they be? Would they be based in villages or within institutional intervention mechanisms?
LASDEL has had experience with mediation in the implementation of development models or the improvement of public services, such as reference and counter-reference in Benin. It has shown its positive effects and its limits. However, based on this experience, the young researchers proposed the creation of a bachelor's degree and later a master's degree on social mediation and facilitation. Supported by the Academy of Research and Higher Education of the Kingdom of Belgium, the master training started in 2017. It has so far trained about 150 master's graduates, some already practicing and others waiting to practice. During this training experience, partners from the South, such as the Senegalese from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Travailleurs Sociaux Spécialisés and the Congolese from the Université Pédagogique Nationale de Kinshasa. The Senegalese experience of mediation is quite technically and methodologically daring. The concept of medialabre is being developed, with a synergy between social workers, sociologists, lawyers, etc. on the mediation to be done in African contexts in complexification.

All these conflicting contexts and technical, political and institutional mediation initiatives have built a conceptual and instrumental cloud.
Objectives
The general objective of the colloquium is to bring together researchers, teachers, partners and development agents and representatives of public services to contribute according to their various competences to give technical content, methods and skills to mediators according to their natures and contexts.

Three specific objectives

• To make an inventory of the types of social mediation at work in the different national and international contexts in Africa;
• To deepen the reflections on the relevance, the technical, methodological and institutional specificity of each type of mediation
• Negotiate, by means of solid arguments, a place for each type of mediation in the required social level.

Axes
Five axes of communication are planned but original communications outside these axes are also expected
Axis 1: Mediation in development interventions in the South
This concerns any intervention aiming at facilitating the appropriation and the sustainability of development interventions by acting on the ideological and instrumental positions of development agents and beneficiaries of the devices.
Axis 2: Institutional mediation for the benefit of citizens using public services
Benin, for example, has instituted the Mediator of the Republic. This is the case for several other countries. How is this mediation conceived? What are the experiences? Lessons to be learned, etc.?
Axis 3: proximity mediation for living together within communities, families and public services
The Belgian, French, Senegalese, etc. experiences of mediation concern living together. They concern neighbors, service agents and users, neighborhood neighbors, ethnic or religious communities, land issues, etc. What are the methods, postures, approaches, regulatory and technical skills?
Axis 4: Mediation in international political and social crises
Mediations have been set up to resolve major electoral and environmental crises, the armed conflict in the Sahel, etc.
Axis 5: Other forms of mediation
Mediation within companies, commercial mediation, African mediation, etc.

Proposal for an abstract

The papers of the symposium will revolve around the above mentioned axes.

In addition to these suggested tracks, the organizers are willing to receive relevant contributions in the field of social conflicts and their resolution. It is also necessary that these contributions be placed in the African context.

Abstracts (not exceeding 250 words) must be submitted by August 30, 2023 on lasdel-benin23@sciencesconf.org. Each author may submit only one proposal. The Conference Program Committee will notify successful applicants by September 30, 2023. The conference will be held primarily in person. Therefore, there will be no provision for online participation by communicators. Papers from selected participants must be submitted by November 1, 2023 on the conference website for advance reading. Revised versions of papers must be submitted within four weeks after the conference for inclusion in the conference proceedings.