Please note that this episode was recorded in Spanish. Negociar con comunidades indígenas presenta desafíos únicos, desde barreras lingüísticas y culturales hasta la comprensión de sus sistemas organizativos y cómo conciben sus necesidades. En este episodio, exploramos cómo Jhon Dalton Jesus, un humanitario experimentado, ha enfrentado estos retos en América Latina, utilizando estrategias que fomentan la confianza y el entendimiento. Descubriremos sus métodos para entablar un diálogo...

Humanitarian professionals often find themselves in dangerous, high-stakes or pressure-intense negotiations. When this happens, they need to understand the impact that pressure has on the human brain and keep it at bay.  In this episode, we talked with Dr Elena Qleibo Kogan about the effective strategies she has developed throughout her career - not just to manage her own pressure but also to care for her team’s mental health. This is part of the third season of "Frontline Negotiators:...

PLEASE NOTE: This episode's interview is in French. Search and Rescue operations at sea constitute a relatively new field in the humanitarian sector. Humanitarian negotiations in this domain tend to suffer from a limited ‘room for manoeuvre’ due to the maritime environment in which they take place, the actors involved, and the legal impediment increasingly posed by national authorities. Teams need to prepare strategically to reduce risks for their operations while complying with...

What is humanitarian diplomacy and how is it different from humanitarian negotiation? Are they complementary strategies or rather overlapping tools?  In today’s episode we’ll try to answer these questions with the help of Juliet Kenechi Unubi, a humanitarian negotiator and diplomat who has spent over a decade navigating the complexities of influencing her interlocutors. Juliet will help us explore the critical intersection between the two domains and discuss how she manages to transform...

A successful negotiation relies on strategy just as much as on the way you interact with others. “Soft” skills like emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and active listening can be powerful tools to connect with the counterpart and create a relationship of trust.  In this episode we hear from Carol Torres Tovar about how she navigated complex negotiations by leveraging her body language, identity traits and communication skills. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators:...

Language differences can represent a real hurdle when negotiating in a context that is culturally not our own. In these situations, interpreters and local colleagues can play a key role by conveying nuanced meanings, navigating diverse body language, and bridging cultural divides. At the same time, working with an interpreter also means possible shifts in meaning, less spontaneous interactions, and a risk for misunderstandings. In this episode, Pascal Lagneble shares some practical tips on...

'Red lines’ are uncrossable limits you just can't push past. For humanitarian negotiators, red lines also define a delicate balance between upholding a mandate and compromising on the very principles this sector stands for.  In this episode Marika Armento reflects on the challenge of negotiating on behalf of migrants and asylum seekers within the red lines set by ethical values, legal frameworks and humanitarian norms. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from...

When humanitarian agencies come together to negotiate for the same outcome, their leverage is stronger. But how do you coordinate a team of negotiators from different organisations? In this episode, Maria Duncan explains why carefully composing the team and taking advantage of each member’s expertise can do the trick in a complex negotiation. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by humanitarian professionals...

Sometimes negotiating means finding creative solutions to get around a deadlock. In this episode we hear from Rehan Zahid - Deputy Director of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN) - whose expertise is lent by our partner, the World Food Programme. Rehan has been involved with the CCHN since its creation. He has agreed to share some of the most interesting negotiation processes he experienced first-hand, when creativity really made a difference for many people in...

Great negotiators know how to make tough conversations easier – for example by picking the right interlocutor, the most convincing team members, and the least controversial topics. In this episode, Julia Paola Garcia Zamora provides some great examples of how one can de-politicise a difficult negotiation by shifting its focus to more practical matters. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by humanitarian...

When men in uniform stopped her at a checkpoint and refused to let her through, Raquel Moreno was quite surprised to see her fellow bus passengers step up to help. However, just a few years later, it was a group of civilians who blocked her truck and forced her team to flee, leaving all the humanitarian assistance behind.   Whether as sympathetic allies, tough counterparts or go-betweens, local community members play a critical role in most humanitarian negotiations. Let’s hear what...

