Negotiation skills matter now – more than ever
In 2024, humanitarian access was increasingly threatened by escalating conflict, bureaucratic restrictions, targeted violence against aid workers and funding shortfalls.
In this environment, negotiation skills are no longer a nice-to-have. Rather, they’re an essential tool to:
- Gain and maintain access to people requiring assistance.
- Keep aid workers safe.
- Uphold humanitarian principles.
- Avoid delays, restrictions and aid diversion.
Our impact
Throughout 2024, we’ve helped humanitarian professionals across the globe negotiate more effectively in complex, high-pressure environments.
We provided them and their agencies with training, learning opportunities, research, and direct support.
Our work led to:
- More effective and strategic humanitarian negotiators, who are better equipped to plan, manage, and evaluate high-stakes negotiation processes.
- Faster and safer access to populations in need of assistance.
- Greater confidence and resilience among frontline staff navigating pressure and uncertainty.
- More principled and inclusive negotiations, grounded in trust-building.
Scroll down to learn how we did this.
A growing community of skilled frontline negotiators
Since our foundation in 2016, we have trained, guided and supported
In 2024 alone, we trained 1,160 aid workers for the first time
and continued supporting 2,200.
Empowering those who are closest to the frontlines
We firmly believe in providing free, inclusive, accessible learning opportunities for those who truly are at the frontlines of humanitarian action and uphold the needs of their communities every day.
In 2024, 73% of those who attended our training for the first time were national and local staff.
Researching what is most relevant for staff on the ground
In 2024, we particularly explored:
- The intersection of humanitarian diplomacy and negotiation
- Protection negotiations
- Community negotiations
- Bureaucratic and administrative impediments
- Negotiating healthcare in crises
- Negotiating in disaster contexts
- Supporting women negotiators
- Pressure management and mentoring
We learn from and with humanitarian workers who negotiate every day. We regularly conduct operational research around those thematic areas that are the object of high-stakes negotiation processes in key field locations. We then capture, disseminate, and shape our training materials around the best negotiation practices drawn from their expertise.
A focus on today’s most complex humanitarian crises
We tailor our support to context-specific negotiation challenges and provide bespoke guidance where it’s most needed.
In 2024, we worked alongside humanitarian professionals negotiating in today’s most complex humanitarian crises across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe.
Where we worked in 2024
A wide range of learning and sharing opportunities
Humanitarians learn best from each other. To create opportunities for analysis and exchange, in 2024 we organised:
99% of those who attended a foundational CCHN workshop in 2024 would recommend it to their colleagues.
Celebrating 10 years of our methodology, the Naivasha Grid
In 2024, our signature, open-source negotiation methodology marked a decade of guiding humanitarians through complex negotiations.
To celebrate this ten-year milestone, we made it more accessible than ever for humanitarian professionals through a series of free webinars, blogs, and video.
We know that the Naivasha grid continues to be an essential tool for all frontline negotiators. 98% of those we trained for the first time in 2024 confirmed that they find the CCHN negotiation methodology useful or even very useful.
The World Summit: coming together to discuss and shape the future
In June, we once again organised the World Summit on Humanitarian Negotiation – a global conference bringing together frontline humanitarian professionals, experts, policymakers, government representatives and academics to reflect on how humanitarian negotiations shape our response to today’s most complex humanitarian crises.
250 in-person participants and nearly 1,000 online attendees made the Summit a unique opportunity to reflect on shared challenges and innovative negotiation practices.
Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation
Domaine “La Pastorale”, 106 Route de Ferney, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
[email protected] | www.frontline-negotiations.org