After Covid19, the humanitarian sector braced itself for changing its operations and a potential surge in emergency responses. The pandemic badly affected the possibilities for aid workers to deliver good and travel in and out of countries or even cities. The need for constructive negotiations in order to provide populations in need changed in nature, but stayed as important as ever.

For Clingendael Academy, the pandemic meant our planned training sessions to support the negotiation capacity of humanitarian aid workers could no longer continue. We had to re-think our training programme and adapt it to a digital learning environment.

Last week, our first ever digital training with 18 participants took place and we can look back on a great week. Participants in all different time zones and regions – from Canada to Bangladesh and from Croatia to Burkina Faso-  went through our exercises, simulations and reflection sessions together with Clingendael trainers in our specially equipped studios. Despite the distances, the group worked as team and built great rapport amongst each other.

The exercises also allow aid workers to become familiar with what it is like to negotiate online, an increasingly necessary 21st century skill for everyone from the field to HQ and back again.

We provide similar negotiation skills courses throughout the year. Please find more information on our humanitarian negotiation page.