Negotiations are more important than we may perceive, as we daily engage in these sometimes without even noticing. A successful negotiation means getting what you want without offending the other party. Negotiating needs continuous practice, analysis and review to sharpen the skills needed for a productive negotiation. The e-learning course “International Negotiations: Practical Skills and Techniques” is one of three courses on financial negotiation that UNITAR’s Public Finance and Trade Programme offers.
This online course took place from 5 to 30 July 2010, and divided the participants into two parties that had differing interests and conducted a simulated negotiation between them. Indeed this simulation exercise was at an international level, as 30 officials and professionals from 18 different countries participated in the course mentored by senior negotiations expert Dr. Osvaldo Agatiello. Over four weeks, Dr. Agatiello guided each team in their negotiation process implementing the theory learnt during the course. This course, which combined compulsory readings, self-assessments and mentored online discussions, focused on providing participants with the skills to be better prepared when facing an international negotiation.
Participants shared their views and experiences on their skills as negotiators, with examples on how they had applied the knowledge learnt in the course to real life negotiations. They also responded to specific questions on the course readings through the discussion forums.
The feedback participants gave to UNITAR was very encouraging, below are selected comments from the course evaluation survey:
“Indeed, I found the online discussions to be very interesting and fruitful. The views and experiences from so diversified a group of participants only helped to broaden one's perspectives and understanding of nature, intricacies and complexity of negotiation”.
“Excellent opportunity to receive clear guidelines to prepare and develop a negotiation at international level.”
As there are more negotiations at an international level than ever before, it is imperative to be prepared and form an effective strategy in order to attain the desired goals in the negotiation process. This course createsd a space where officials and professionals from different countries and backgrounds were are able to learn and practise this necessary skill in a flexible and cost-effective manner, anywhere and at any time.
The e-Learning course on “International Negotiations: Practical Skills and Techniques” will be offered again from 15 November to 10 December 2010. Further information and registration is available at http://www.unitar.org/event/international-negotiations-practical-skills-and-techniques.
For other UNITAR e-Learning courses in the areas of public finance, trade and intellectual property, please visit our course calendar at: http://www.unitar.org/event/programme-area?area=PFTP.