 Dyma, mae'n ymwneud â'r mynd i roi, dyma'n dipyn sydd yn ymwneud i'r hwn. Byddwn i'r hyn i gymryd, dyma'r cyhoeddiwn darel hwn i wych wneud gyda'r cyhoeddiwyr cyhoeddi answeredorol, yn ymogi ar y nafnod o'u hynod o'r seisio a'n bod y cyhoeddiwn cyllidau gwneud. A dyma'n gwybod yn rusio a ddiwedd yn gwneud eu negotioedd. Dwi'n dweud yw'r negotioedd o fe'i bod am ddim yn fwy o'r ffainfôr deall. In fact, maybe all protection work is about negotiation. We're negotiating for access, as we'll discuss today, but we're also negotiating throughout day-to-day work with all the different partners, stakeholders, interests, communities to try and find pragmatic solutions for collective protection outcomes. In the context of the Housing, Land and Property Air of Responsibility, or the HLP AOR, negotiation is a key part of our work. For example, to support displaced people to be able to stay more securely on land, working with host communities, relevant authorities and others, negotiating power imbalance and different interests as we try and reduce the threats of eviction and make arrangements which increase the security for those staying on the land. Negotiation also features as a key part of the Global Protection Cluster's specialist programme on protection coordination, recognising the importance of negotiation in this training for protection cluster and air of responsibility coordinators and co-coordinators. For negotiation, there are technical aspects and there are relational aspects. We need to prepare and try to understand the context, the key actors, issues and interests. We need to know our own aims and goals and interests and what flexibility we might have. But as well as that, we need to build trust. We need to remember that we're working with people and so relationships are crucial for us to be effective. It's really fantastic to be working more with the Centre for Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation. They have recently joined the Global Protection Cluster's strategic advisory group and so it's really great to be working with them in this session today as well as in many other areas of the GPC's work. I'm really pleased to be able to hand over to our colleagues there, Fiorella Erni, who's the head of operations for the CCCHN and also Eugenia Lecal, operations and curriculum officer, both of who are going to take this through this very interactive and interesting session. So looking forward to it. Thanks for your attention. Thank you very much, Jim, also for this warm welcome and welcome everyone to this interactive session on negotiating access for protection. So as Jim has already said, my name is Fiorella. I am the head of operations at the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation. I will first tell you a little bit more on humanitarian negotiation and who we are, and then we go straight into a simulation exercise. So be ready to actively participate to actually negotiate. This is not one of the sessions where you will kick back and listen to me. This is where I will actually listen to you and I'm sure I will have a lot of fun doing it. So very briefly on the CCHN, we are a strategic partnership between four agencies, the World Food Programme, UNHCR, Doctors Without Borders and the ICRC. And we enhance professional exchanges and peer learning among frontline humanitarian negotiators. So let's just make this very interactive from the beginning. I would like you to type in the chat your thoughts on what is humanitarian negotiations. Please give me some definitions in the chat just what pops into your head when you hear humanitarian negotiation. We have Hannah telling us negotiations for humanitarian access. Catherine, civil military dialogue towards protection, access access. We have an agreement on that, negotiating with armed groups. And now you're being too fast to me to read it all out loud. But I see we have already some very interesting points and maybe some people say also advocacy will come to that. Shorty. All right. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. I will share with you the textbook definition of humanitarian negotiation as it is also available in our field manual. And maybe you could put a link to the field manual in the chat for the colleagues. Now, humanitarian negotiations as we define it for our purpose is a set of interactions between a humanitarian organization and state or non-state factors that can be civilian or military to an armed conflict that aims at one establishing an organization in a conflict setting, ensuring access to vulnerable group, and then of course also providing assistance and protection to affected populations. Now, as Jim has already mentioned, there is a relational component to negotiations trust building. And then there is the more transactional component to our humanitarian negotiations, which is more about agreeing on the terms and the logistics of humanitarian operations. Now, one thing that is very important and negotiation in the humanitarian setting is a long term process. We built this relationships over a period of time and you can find all of this information in our field manual on page nine. Now, I want to talk to you very briefly about the essence of the negotiator or let's say the history of humanitarian negotiation, because negotiation in the humanitarian world is a very, very new concept. Maybe some of you have noticed that you don't really use the term negotiation. You might say, I'm going to meet XYZ to discuss or I'm going to explain or I'm coordinating, but we don't usually say I am going to negotiate. And that comes maybe a bit from this ancient understanding of a sense of entitlement of humanitarian organizations who will go meet the counterpart basically saying, well, you know, you have to give me access because our organization is mandated to assist victims of armed conflict. Now, while this might be right, your counterpart probably doesn't care too much about what you are mandated to do. And this is where negotiation is coming in. Also, there is this other dilemma, right, because