News
Capacity-building and training programme in international relations for representatives Government of Southern Sudan
October 12, 2009. In September 2009, Africa was once more represented at Clingendael. A group of representatives from the Government of Southern Sudan received a capacity-building training focussing on major current issues in international and regional relations. This programme is organised as a contribution of the Netherlands to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005, which brought an end to a decade-long war between South and North Sudan.
According to the CPA, the Government of Southern Sudan is entitled to establish a Ministry of Regional Cooperation, dealing inter alia with neighbours as well as international organisations present in the region. Staff members from this Ministry thus need to become acquainted with a number of international relations challenges and to acquire specific skills to deal with those issues. The Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme (CDSP) offers a tailor-made training package to answer those needs. Built around four thematic modules, the 3-and-a-half-week training session combined lectures delivered by international experts, professional skills training, as well as working visits to relevant international and regional organisations, where participants can interact with policy-makers.
The goal of the training was also to build the capacities within the Ministry for Regional Cooperation and to train the participants’ professional skills. An important aspect of the programme was negotiation skills training, in order to help the civil servants better engage with the donors’ community and trading partners. With a coming year rich in political events (elections are planned in 2010 and the referendum on the future of the country is scheduled for 2011), this programme should provide the participants with the appropriate tools to tackle the challenges ahead.
