Dialogue skills training for local government officials from nine countries in Africa and Eastern Europe

International IDEA and the International Center for Local Democracy (ICLD), a Swedish organization dedicated to strengthening local democracy, will once again organize a one-day dialogue training for 26 women local government councilors from nine countries. Participants will be from Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Uganda and Tanzania, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The training will take place at IDEA Headquarters in Stockholm.

International IDEA previously held a training on 13 September 2017 and below are some of the participant comments from the event. 

For the upcoming event, the councilors will be visiting Sweden as part of a broader, two-week leadership training organized by ICLD annually. The objective of IDEA’s training on dialogue skills is to improve the politicians’ knowledge and skills for designing, participating into, and facilitating interparty dialogues at the local level. The training also comes at a time when some of the countries are preparing for elections in 2018 (like Bosnia Herzegovina) while the other countries have their elections in 2019 and 2020. Effective dialogue skills can prevent possible electoral violence and improve delivery of services by local governments.