Where large scale projects are forecast, the promotor can often be required to undertake public consultation as part of the proposal. Similarly, where governments are forecasting regulatory change, public and stakeholder consultation forms part of the reform process. We have on many occasions assisted with facilitating public forums for possible regulatory change (including for a Commission of Inquiry), including in the sugar industry, water management, and environmental harm prevention.

Our Penrose triangle logo is a depiction of the dynamic of interests and needs in any conflict – (a) the needs and interests around the substantive issue; (b) the personal needs and interests of the people involved; and (c) the process needs and interests of the parties. This dynamic is at a heightened complexity when there are multiple parties involved – such as in the case of public or stakeholder consultation. The pathway to finding good outcomes is to understand the process and personal needs of parties involved and to then design a process that is enabling. We have designed processes to enable different cultural communities (including matriarchal and patriarchal communities), socio-economic groups, and regional-urban groups who have had contrasting, time, language and social preferences.

Peace Building

Peace-building includes a range of interventions in situations of emerging, current or post community conflict situations. In the post-stabilisation period, the interventions are specifically guided toward managing tension, prevention of the re-emergence of conflict and the promotion of lasting and sustainable peace through capacity building.

In some sense, peace-building interventions are similar to what we have described immediately above in public-stakeholder consultation – only on steroids!

A key difference in peace building is that the intervention generally occurs in the aftermath of violence and following the use of force to stabilise tensions. In this case the work of the mediator/facilitator is undertaken in conjunction with regulatory authority and so requires another level of process management. Gaining acceptance from all parties takes time and remedial processes need to account for such matters as ‘revenge’ and restoring ‘trust’ and ‘confidence’.

Our experience involves work both in Australian indigenous communities and in the Pacific Rim where intra and inter-community rivalries have ended in overt violence.

Community Conflict

Community conflict can have a host of sources, from family rivalries to tensions arising from harm caused by climate events. Community conflict can often remain latent (under the surface) with increasing levels of tension. The conflict then becomes expressed with the onset of a crystallising event (like a natural disaster or climate event). The crystallising event, however, is seldom the deeper cause.

We have worked in Australia and the Pacific Rim with diverse cultural communities and governments at all levels to, at first, stabilise the  conflict,  and then, with the communities, design dialogue processes and interventions to bring about longer term resolution and reconciliation.