Much of this learning has to come from experience, both professional and personal. However, training also has a role to play: it facilitates the sharing of experiences, creates time for reflection and builds up the necessary skills to carry out effective peace work. Practices evolve, and much has to be learnt and shared from existing peacebuilding work from the field. This is why, as much as we are a training organisation, we are also a learning organisation. Our trainings are informed by the field, and are practice-based in essence.

We believe the improvement of peacebuilding efforts requires the establishment of transparent and universal standards of professional competency that can serve as benchmarks for quality performance as well as targets to be achieved through training and career orientation. We organise trainings for 3 broad categories:

We see the role of trainer in this setting to help bring out the relevant skills of the participants and facilitate the process of skill-sharing as much as to explain and demonstrate the skills themselves.

Each course has a lead trainer, whose role it is to ensure continuity during the course, and the drawing together of the practical experience brought by the guest speakers or trainers. Our training methodology involves a repeating pattern of demonstration, practice and feedback. We believe people learn practical skills by being shown how to do them, having a chance to try them out themselves, and getting feedback on how they are doing.

Finally, most our courses are assessed, which gives participants the chance to evaluate how much they have learnt, and the best ways forward for them to develop their skills further.

International Alert has been actively involved in the European Group on Training for Civilian Crisis Management (EGT) since its creation in 2002, coordinating Phase V of the project funded by the European Commission between 2008 and 2009. The EGT is a group of European organisations running training courses for civilians who play an increasingly important role in crisis and post-conflict situations and brings together the expertise of training institutions from 22 Member states of the European Union. For more information, please visit the website of the EGT or email the EGT point of contact Arno Truger of ASPR. Some EGT courses cover topics such as the Rule of Law, Human Rights, Democratisation and Good Governance, as well as Safety and Security or Mission Administration.

During Phase V, Alert pioneered a comprehensive approach to developing a standard for civilian for civilian crisis management training. This approach is based on standardised content of training both for core and specialised courses, delivered along adult learning principles.

One objective of this phase was to encourage a consensus around a European training standard compatible with other international training and deployment providers such as the UN and OSCE. The EGT working group on Standards conducted a research which reviewed a wide range of training providers and quality assurance bodies at both national and cross border-levels within an outside the crisis management field.

In September 2009 the EGT organised a workshop with participants from among others the UN, AU and OSCE to further explore standards in the field of Training for Civilian Crisis Management. This presented a first opportunity for leading training providers within civilian crisis management to come together. The final report can be found here.

Many university departments throughout the UK offer degree courses in peace & conflict. We have links with a growing number of such departments, where we design and run practical courses to compliment theoretical studies. Students of peace & conflict studies and related disciplines graduate with a good grip on the academic side of this kind of work, but may need more help in how to turn this knowledge into practical skills. We tailor our university outreach to the needs of the students:

• Short, one-two hour long taster workshops designed to open up, and offer ways-in to the sector
• A series of workshops for graduate or masters groups, looking at the practicalities of peace work
• A full Core Skills for Working in Conflict course, lasting between five and seven days.
• An assessment simulation (either half or full-day)

As with all our trainings, our student outreach uses participative methods as much as possible.

International Alert is in regular contact with training and deploying organisations. These exchanges allow us to constantly challenge our practices and improve on them, as well as share training materials and information on evolving practices.

The training unit also fosters cooperation at the UK level with other peacebuilding organizations, for further information, please contactAurélien Tobie

With its partners in civil society, governments and international organisations, International Alert played an important role in advocating for SCR 1325. Since the resolution was passed in 2000, we have worked to advocate for its coherent implementation by the UN system, member states and other international actors. It is also often felt that field experience is essential and a pre-requisite for employment in this field. In this case, entry points are hard to find and opportunities are scarce to join the community of peacebuilders.

While field experience is invaluable, entry points do exist. It is our opinion that the peacebuilding field would benefit from a larger, better prepared pool of people equipped with the right skills and personal qualities needed in the field, and many organisations are looking for new talents and do not require extensive experience.

In this view, the training unit offers training and resources for people interested in learning more, and joining the field of peacebuilding.