A rewarding first day in Karachi

Today was one of those rare days when you see everything come together and you have such a sense of satisfacation of being a small part of what has been achieved within 2 years here in Karachi, to introduce mediaion into the civil justice system.

Today was the first work day in Karachi after quite a journey to get here yesterday ( 12 hours flying, delays in Dubai for fog, not much sleep and worst of all, no water in the hotel swimming pool on arrival!!!).

I was working on mentoring/coaching 2 mediators on actual mediations taking place at the Karachi Centre for Dispute Resolution ( pictured above) . It was fantastic to see mediations actually taking place and helping the parties to settle their disputes, after 2 years of working with IFC to develop the centre and train the mediators.

It was also interesting to see some of the country-specific issues being faced by mediators as the process develops here. For example how do you encourage defendants to settle who are used to using the legal system to delay settling through the low cost of the litigation process and an almost unfeterred right of appeal.

Also the tendency here to have a number of short mediation sessions makes it difficult for the mediators to work with the parties to give them a sense of momentum, within the short time they are together.

I am sure we will work on these issues with the mediators on going forward.

Heather Allen has been working with trainees trainers on how to impart the skills and process of an effective mediators and then they will see us do it live on the mediator training course starting on Wednesday.

Until then

Cheers

James