we follow humanitarian principles. And even though some principles are non-negotiable, well, we somehow negotiate compromises to implement operations every day. And here we are in this dilemma because in a negotiation, both parties have to compromise. Otherwise, it is not a negotiation. So that is the dilemma that we are facing every day. And I'm sure any one of you can relate to that is that we want to adhere to our principles, but then also serve the vulnerable populations in the best possible way. Now, we at the CCHN, we have realized how much of a challenge it is to navigate this very fine line between adhering to principles and finding compromises, which is why our mission is to create a global community of practice of frontline negotiators from different agencies. At the moment, we have more than 4,000 field practitioners who are involved in our activities since 2016. And here is what we do. We capture and analyze negotiation practice. We do that through research while speaking with humanitarian practitioners such as yourself. Out of this research, we develop tools and methods. We create spaces where we can share negotiation experiences. We call our first encounter with humanitarians a peer workshop on frontline humanitarian negotiation, where you learn negotiation tools and also share and exchange with peers. And then you enter in what we call a global community of practice, where you continue exchanging and sharing with peers. And finally, we also do advisory support to agencies. Now, as I have promised today, we will be doing a simulation. So every single one of you will be negotiating today. And that obviously brings some considerations and ground rules. Now, first of all, as we have already said, there won't be any interpretation because logistically, that is too complicated if we have different languages in the room for the negotiation because we do not have at the moment interpreters to interpret your simulation. What is very, very important, and I know for some of you it is a challenge, but here you really need a stable internet connection, a camera and an audio, because otherwise you cannot contribute to the negotiation. And as we put you in small groups, it is really crucial that you can participate. So if this is not the case for you, then maybe this session is not the best session for you to participate in because you won't be able to actually communicate. You will have 20 minutes to prepare for a negotiation in your group, un-facilitated breakout groups, of course I will give you the scenario. Then you have 20 minutes for a negotiation, an actual negotiation with a counterpart. And then you have 15 minutes for a debrief in reflections in your group. And then we come back to plenary to discuss the way forward. Now I'm going to read to you, present to you the negotiation scenario. You will get these slides also in the chat, but I would really like to ask you to take notes while I'm speaking because you will notice that 20 minutes to prepare is an extremely short time for a negotiation. This is a fictif case that has been inspired by many conflicts around the world. So try not to associate it to one specific context and really go with the scenario. All right. Now you will be negotiating humanitarian access for protection in a country that is called Belgium. What do you know about this country? Well, you know that it is a landlocked country that has natural resources in the southwest down here. This area is currently controlled by an opposition group that is called the Liberation Front. Now here I'm just some words about the history and politics of this country. Now, Belgium had a civil war between 1958 and 1975, and then there was a flaring up of the war again in 2010. Until now we still have a civil war. Now, as you have seen, the government controls really the north of the country and most of the larger cities. And then we have the Liberation Front that controls the southwest where we also have most of the oil wells of the country. Now, as you can imagine, I'm sure the humanitarian situation in Belgium is quite difficult. So, since January 2021, they have been intensified air rates on the southwest of the country, hitting military and civilian targets. Now, therefore, most of the urban centers have been destroyed and people take refuge in improvised shelters and camps, such as you can see on this picture. The humanitarian situation in the shelters is very, very difficult and it is also infiltrated by members of the armed group, the Liberation Front. Now, we have reports that in this camp we have forced recruitment of children into the army by the Liberation Front. We know that boys aged 12 and over are already sent to the frontline as child soldiers. We know that also girls are recruited by the army that they are used for domestic work at the barracks and that they are heavily exposed to sexual violence when working in the barracks. Also, we have reports that there is increased domestic violence in the shelters due to a deterioration of the economic situation and the overall pressure. Now, you work for a humanitarian organization that is called We Are All People. You can also call it WAP or WAAP. Now, your organization provides primary healthcare, maternal health, medical and mental health support for rape victims and you also run community centers that aim at offering safe spaces to women and children. You have been operating in Benchikistan since long before the conflict, supporting primary healthcare and community centers. Now, here is your objective. You have done an assessment in one of the biggest IDP camps in the size west and you have decided to build a primary healthcare unit and the community center inside the camp. Now, it took you a very long time to obtain the green light from the camp management to do that. You know that the camp management is very closely affiliated to the Liberation Front. Now, that you have had the green light from the camp management, you find yourself confronted with a very influential but conservative community leader. His name is Mr Amun, who