Members of CCHN Community of Practice shared their methods on how to manage stress collectively and individually while negotiating in volatile and complex situations or when a crisis emerges. The interview was done during the CCHN Thematic Retreat on Negotiation Under Pressure 2019.
Negotiating under pressure in insecure environments is a critical skill that allows humanitarian responders in the field to help those most in need. In this video, 6 humanitarians talk about their experiences dealing with high-pressure negotiations. This video was presented at the 2019 Geneva Peace Week event on “When lives are at stake: Exploring high-pressure negotiations through storytelling” on 5 November 2019.
The Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN) organized the 2021 Winter Retreat for community members with a focus on self-care. With sessions from experts in stress management and mentor relationships, the retreat focused on practical tools to improve well-being and the creation of a supportive mentoring community.
Humanitarian professionals are dedicated to assisting vulnerable people in high-risk environments. To do this, they often engage in high-stakes negotiations, during which they face personal, ethical and professional dilemmas. Living and working under such stressful conditions can take a toll on their physical and mental well-being, and many negotiators have expressed the need for self-care tools and peer support.
High-level diplomacy of humanitarian organizations often appears to be detached from the reality of negotiation in the field. This disconnect has been accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when integration between field and headquarters is more crucial than ever before. How can humanitarian diplomacy at headquarters remain aligned with negotiation experience and practice in the field?
Mariya Nikolova, a Legal Training Advisor at the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, explains how she has enhanced her negotiation capabilities while being a member of the CCHN Community of Practice.
The Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN) has recently launched a series of webinars on remote negotiation. The webinars have been developed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result of feedback from CCHN community members. The webinars will run over several months and aim to facilitate informed discussions within the CCHN community. They will provide practical information, guidance and advice on how to better prepare and conduct negotiations remotely. The first session was held on 31 August 2020 and focused on building rapport remotely.
Qadir Assemy, Head of Office for WFP in Herat province, Afghanistan, talks about the challenges and dilemmas that negotiators face, and the importance of managing stress in their work.
Impacted by the global pandemic of COVID-19, many humanitarians have switched to online training and self-development activities to prepare themselves in maintaining their programs under the current circumstances. To continue providing support for frontline negotiators and humanitarian staff in the Middle-East, CCHN has provided not only online but also hybrid events in a series of Summer Briefing Sessions on the Response to COVID-19.
Innocent Sauti, Head of Programme for WFP in Myanmar, talks about the challenges that come with his work on the frontlines while emphasizing the importance of preparing the staff with humanitarian negotiation skills before going to the field.
