Preparing international negotiations

Say, you are a member of the Dutch National Youth Council and you want to prepare for a big, upcoming conference on sustainability: how are you going to do that? What is your strategy and how are you going to influence key-stakeholders in the process? These and other questions were discussed last Wednesday, when a delegation of nine young Dutch UN representatives was received at Clingendael for a day of theory and simulations on negotiation skills.

From theory to practice

Ron Ton, the director of the Clingendael Academy opened the day with a theoretical framework on what to expect from different kind of negotiations. In the afternoon, members of the Youth Council were given the opportunity to prepare for multilateral negotiations in an EU simulation exercise, learning about the structure of multilateral negotiations, but also enhancing their own personal negotiation skills.

“The day was very useful for both the members of the Youth Council who have already participated in UN Conferences as well as members who will participate next year”, one of the participants concluded. We from the Clingendael Institute wish them well in their missions and hope to welcome them back at the institute sometime in the future.