Field Ready! Planning for Success in a Conflict Zone
Learn Path Description
Explore how to be more effective and ethical in your global engagementsFor businesses, aid agencies, and NGOs alike, working in a complex conflict zone presents a myriad of security and political challenges. Too often, organisations can find themselves embroiled in local conflicts and derailed from their missions. On this ExpertTrack, you’ll develop the skills and knowledge to evaluate and assess the challenges and opportunities of working in a complex conflict zone. Throughout the program, you’ll focus on the Malian conflict as a real-world case study. You’ll also use practical exercises and tools to prepare you for the field but all from the safety of the classroom. Meet your Expert Educator, International Security expert Dr Aisha Ahmad You’ll learn with Dr Aisha Ahmad, an International Security expert with a specialisation in civil wars, insurgencies, organized crime, and complex international military interventions. Across four unique courses, Dr Ahmad will give you the foundations to evaluate conflict-affected regions and plan for both humanitarian aid and business success in them. Discover the skills to build conflict maps Before embarking on any activity in a conflict zone, it’s important to assess the environment and plan your operations. The first step of this process is conflict mapping. You’ll start this ExpertTrack by learning how to create a conflict map that covers the dominant actors and interests in conflict theatre. This will give you the techniques to better understand the roles of each party in a conflict zone, the factors that can lead to conflict, and how different parties may intersect. Explore the motivations and perspectives of the enemy Almost nobody thinks they are the ‘bad guy’ in their own story; they think they’re the protagonist in their story instead, and often the victim of injustices caused by others. The second course will allow you to develop a meaningful understanding of ‘the enemy’ in a conflict zone, in order to better understand and strategize in a contested environment. Create robust business plans for conflict-affected environments Missteps in a conflict zone can be incredibly dangerous. Fortunately, there are ways to better prepare and plan for a business, development, or humanitarian project in a conflict zone, even amid uncertainty and instability. On the final two courses of this ExpertTrack, you’ll delve into business and humanitarian project planning in conflict zones, learning how to assess vulnerabilities in your strategies, prepare contingencies, and then stress test your plans.
Skills You Will Gain
Courses In This Learning Path
Total Duration
3 weeks
Level
Beginner
Learn Type
Certifications
Tracking Complex Conflicts
Complex conflicts can involve a lot more side switching, ingroup fragmentation and coalition rivalries. These rapid-action changes can feel like you are walking on quicksand if you don't get to know the parties involved or their motivations.
Aisha Ahmad will teach you how to map and identify the interests and actors in complex conflict zones. This course is three weeks long. The course will use Mali as an example to show you how to analyze a real-life conflict situation.
This course will examine the major actors in conflict theatre, including state, international, and non-state actors. You'll focus on the Malian conflict and help to organize the information into useful categories. It is crucial to determine what people are willing to do to map conflict. You can begin to determine the type of conflict you're dealing with by mapping the entire matrix of grievances.
This course will help you understand the social and material causes of complex conflicts. It will also examine what motivates rebel groups. This course will explore the issues of identity, ideology, economic grievances, and how they can overlap. Mali is used as a case study to illustrate these factors.
After you have figured out who is who and what they want, this course will focus on how these actors function in the larger conflict system. You'll learn about the various types of coalitions and how they affect your conflict map, from pro-government alliances to rebel and even jihadist allies.
Total Duration
3 weeks
Level
Beginner
Learn Type
Certifications
Understanding Enemies
If you don't understand the perspective of the other side, you will make costly errors and may even cause the conflict to worsen unintentionally.
Dr Aisha Ahmad will show you how to see a conflict through the eyes of other people on the ground, including the enemy, in this course. You will be able to see the characters on the ground through alt-lens exercises.
We want to see the enemy as people and not just cartoon villains. This requires us to look at ourselves in these situations.
This course will show you how to use your alt-lens when in conflict. This tool will allow you to understand other people's worldviews and even those that are opposed to yours.
Unpredictability can make it easy for people to behave in predictable ways. No matter what cultural or ideological outlook you have, there are certain patterns that can be observed in human behavior and decision-making during conflict.
This article will explore how violent conflict affects human behavior and how conflict escalates.
You'll build on the conflict map you created in the first course and connect the tools, techniques and methods from both courses to help you better understand the Malian conflict theater.
This course will help you to create the histories, stories, and worldviews for different conflict groups and identify the good and bad guys in each story.
Total Duration
3 weeks
Level
Beginner
Learn Type
Certifications
Doing Business in Conflict Zones
There is a lot of business potential in many conflict-affected areas of the world. However, in unpredictable and risky environments, businesses are often discouraged from investing, resulting in communities losing out and economic factors that can lead to conflict.
This three-week course, presented by Dr Aisha Ahmed, will equip you with the skills to understand the opportunities and challenges of doing business in conflict-affected regions of the world. You'll also gain practical insight on how to plan for success. Understanding how business operates in countries affected by violence requires that you understand their social and historical contexts.
This course's first week will let you explore the concept of a civil-war economy. You'll be able to learn how to operate in hostile business environments with a practical view. High levels of corruption can make it difficult for people to work in countries. You also need to think about the relationships that communities have with the state.
This article will discuss the risks and opportunities associated with investing in a business venture that is located in conflict zones. This will allow you to see how a business venture could affect, transform and contribute to the existing conflict zone ecosystem. The final week will be dedicated to red team exercises. These are key elements that can stress-test your business plans.
This course will equip you with the ability to identify vulnerabilities in conflict zone business plans and how to adapt to minimize them.
Total Duration
3 weeks
Level
Beginner
Learn Type
Certifications
Doing Good in a Conflict Zone
This three-week course, taught by Dr Aisha Ahmad, aims to help individuals navigate the challenges of starting a humanitarian project or non-profit organization in conflict zones. The course begins by examining the role of non-profit organizations within the larger conflict ecosystem and how they can become politicized. It also explores the criticisms faced by the aid industry.
The second week focuses on the practical issues faced by non-profit ventures operating in conflict zones. Organizations must find a balance between security and neutrality to avoid causing harm to conflict-affected communities. The course highlights the risks involved and explores ways in which humanitarian work can be integrated into a larger conflict management and business ecosystem.
Throughout the course, participants will have the opportunity to stress-test a real-life humanitarian assistance project using their skills and tools. They will devise strategies to prevent enemy rebel groups from attacking, undermining, or looting aid projects. The aim is to equip participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to navigate the risks and challenges of working in conflict zones.
This course addresses an important question: why does aid sometimes cause people to be upset, despite its intention to assist? By understanding the complexities of conflict and aid mixing, participants will be better prepared to make a positive impact in conflict-affected areas. Good conflict management skills are essential for organizations seeking to solve conflicts and provide effective aid.
Overall, this course provides valuable insights and practical knowledge for individuals interested in starting humanitarian projects or non-profit organizations in conflict zones. It emphasizes the need for strategic thinking and understanding of the larger conflict ecosystem, while also stressing the importance of security, neutrality, and effective conflict management in ensuring successful outcomes.
