New Executive Seminar on Environment, Peace and Security

Sep 17, 2014 | Columbia University's Earth Institute
New York, NY

Columbia University’s intensive, five-day, Environment, Peace, and Security Executive Seminar, September 17 to 21, 2014, provides senior managers with the intellectual framework, practical skills, and analytic toolkits that they can apply to their organizations to meet challenges arising from environmental variability and conflict.

Prepare for Global Variability and Uncertainty

The onset of extreme weather, increased population pressures, and global markets’ demand for high-value natural resources has introduced new variability to businesses and socioeconomic development, particularly in fragile and post-conflict communities. The growing vulnerabilities require business leaders, operations directors, and policymakers to think critically about resilience and program design under the conditions of scarcity, stress, and uncertainty.

Conflicts, both violent and nonviolent, are increasingly being linked to environmental stressors, raising questions about how societies are managed and how to prepare for more resiliency as climate variability and resource demands increase. There is a growing need for new approaches to balancing the current use and future needs, managing these resources for current communities and protecting business investments.

Learn Conceptual Foundations and Practical Skills

In the Environment, Peace and Security Executive Seminar, you will learn how environment, peacebuilding, and security are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent; the major trends shaping these linkages; and how these trends are affecting the worlds of business, development, and peacebuilding. You will be better prepared to:

• Assess conflict. You will be prepared to develop and employ tools and methods to understand the social, political, economic, and environmental drivers of conflict. You will be able to conduct rapid conflict assessments where environment and variability are a core component.
• Apply conflict analysis, mediation, and resolution skills. Identifying entry and leverage points, you will be able to better manage conflict and environmental threats, and capture opportunities for building resilience for changing dynamics.
• Communicate in conflict settings. You will be introduced to communication toolkits and approaches to managing conflict contexts.
• Understand and apply data collection and visualization tools. You will gain the ability to request data and information that can improve decision-making, understand data collection methodologies, core data applications, and how data can inform hotspot and risk mapping.
• Develop project planning approaches to mitigate risks.You will gain an awareness of how global leaders, governments, and major organizations are responding to the challenges of this rapidly evolving field, enhancing your knowledge and conversancy on the most important issues.
• Stay ahead of the knowledge curve. You will gain an awareness of what other companies, governments, global leaders and major organizations are doing, and build your ability to network effectively in this area. You will also gain knowledge of other innovators, new thinking, and initiatives on this rapidly evolving field.