How can you effectively influence the international playing field regarding food and nature?

This is the principal question that we are aiming to tackle with our participants from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. Line ministries play an increasingly important role in European negotiations concerning food, nature and agriculture, as these three domains are a shared EU-responsibility.

It is a challenge to fully understand the complexity of EU bodies and other international frameworks. We therefore assist our participants in creating a lobbying plan: How do you guarantee that your interests are being represented in an effective way?

Since 2001, the Clingendael Institute annually organises the course ‘International Policy’ for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (previously the Directorate General Agro and Nature of the Netherlands’ Ministry of Economic Affairs). Each year we tailor this course to rotating groups of participants.

In the course programme special attention is paid to

• inviting knowledgeable academics and practitioners in the field of food, nature and agriculture, and to
• developing tailor-made skills training. One example is the interdepartmental and organisational dimension of intercultural communication, another is negotiating the EU Common Fisheries Policy.

This way we make sure that the training topics and simulation exercises are highly relevant to our participant’s daily work.

If you are interested and wish to see if this type of training is relevant to your organisation, then please check out our tailor made training programmes on economic and sustainable development. Of course you can also always contact us.