Overview
Seven workshops have been held as part of this programme both to develop and then to roll out the Unrepresented Diplomats capacity building efforts.
To develop the programme, diplomats and community leaders from unrepresented nations with a range of lobbying experience took part in three skills-sharing workshops. These were held in Geneva (September 2015), Oxford (January 2016) and Brussels (September 2016) and focused on accessing the UN and preparing advocacy strategies, strategic state selection for effective lobbying, and performing as diplomats. A fourth 'train the trainer' workshop was held in Geneva in November 2016, composed of a training workshop and follow-up advocacy, including a side event at the UN Minority Forum.
After the training pack was finalized as a result of these sessions, the UNPO has built the programme into the core areas of its work and has held in-depth training programmes for specific-UNPO members, including to staff of the Republic of Abkhazia Ministry of Foreign Affairs (May 2019), the global network of chapters of the Catalan National Assembly (August 2019), and the Central Tibetan Administration and Tibetan civil society (September 2020).
The UNPO has begun the process of developing the programme into an online course capable of reaching a wider audience and developing a community forum for participants through which participants can continue to receive support for each other and mentoring from the UNPO Secretariat and other experts.