It can be hard to create rapport and find a shared interest between people who see the world very differently. In this episode, Luca Falqui,  a medical doctor with a 30-year long humanitarian career mostly spent around Asia,  explains why empathy, strategic thinking, and even a white beard can help deliver life-saving healthcare in crisis situations. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by humanitarian...

People were quickly running out of water in a camp in Iraq. The tankers stopped getting in. The authorities were tense. That's when Precillar Moyo decided to sit down with her team, analyse the situation and come up with a negotiation strategy.   In this episode, Precillar shares how teamwork and reflection can positively impact the outcome of any negotiation process. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by...

Stephen Kilpatrick first arrived in Tehran in 2003 to start a dialogue with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He did not expect he'd be left waiting for a meeting for 28 days.  We're about to hear from this former British army officer turned humanitarian professional as he recounts incredible negotiation stories from the time he spent in Iran, but also Africa and the Balkans, and the many learnings he picked up along the way. This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators:...

Valerie Guarnieri is the Assitant Executive Director at the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP). In this episode, we talk to her about her first experiences negotiating on the ground, her many lessons learned, and the enormous challenge of setting up institutional policies and red lines for thousands of frontline negotiators all around the globe.   This is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by humanitarian...

Season 2 of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field is coming on September 6th 2023. Hear more personal stories told by humanitarian professionals as they negotiate to access, assist and protect people in crisis. The new episodes feature people from a range of organisations all over the world who work in the frontline conducting humanitarian negotiations in armed conflicts and other situations. As well as their personal stories, episodes will also include how negotiations require...

Mariana Ariestyawati, from Indonesia, tells us how she used her interpreting skills in a time of crisis and helped her team build trust with people they had to negotiate with.   In her career, she’s been an interpreter and teacher. She started out in Journalism, where she realsed she was interested in humanitarian work. 

The Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation conducts research to better understand the challenges and dilemmas faced by humanitarian negotiators on the frontlines. Interviews are conducted with not only humanitarians but also academics, policymakers and civil society workers.     Currently, the CCHN is researching the response to the refugee crisis in Ukraine and surrounding countries. The Research team travelled to Moldova, where people are taking on new 'professions' overnight to...

Working in a European country in times of peace can be just as challenging as in any other crisis around the world. In this episode, we hear the story of medical doctor Apostolos Veizis, who returned to his native Greece after many years spent on humanitarian missions abroad. He tells us about negotiating with people escaping disasters and conflict, but also - and most importantly - with his own self. 

Dariha Erketaeva is a humanitarian professional from Kyrgyzstan – a country that, she says, “very few people know about”. Throughout her career and many negotiations, she's often found it challenging to be taken seriously as a young woman, as a person from a distant Asian country, or as a non-Arabic speaker. In this episode, Dariha reflects on how the way one looks, acts, and is perceived by a counterpart can impact dramatically the outcome of a negotiation process, and how she found...

In 2016, Innocent Sauti left his home in Zimbabwe to take up a humanitarian mission in Myanmar. Originally a teacher, he had seen the positive impact of international aid on school attendance and had decided to switch careers to join the World Food Programme.   In this episode, Innocent shares what it meant for him to leave the African continent for the first time and to start anew in a very distant and unfamiliar part of the world.    

Just like many of her colleagues, Nana Kharbedia – a humanitarian professional from Georgia - was often thrown into a negotiation without getting much preparation beforehand. In these situations, she had to make do by relying on her expertise and gut feeling. From dealing with tribal leaders in South Sudan to ministers in Bosnia, Nana shares how she learned to prepare for a negotiation process in a strategic way. 

How do humanitarians build their negotiation skills? Most often, it’s not about reading books or going to school; you learn by doing.   Amro Tarrisi is a former English teacher from Syria who wished to support others who, like him, had to escape the conflict. In this episode, Amro shares how he built a humanitarian grassroots initiative from scratch and learned to confidently negotiate along the way.   

Kiran Kothari began his humanitarian career in the early 2000s in the context of the Sri Lankan conflict and has since then worked on several humanitarian missions internationally.  In this episode, Kiran shares about relying on the “Naivasha Grid” - a strategic methodology developed by a group of humanitarians meeting in Kenya in 2014 and a useful tool to handle humanitarian negotiations.