Overview
Cyprus is a beautiful, yet divided island. With social, economic, geo-political, religious and ethnic tensions rooted in its complex history and which remain unresolved to this day, many people in Cyprus feel the current situation is stuck. In the decades of efforts to address and solve the Cyprus problem and navigate the future of the island, many worthy endeavours have been made to initiate, support, or implement initiatives and solutions.
The Process
The Cyprus Transformative Scenarios Process (TSP) builds on the notable efforts in past decades. It is distinctive in many respects, chiefly the fact that it does not promote a specific solution, and it looks at the multiple concerns of Cypriots today including but also beyond the “Cyprus problem”. It is an effort by Cypriots from across society to explore and discuss their whole future together.
This initiative applies the Transformative Scenarios approach. For over 3 decades, this approach has helped citizens in many countries and regions around the world to rethink their future. It was born out of South Africa during the transition from apartheid in 1991-1992, and has subsequently been facilitated by Reos Partners in Colombia, Guatemala, Thailand, Mexico, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Scenario Team
The Cyprus Transformative Scenarios Process has in 2022 convened a committed team of Cypriot individuals from a wide diversity of perspectives across sectors, professions, generations, and political views who have gathered to develop a new set of future narratives for their island. They include Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, and Religious Minorities.
They are entrepreneurs, community builders, educators, artists, activists, business people, lawyers, doctors, and academics. The group is gender balanced and their ages range from 20’s to 60’s. They are not a group of “usual suspects”. While they are broadly representative of Cypriot society, each participant joins this process as an individual rather than as a representative of a specific institution or constituency, and each brings their full knowledge, perspective, and experience to the process.
This group met three times during May-September 2022 to jointly develop a set of four relevant, challenging, plausible, and clear scenarios for the future of Cyprus.
Scenarios
The group is currently finalising their scenarios with the support of an impartial scenario writer. These scenarios will be stories about what could happen, not about what should happen (proposals) nor about what will happen (predictions). They will offer a map of the future landscape of Cyprus to lift the gaze towards a longer time horizon and a broader context within which the future of Cyprus will unfold.
They aim to provide a common language to:
- Stimulate future-oriented dialogue,
- Generate public awareness
- Build shared reality, and,
- Inform wise and sustainable decision-making
The scenarios will be launched towards the end of 2022.
The scenario building process was implemented by Reos Partners, Results Mediation Foundation and the PRIO Cyprus Centre with the support of the governments of the Netherlands, Finland, and Norway.
We need your help…
We want to bring these scenarios to a society-wide conversation by:
- Developing communication materials in three languages to convey the scenarios to a society-wide audience, including video, visuals, and slide presentations,
- Creating an accessible handbook on how to use the scenarios to be used by Cypriot organisations, community groups, peace-builders, businesses, educational institutions, diaspora groups and others for engagement and deliberation,
- Building a dedicated website to house these materials and share the latest news about the initiative,
- Running a 6-month social media and mainstream media campaign to share the scenarios and to enhance society-wide awareness of the importance of future-oriented dialogue,
- Hosting launch events and dialogues on both sides of the island and both sides of the divided capital of Nicosia.
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Partners
The Cyprus Transformative Scenarios Process (TSP) is an initiative of Reos Partners, The Result Mediation Foundation, and the PRIO Cyprus Centre.
Reos Partners
Reos Partners is an international social enterprise specialised in multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration in situations of complexity, uncertainty, and conflict. Reos Partners applies a systemic, collaborative, and creative approach to design, facilitate, and guide processes that enable teams of stakeholders to make progress on their toughest challenges. Reos engages with governments, business, and civil society organizations on challenges such as justice, peace, health, education, conservation, food, and climate. The Reos Partners team operates both globally and locally, with offices in Cambridge (Massachusetts), Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Montréal, and São Paulo. The name Reos means “flow” reflecting an aim to create movement in situations of stuckness.
Result Mediation Foundation
Result Mediation Foundation (RMF) designs and manages conflict resolution processes and ensures the integrity thereof. RMF aligns with all key stakeholders in the process and sees to it that they are are well informed, trained and sufficiently up to speed for each to play their (critical) role. Building on the expertise developed by Result Mediation, the Netherlands leading mediation company, RMF brings together the rigor of private-sector mediation techniques with tested expertise in international conflict resolution. We are a non-profit organization that supports conflict resolution around the world by providing excellence in mediation services to state actors, (inter)national NGO’s and other stakeholders involved in international cooperation, active in fragile states and conflict affected settings.
PRIO Cyprus Centre
Since its inception in 2005, the PRIO Cyprus Centre (PCC) has functioned as an independent, bi-communal research centre. The Centre is committed to research and dialogue. Its aim is to contribute to an informed public debate on key issues relevant to an eventual settlement of the Cyprus problem. Its ambition is to achieve this through the establishment and dissemination of information and by offering new analysis, and through facilitating dialogue. The researchers attached to the Centre are both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots as well as individuals of other nationalities. The inter-linkage between research, informing public debate, and political decision-making is at the core of the Centre’s activities; its research should always be of public interest and be disseminated in understandable language, alongside academic publications. Most of the research output is presented in the English, Greek and Turkish languages. Through its network, projects and dialogue forums, the PRIO Cyprus Centre aims to foster cooperation between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, and strengthen regional cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean at large. The PRIO Cyprus Centre offers an important meeting place for people from both sides of the divided island.
Get involved
To express your interest in this process please fill out this form.
To donate to the project click here.