Essentials Tools for a Peaceful and more Inclusive Society:

Skills and Systems for the Local Conflict Management

Online + Offline Participation: 23-24 November (Wednesday-Thursday),

Offline Participation Only: 25 November (Wednesday-Friday),

15:00 - 18:00 (Day 1)

14:30~18:00 (Day 2)

 10:30~18:00 (Day 3)

Background

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.” – Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States.

Peace cannot be discussed without taking conflicts into consideration. In fact, conflict management, transformation and resolution skills are deemed to be essential for creating and sustaining peace. This is due to the fact that conflicts are a natural part of human nature and society. Thus, we must learn to peacefully mitigate and deal with conflicts.

When considering the different types of major conflicts around the globe and throughout history, the nature of conflict has shifted from international ones to more domestic or local ones. The absolute number of war death has been decreasing since 1946, while more countries in the world reported to have experienced violent conflicts that are in more fragmented forms[1]. In the case of Asia also, local conflicts over land and natural resources and tensions between various ethnic and religious communities have reportedly risen in many areas.

These conflicts can be a signicant hindrance factor for the growth and national and regional development of the multiple countries in the region[2]. Therefore, national states’ and local governments’ role of conflict management is becoming important in addition to the national/local development priorities they mostly concern.

Furthermore, governments today are facing even more complexities with diverse interests and demands of citizens based on political, economic, social and technological advancements, which may hightens risks of diverse local conflicts. In addition, national and local authorities these days are often mandated to lead the green and sustainable movement by the domestic and foreign pressure, which naturally poses great shifts in societies that often makes or changes the winner and the loser and therefore causes sometimes severe local conflicts. As to highlight this, OECD has pinpointed conflict management skills as one of the necessary skills that high-performing civil servants are advised to possess [3].

Hence, to foster important conflict management skills for decision makers within the Asia-Pacific Region, we have meticulously organized a dynamic and hybrid three day workshop, necessary to help strengthen conflict management skills and systems needed to help resolve and transform local conflicts in support of a more peaceful society. This workshop will provide an in-depth learning opportunity, including conflict transformation and resolution skills, individual and group activities to dive into the current and imminent local conflicts potentially faced by participants, and then will end with group capstone projects. Throughout this workshop, participants will improve their skills and grasp insights on how to strengthen conflict management systems focused at the local level.

The intensive learning opportunity is mainly designed for the Asia-Pacific civil servants, officials of governmental organizations and leaders of NGOs & CSOs who are in charge of managing local and public conflicts to achieve common goods. We also welcome personnel whose professional work is to actively implement or support SDG 16 Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. Through this workshop, we believe participants from Asia-Pacific countries, in decision-making roles, may build up alternative perspectives towards local conflicts, while also finding ways to peacefully manage them and uncover hidden values within conflict, vital to making more peaceful and resilient societies.  

[1]United Nations, A New Era of Conflict and Violence (UN 75 Shaping our future together), 2021

[2]The Asia Foundation & KDI, Conlfict Prevention and Peacebuilding in Asia: Lessons in South-South Cooperation, 2018

[3]OECD, OECD Public Governance Reviews-Skills for a High Performing Civil Service, September 2017

Event Objectives

This capacity-building training workshop will:

-  Raise awareness of the importance of peacefully managing conflicts at the local levels necessary to build and sustain peaceful societies

-  Overview the types of existing and potential conflicts at the local level and based on real-life examples, focus on ways to sucessfully manage the conflicts

-  Promote knowledge sharing by exchanging up-to-date information on local conflicts relevant to participants witnessed and encountered

-  Help participants become better equipped with hands-on conflict management skills (Problem-Solving, Facilitation, Mediation, Negotiation and ADR..) through individual and group exercises

-  Introduce the concept of conflict management systems and overseas best practices as a way to institutionalize conflict management mechanisms into national and local decision-making procedures

-  Assist participants in discovering and analyzing how to peacefully managing local conflicts they are currently encountering in their own countries and cities with the help of fellow participants and conflict management professionals

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of the training, participants will be able to: 

-  Grasp the concepts, types and status of current and potential conflicts in the Asia-Pacific Region and the importance of managing local conflicts for a peaceful society;

-  Discover and analyze various local conflicts taking place around participants;

-  Become more fully equipped with various conflict management skills (Problem-Solving, Facilitation, Mediation, Negotiation and ADR);

-  Understand the concept of conflict management systems as systematic tools to manage at the local level;

-  Build professional networks and exchange information, ideas and knowledge among the participants.

Target Audience

This hybrid training is open to the Asia and the Pacific government officials, relevant personnel from public organizations, decision-makers of NGOs, Civil Societies, and institutions who are daily dealing with various public conflicts at the national level and below or are mandated to manage local conflicts to achieve common goods in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Only those residing in South Korea are eligible to apply for offline participation.

Methodology

The training will be comprised of: 

-         Lectures and presentations by experts

-         Individual and Group Exercises

-         Individual In-depth Case Study Pre-Assignments

-         Group Capstone Project Development and Presentation

-         Field Trip (Offline Participants)

Venue

Offline (Jeju, South Korea) and Online (Zoom platform.)

Application deadline

Please apply through the this link:   https://bit.ly/3U3r6Wy

-   Online Participants: Apply by November 11, 2022(Friday)

-   Offline Participants: Application Closed

* Please note the following:

-    Those with at least two years of working experience in the workshop theme area will be given preference.

-    The participants should be fluent in written and spoken English.

-    Only selected participants will be notified individually along with the guidelines for the program.

Certificate

-  A Certificate of Completion will be issued by UNITAR and UNITAR CIFAL Jeju.

-  Selected participants are required to complete the following to be eligible for this certificate:

-    Submit assignments on time- e.g. Strategy and Action plan either in WORD or PPT format, action plan;

-    Fully and actively participate in the entire training program; and

-     Attend all sessions and if you are attending virtually, you must have your video always on.

Contact

Ms. Hyunju Grace Lee, Program Officer/UNITAR CIFAL Jeju 

E-mail:cifaljeju.jitc.env@gmail.com