Humanitarian leaders and frontliners need courage to carry on their lifesaving and assistance missions. Courage is required to operate in unsafe environments, but also to negotiate permanently with challenging counterparts, such as authorities from assertive states and nonstate armed groups. In this panel discussion, our speakers will share their insights on how leaders learn to engage all stakeholders responsibly to protect noncombatants and maintain a humanitarian space amidst chaos.
Humanitarian leaders and frontliners need courage to carry on their lifesaving and assistance missions. Courage is required to operate in unsafe environments, but also to negotiate permanently with challenging counterparts, such as authorities from assertive states and nonstate armed groups.
The courage to negotiate includes upholding humanitarian principles in the middle of war, and asserting humanitarian necessity next to military necessity. It means the courage to listen, ask, inform, persuade, persist and get things done against all odds.
In this panel discussion, we welcome Mr Panos Moumtzis (United Nations Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) and Executive Director of the Global Executive Leadership Initiative (GELI), Ms Joëlle Germanier (Director of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation), and Mr Toufik Naili (Senior Curriculum Adviser of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation), in conversation with Professor Alain Lempereur (EUI Chair in Leadership and Negotiation at the Florence School of Transnational Governance).
Our panelists will exemplify different facets of leadership and negotiation courage, and will share their views and insights on how leaders learn to engage all stakeholders responsibly to protect noncombatants and maintain a humanitarian space amidst chaos.
Introduction
George PAPACONSTATINOU is the Acting Director of the Florence School of Transnational Governance, the Dean of Executive Education and the Chair of International Political economy at the STG. He has served the government as cabinet minister, Member of Parliament and Member of European Parliament (MEP). As Greece’s Finance Minister and then Minister of Environment and Energy, he guided implementation of an ambitious and wide-ranging governance reform program relating to budget and revenue processes, market liberalization, publicly owned corporations and the divestment of state assets, as well as for the transition to clean energy and a green economy.
Panelists
Joëlle GERMANIER is the Director of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN). Previously heading the operations team, she has transitioned the Centre from a pilot project to a sustainable initiative. Before joining the CCHN, she worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in field operations in Africa and Latin America focusing her work on protection and operational management. She also worked as Policy and Outreach Advisor at the ICRC’s Headquarters in Geneva. Her earlier professional experiences include diplomatic services within the Embassy of Switzerland in India, as well as field-based legal and advocacy work for NGOs.
Panos MOUMTZIS is United Nations Assistant Secretary General (ASG) and Executive Director of the Global Executive Leadership Initiative (GELI). He is a humanitarian practitioner, with over 30 years of experience working in humanitarian emergencies, primarily in Africa and the Middle East. He has served the United Nations in various capacities, including as Regional Humanitarian Coordinator - ASG for the Syria crisis (2017-2019), as Director of the IASC Peer-to-Peer initiative (2013-2017), as UNHCR’s Regional Refugee Coordinator for the Syria situation (2012-2013), as Humanitarian Coordinator in Libya (2011), and as Director for UNRWA Syria (2006-2009).
Toufik NAILI is Senior Curriculum Adviser of the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation, and co-designer of the EUI-GELI-CCHN course for senior leaders. He joined the CCHN in 2019 and oversees the CCHN’s curriculum. He had previously worked for the ICRC, both as a protection delegate in the Middle East and as a learning facilitator for the Humanitarian Leadership Programme in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He also worked in Israel and the Occupied Territories (ILOT) as a project coordinator for the French cooperation.��
Facilitator: Alain LEMPEREUR is the Professorial Chair in Leadership and Negotiation at the European University Institute, an Affiliate Faculty at the Harvard Program on Negotiation, and Brandeis Chair Professor. He published a dozen books, including The First Move. A Negotiator’s Companion and Mediation: Negotiation by Other Moves. As Essec Negotiation and Mediation Chair Professor, he was the founding director of the European negotiation institute Iréné. In over 25 years and 75 countries, he supported international organizations and governments, such as the ICRC or MSF. He is the EUI lead of the EUI-GELI-CCHN training program on responsible negotiation for senior humanitarian leaders.
All are welcome to attend. Please register, indicating if you will attend in person or online.