Overview

Since 2010, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) have collaborated to conduct conflict mitigation workshops in Haiti.  As a result, more than 40 Haitian civic leaders have enhanced their skills in the areas of dialogue and conflict resolution and acquired new techniques to prevent and resolve conflict in their communities. Participants have applied their skills successfully to a number of local conflicts, including preventing electoral violence at the community level in the 2010-11 national elections. (Read about previous workshops.) Over the past year, these civic leaders and peacebuilders have turned their attention to facilitating consensus on development priorities at the local level and organizing advocacy campaigns. 

The skills of dialogue, conflict resolution and group facilitation are essential to the task of building consensus and advancing development objectives, particularly in an environment such as Haiti where prolonged lack of resources, neglect of basic needs, and poor governance have bred frustration and conflict. Furthermore, just as political divisions playing out at the national level hamper progress, these same divisions hamper local level cooperation. Therefore, the task of building or rebuilding Haiti’s infrastructure is also one of building collaborative relationships based on mutual respect – among civil society, between civil society and government, and between Haitians and international actors.

Dialogue Facilitation Workshop for Civic Leaders

In order to expand the number of civic leaders with these valuable skills, NDI convened a new group of 26 civic leaders in Mirebalais, Haiti on June 21-23, 2012 for a “Dialogue Facilitation Workshop” facilitated by myself with the support of NDI’s Haiti field staff. The participants came from the following regions where they are carrying out civic advocacy work related to border issues, infrastructure, tourism and agriculture: North, Northeast, South, Southeast, Center and West. The workshop was designed to help prepare them to facilitate dialogue on development issues among groups who are divided along political lines as well as achieve consensus with fellow civil society leaders in order to enhance collective action and the efficacy of their advocacy campaigns. The group responded enthusiastically to the training and requested another more advanced workshop which USIP hopes to provide. NDI staff will continue to support and monitor their progress on the ground.  

Negotiation Seminar for Haitian Women MPs

As part of NDI’s joint efforts to develop a women’s caucus in Haiti’s parliament, I traveled back to Port-au-Prince from Mirebalais to facilitate a seminar on the “Art of Negotiation.”  The workshop was held at the offices of NDI in Port-au-Prince on June 25th and attended by four of Haiti’s five women members of parliament (MPs). In addition to introducing the MPs to key principles of negotiation, the seminar produced a lively discussion on the particular challenges faced by women as a small minority in parliament and how negotiation skills can better addressing these challenges. Based on requests by the MPs, USIP and NDI are developing plans to provide more in-depth training to the women, possibly in Washington, DC, which could also afford them the valuable opportunity to interact with U.S. women lawmakers. 

Explore Further

• Countries and Regions: Haiti
• Previous USIP-NDI Workshops: Haiti, September 2010
• Previous USIP-NDI Workshops: Haiti, July 2011
• Previous USIP-Digital Democracy Workshops: Monitoring Election- and Gender-Based Violence in Haiti