- The nature of conflict has changed in recent years.
It's now less between states, but rather inside states.
The classical form of state-to-state mediation is now
being replaced by mediations which have to involve many
so-called non-state actors.
And this has made the business of diplomacy and
peace making rather more complicated.
All too often people who's interests are most at stake
in an international discussion of an issue are the
last people to be consulted.
- [Narrator] Independent Diplomat, a group of former
diplomats and policy experts, is working to address
that problem.
- The mission of Independent Diplomat is to help
marginalize groups and countries to be part of that
discussion and to get their needs across effectively.
In a sense we're game keepers turned poachers because
we are giving the knowledge of how diplomacy
really works to people who are excluded from that magic
inner circle about how to get into it, how to break it.
- [Narrator] Independent Diplomat's clients have included
South Sudan, Kosovo, Moldova, Croatia, Somaliland,
and The Marshall Islands.
And nations surrounded by the Pacific who's very
survival is threatened by climate change.
- The Marshall Islands suffers from the impacts
of climate change more than other states.
It is the canary in the coal mine.
- Climate change means everything to The Marshall Islands.
Through our very survival.
- At Independent Diplomat we help The Marshall Islands
to raise it's voice internationally at the UN Climate
Change Conferences and other related negotiations.
- They have really built bridges with other nations
and government that can help showcase The Marshall Island
for plea for attention to our climate change issues.
- State-based diplomacy remains a very closed system
and is very difficult for outsiders to know what is
going on and that's partly why Independent Diplomat exists,
to be a kind of guide and navigator through that
unnecessarily opaque and difficult system.
- I'm getting comfortable in that I can now speak about
climate change and they know I am from
The Marshall Islands.
And that's through the help of the Independent Diplomats.
- To fulfill that promise the north and south--
- [Narrator] Independent Diplomat also helped
South Sudan get its voice heard at a critical juncture
in its history.
A civil war between south and north had raged for
decades in Sudan.
Government forces had repeatedly attacked and destroyed
villages throughout the south, displacing millions.
- As crazy as it sounds, the United Nations was going
to be convening a meeting about possible independence
of South Sudan without inviting a Southern Sudanese
representative.
- This is a country that was just beginning,
that did not have even what you would call established
diplomacy.
And there was quite a vacuum.
I think that vacuum was very well filled by
Independent Diplomats.
- [Narrator] Though South Sudan had no official state
recognition, Independent Diplomat convinced the
security counsel to break with precedent and invite
South Sudan's minister for peace, Pagan Amum, to speak.
- I am particularly grateful to you, Mr. President,
for inviting me to this meeting.
Your of this counsel today,
like the fact of the meeting, sends a very strong signal
of support for the full implementation of the
comprehensive peace agreement.
For the referendum to be conducted on time,
and above all for peace to be maintained.
- Here he was for the first time ever expressing the
needs of his country, South Sudan, in a formal,
diplomatic meeting.
And a meeting, no less, that was actually going to
decide the future of his country.
- Without Independent Diplomat I don't think there's
anyway that Pagan Amum would've been in that room
making that speech.
- [Narrator] The security counsel decided the referendum
should go ahead, which enabled South Sudan to win
it's independence peacefully.
- If the southerns had not been able to get what they
wanted through diplomacy, they probably would've gone
back to war at some point.
And that would've been disastrous for them and for
everyone else.
It doesn't take a lot of people to make a big difference.
You can help others to achieve an outcome almost
against the odds.
- They don't follow the established patterns of what
diplomats are supposed to be.
It's quite innovative.
- I don't claim that Independent Diplomat got the
referendum and we got South Sudan it's independence.
South Sudan has some extraordinary powerful allies,
including the United States, but we did things for
South Sudan that nobody else could do,
which is help them express their own needs in their
own way diplomatically.
That is the measure of our success.
It's not actually ending wars or solving climate change,
it is helping our clients be more effective.
It's a humble thing, but it's something we can
realistically and materially do.