Essential Public Capacity for a Peaceful and More Inclusive Society: Collaborative Governance with a Focus on Negotiation and Mediation Skills in SDGs Implementation and Public Policy Conflicts Resolution

Background

Government officials who took part in the 2022 workshop 'Essential Tools for a Peaceful and More Inclusive Society: Skills and Systems for Local Conflict Management,' hosted by UNITAR CIFAL Jeju, analyzed these potential conflicts using local conflict analysis and management methodologies. 

Furthermore, governments today face an increasingly complex landscape, dealing with a multitude of citizen interests and demands arising from political, economic, social, and technological advancements[3]. In response to these multifaceted challenges, one emerging and recommended approach to governance is collaborative governance, providing a promising pathway to tackle these complex challenges.

Collaborative Governance introduces a framework for a collective endeavor from public sector, non-profit organizations, and private businesses. These stakeholders collaborate, share the responsibilities associated with both policymaking and service delivery that could have been challenging to achieve through traditional governmental decision-making processes[4]. Typically, in practical applications, collaborative governance frequently entails conflicting parties coming together to peacefully resolve disputes through negotiation or mediation.

Considering the government’s pivotal role in overseeing the coordination and resolution of conflicts in public policy, it is essential for government officials to possess abilities for managing the diverse demands arising from multiple stakeholders. Proficiency in negotiation and mediation is particularly crucial in this regard. This is in line with the OECD’s guidance to governments that conflict resolution skills are considered a fundamental and recommended competency for accomplished civil servants[3].

Hence, to foster collaborative governance practice with the aim of facilitating the implentation of SDGs, we will organize a dynamic two-day workshop, to help strengthen negotiation and mediation skills to help manage and resolve public policy conflicts by civil servants. This workshop will provide an in-depth learning opportunity, including the introduction of negotiation and mediation skills of managing and resolving public policy conflicts and the application of them through individual and group practice sessions. Throughout this workshop, participants will gain valuable insights into the government's pivotal role in orchestrating cooperative governance by involving various stakeholders in SDG achievement.

This intensive learning opportunity primarily targets government officials responsible for handling public policy conflicts, particularly those associated with local policies aligned with SDGs. Especially, this workshop will invite participants primarily from the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and various developing countries to contribute to enhance essential public capacity for the execution of diverse goals in SDGs. Through this workshop, we believe participants, in decision-making roles, may build up perspectives towards public policy conflicts, while also finding ways to peacefully manage them and uncover hidden values within the conflicts, vital to making a more sustianable, peaceful, and resilient societies.       

Event Objectives

This capacity-building training workshop will:

- Foster awareness regarding the significance of peaceful management of public policy conflicts through collaborative governance in the context of SDGs implementation;

- Introduce fundamental principles of managing and resolving public policy conflicts: negotiation and mediation;

- Enhance participants' proficiency in these essential skills through a combination of individual and group exercises;

- Showcase exemplary local practices managing and resolving public policy conflicts;

- Facilitate opportunities for participants to exchange their own professional experiences related to public policy conflicts, enabling them to collaboratively develop strategies for effectively managing or resolving potential conflicts, drawing on the expertise of fellow participants and conflict management professionals.

Expected Learning Outcomes

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

- Recognize the importance of participants’ role as government officials in terms of facilitating SDGs in the local level and spearhead related policy development and implementation through multi-stakeholder collaboration;

-Identify and concretize existing and potential public policy conflicts within participants' respective countries or municipalities, emphasizing the critical role of public conflict management in fostering a peaceful and inclusive society;

-Become more fully equipped with negotiation and mediation skills to orchestrate collaborative governance that serves as a cornerstone for SDG implementation;

-Examine and draw insights from benchmarking cases of public conflict management systems and successful examples of managing and resolving public policy conflicts;

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

Target Audience

This invitation-based training is mainly open to the Jeju Speicial Self-Governing Provincial Government officials who are currently undergoing 1-year official on-the-Job training and invited civil servants from developing countries, who are daily dealing with various public policy conflicts at the national level and below or are mandated to manage and resolve these to achieve common goods in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Methodology

The training will be comprised of: 

-       Individual Pre-Assignments

-        Lectures and presentations by experts

-        Individual and Group Exercises

Venue 

Offline (Jeju International Peace Center, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea)

Participants Registration

Invited participants will be asked to complete the registration by October 8, 2023 (Sunday) using the Google Form provided by the Program Officer, which will be made available between October 5th and sent to the participants in person.

Certificate

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

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

    -     Punctually Attend all sessions; and 

    -     Create and Submit pre-assignments and all outcome documents produced in practice sessions
          (Individual and group participation activities); and 

    -     Fully and actively participate in the entire training program

Contact

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

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

 Agenda (Tentative)

*The above program is subject to change