Description
This paper examines the requirement for ‘contact skills’ to be integrated into PoC training for military peacekeepers, and the resultant training requirements this brings. Alongside responses to protection which require traditional military approaches, a range of UN policy documentation has asked that military peacekeepers develop ‘soft skills’ such as negotiation and communication skills, cultural awareness and civilian-military coordination to better implement PoC mandates. Based on research of pre-deployment training programmes in PoC for UN peacekeepers, this paper argues that due to the demand for ‘soft skills’, there exists the potential to integrate creative forms of training for personnel, drawn from the conflict resolution field. This includes both training content – i.e. the topics – but also approaches and methods to training. Here, the paper examines the utility of ‘elicitive’ approaches to training, based on the implicit assumptions of training participants, as opposed to more traditional models which assume that an expert knows what training participants need.
The paper attempts to match these aspirations to the realities of the training field, and argues that significant structural problems exist which hinder such approaches to training for PoC. Here, the paper will examine the characteristics of the peacekeeper training system, which is largely decentralised to member states, contains programmes which are time limited, and has variations in training provision. From this, the paper will ask to what extent it is possible to implement ambitious training approaches, or whether UN peacekeeping will always be limited in this regard.
