I am in the process of developing a training, probably two and a half days in length, called “Facilitation Skills for Inclusive Negotiations.” This will be aimed at those involved in political negotiations, national dialogues, and peace processes. Rather than trying to cover all facilitation tactics in chronological fashion (beginning to end of a process), the course will instead be organized around key dilemmas and challenges of inclusive negotiations: For example, how do you…
- Include all needed stakeholders but keep it manageable?
- Get people to really engage with each other instead of making speeches?
- Incorporate the voices of civil society, when political or armed leaders think they represent the whole population?
- Offer opportunities for the broader public to have input, other than adversarial referendums?
- Reach sufficient consensus to move forward when even those with extreme views are included?
- Keep the facilitation/mediation team working together harmoniously?
- Respond to constant change in the political, legal, and/or military context?
Please let me know your thoughts and feedback! What other dilemmas or challenges do you think this program should cover?
I will be posting some more questions as I conduct some research on aspects of this. Stay tuned…
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