opposes your plans and refuses to give you access to implement your primary healthcare unit and the community center. Now, he is very much in favor of the primary healthcare unit as long as it does not administer contraceptive and abortion drugs that you would be giving to rape victims. He is also completely against the idea of you opening a community center. Now, this is what you think you know about this Mr Amun. Of course, you cannot say for certain, but these are your suppositions. You think that Mr Amun does not really understand what such a center is good for. You think that he is highly suspicious of western indoctrination of women and children. He has mentioned that on several occasions. He is also concerned that there might be negative reports about the Liberation Front coming out because the international community condemns the recruitment of teenagers into the army. And you are very much concerned that if also your counterpart is very much concerned that if reports about recruitment of child soldiers by the Liberation Front comes out, that would hamper the struggle for independence. Your counterpart is most likely also facing pressure from other male IDPs who don't want anyone to meddle in how they treat their wives and children. Now, I'll tell you a little bit of background of your counterpart, Mr Julius Amun, so you also know who you're negotiating with. And these is more factual. The other things you're just supposing that they're the case. First of all, the son of Mr Amun is a brigadier general in the Liberation Front, so he has a high ranking son in the Liberation Front. He is generally concerned of the well-being of what he considers to be his people. He really considers the people in the camp to be his people and he's concerned about his well-being. He very much believes that sticking to traditional values and ways of living are the only way for a community to function. He sees children as a mean to an end and the struggle of independence and he really believes that everyone has their duty and their share to pay for the struggle for independence. Now, while he very much values the opinions of his wife, he's definitely not of the opinion that women should have the same rights than men, that a woman's duty is to bear children and to support the struggle. Now, it may be that you will be negotiating with Mr Julius, but if Mr Julius is not available, you might be negotiating with his wife instead. So here are your objectives of the negotiation. You're meeting Mr Julius for the second time. You want to obtain his green light and support to open a primary health care unit and community centre to provide the following and note that down carefully. Public health services, clinical mental health and management of rape cases. Mental health support to women and children who have been exposed to violence. Recreational spaces and education for boys and girls. You also want to discuss with Mr Julius the problem of recruitment of boys and girls into the army and you want to obtain his support to start a protection dialogue with the liberation front around the recruitment of child soldiers. I suggest you take a quick screenshot of that because this is what you will be negotiating for. So let's come back to the timing. As I have mentioned before, we will send you now when I finish this presentation, we will send you for 20 minutes into breakout rooms. Some of you will be kept here in plenary because some of you will play the role of the counterpart of Mr Julius Simone. Anyone who is sent to the breakout room will be part of the humanitarian organisation work. You will be in groups of several people within this group. You decide what role you want to take on. You can be the head of mission for what you can be a medical doctor. You can be a nurse. You can be anything you want to be for once choose your role and position and decide how you want to organise and structure your negotiation. Decide who is going to be the negotiator who is going to take over when it comes to technical negotiations. After 20 minutes we will send two colleagues into your breakout room who will take on the role of Mr Julius Simone for his wife and the deputy. So you will have two people in your breakout room. Then you have 20 minutes to negotiate. After 20 minutes you will receive a pop-up message that is telling you to stop negotiating. Then you stop negotiating and then you take 15 minutes to debrief in the group where you tell each other between the counterpart and the humanitarian negotiator how you felt, what went well, what did not go well. Then we will come back to plenary for debrief. I will stop here. Welcome back negotiators and counterparts. Thank you. I hope you had interesting conversations. I see in some rooms there was some struggle with colleagues having bad connection. I'm not being able to talk but I still think you had a bit of an experience on the negotiations. We have about 10 minutes left. We would like to bring this a bit back to plenary, maybe some of the lessons learned that you have had in your breakout rooms. Things that you want to take away so I will then quickly go through each room. Maybe I can share and I've just shared this feedback also with the colleagues in our room. A few of the takeaways that we have had was very much on how do we build this trust with the counterpart from the very beginning. Now we have had a group and I've timed it who talked about seven minutes before actually giving the counterpart a space to talk or to listen. This is really where we want to say start every negotiation with listening. If you listen to your counterpart you know what's important to your counterpart and that's where you can connect with the person and start building this relationship of trust. Then I think the other important point that we took away from the conversation in our room is to be very careful with jargon and humanitarian terminology that we have to be careful about. At CCHN we have some very interesting tools to sort out the language of the negotiation. I will see how it went in the other