Clingendael Academy, together with the UNDP, has just trained nineteen trainers on Insider Mediation in an intensive two-week programme, ‘Training of Trainers (ToT) for Insider Mediatiors'.

During the programme, which brought together participants from four continents, Clingendael kicked off with refresher lessons in negotiation and (insider) mediation from earlier training sessions. In turn, the trainers then related these lessons to their own practice in the field, and to the training needs for their target training audiences. Clingendael shared training principles, tools and techniques to design effective professional training in general, and for insider mediators in particular, practicing them together with the trainers. With these tools, the participating trainers developed effective lesson plans and training materials for their own training back home.

This resulted in brand new exercises on insider mediation, based on the training needs analyses of the various target audiences, that were practiced by the trainers in dry-runs at Clingendael. These included:

1. For local youth mediators: a role play leading to better understandings of the role of procedures in mediation;
2. For legal aid workers working on community and family disputes: a case study to understand the benefits of mediation vis-à-vis litigation;
3. For community leaders working to resolve conflicts, an interactive exercise to better identify the variety of stakeholders (including women and youth) and their corresponding positions, interest and need

By combining Clingendael’s experience in mediation training with best practices in training and training of trainers, this programme helped build the trainers’ capacity in training needs analysis, training design and delivery in insider mediation. 

This training was part of our training facility “Negotiation and Mediation as a Conflict Resolution Instrument.” The facility allows us to train leaders of (armed) conflict groups and their mediators – whether locally, regionally or internationally – to support existing peace initiatives of NGOs and of international and regional organisations.

Over the past three years, Clingendael has delivered training in this facility for hundreds of participants, including insider mediators. The newly added level for the training carried out over these past two weeks was geared towards training trainers of insider mediators.

Another new project that is planned under this facility for September 2018, is a training to build the mediation capacity of regional organisations from all around the world. Please check our website for regular updates.

For more information on Negotiation and Mediation as a Conflict Resolution Instrument, please contact Wilbur Perlot. For more information on Clingendael Training of Trainers, please contact Nils de Mooij.