rooms if there are any takeaways. Room 1 then was merged into room 5. Room 2, any observations or takeaways from room 2? Things that we have learnt is first of all getting the environment set up. Getting that link is quite challenging because in one side of the government is watching who is having any deal with the ripple. You have to set a highly confidential environment that is safe for both the ripple and the WAP organization. Remember there is a frequent air raid that happens so setting a venue itself is quite challenging because with a lot of fears and a lot of anxiety involved. Then using the community again, the community elder who will make the linkage again has to be protected or not exposed. Connecting that line, that community line is quite tedious but meeting a Julius, first setting the environment is more harder than meeting the Julius. Then when you meet the Julius, there are a lot of trust and the darkness that falls between the two parties again to overcome those fears, both known and unknown fears. Again because first of all for your security. If you are to communicate through a telephone line or through a community, it might not be easy because the lines might not be the same both of you. And then the best thing for you to ensure confidentiality is meeting face to face. Because remember the government gadgets, the US government and all these other security agents might be recording if you say you will use telephone or email or these things might intercept it. But the best thing is to meet face to face. And then face to face setting the venue again need to be highly confidential and then you have to overcome the fear, the known and unknown fear. And then you have to give him the surety that you're not getting any gadgets to record. Because these days anybody can have a hidden gadget to record the venue and then that might be setting up the leader. So himself, he has to give you an appointment and then he postpones to make sure that he investigates that all your evils and to do away with all that you are planning to do. And then if you meet again, he will not give you a straightforward answer. But he first understands what is your plan, and then he will give you an appointment on another day maybe after two months or one month. So basically those are some of the challenges that need to be tolerated so that a good relationship or a good rapport that is built on trust with confidence is generated and built so that afterwards is when now the real negotiation and the real pitch of each individual's character will come out. That is some of the things that you have seen in our conversation. Because when we made the videos, he welcomed us, but again he has to set another month. He said we came with the humanitarian principles of impartiality and political independence, all this. We said we are humanitarian, we are not lying to anyone. Our task is to alleviate the suffering of the community and that this will be purposely what we are coming for. So for him now to at least buy time and see that is true to what we are calling for. So he has to give us another time. Thank you very much Osman. Maybe I'll interrupt you here so we can also give some little space to the other rooms. Thank you for sharing your points. I want to see if Stephanie is here from Room 7. If there are any points or lessons or takeaways from your room. Yes, thank you so much. It was not an easy negotiation. We actually tried to establish what I was a negotiator and we were trying to negotiate with Julius. We have seen what my colleagues actually put on before. There is no trust between Julius and the humanitarian institutions that are coming in. Julius was so much involved on full of sufficient that we talk about establishing about the mental health care. He was thinking if we come in with it, we may change his action. The children mind not to focus on their revolutions. So we tried actually to clear his mind that it is not what we are. He was also thinking if we come in, if we allow us to come in at the end of the day, we may be reporting about the child violations. Again, we were panicking on the negotiation because if we respond to it, it may not allow us. So we told him no, there's nothing of such. We are not going to investigate any situation that is going. What we are is to help the people who are in need. So somehow I need to put across that in every negotiation involving like this, there's no trust between us, with the humanitarians and the communities we're trying to help. Otherwise, German is also there. You can also put a point there. Thank you very much. Angus is also one of our community members. I'll hand over to you also for a final word. Please go ahead. Well, that Mr Julius son is a general is an important fact to take advantage of the army probably needs to protect the to project the idea that it respects human rights to gain international validation. That is a very valuable starting point for trying to reduce child recruitment. Thank you very much. And unfortunately, I cannot give you the floor because we're already over time and I have to close here. I would like to thank all of you for joining the simulation this afternoon. I hope you had some fun trying this out. Do feel free to join one of our peer workshops where you would learn all the tools that you need to plan for a negotiation to analyze this network of influence what you just mentioned. Angus, of course, how we can build trust and then engage in the transaction while learning from your peers. We would be very happy to see you during one of our events and hopefully you would also join our community of practice of frontline negotiators to stay in touch. We are available at the CCHN and we hope to see maybe also some of you during the CCHN will summit on frontline humanitarian negotiation that will be taking place next week. All information is available on our homepage. Thank you very much to the Global Protection Cluster for having invited us here and we're wishing you a very good continuation with further sessions. Have a wonderful rest of the day.