Fall 2013: CBI in Action

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE

>> The Ford Foundation’s West Africa Office has awarded CBI a major grant to assess, design, convene and facilitate a national forum on ways to improve the use of oil and gas revenue for development in Nigeria.

>> CBI is currently working with a new Tanzanian leadership institute (the UONGOZI Institute, supported by government of Finland), to design and pilot a set of negotiation skills training courses for the most senior levels of Tanzanian government involved in natural resource and infrastructure negotiations with multinational corporations and multilateral agencies. David Fairman, and senior consultant Vicki Assevero, will lead this initiative.

>> CBI continues to work with Oxfam America across its major programs and thematic areas. David Fairman is facilitating planning for the Extractive Industries and Humanitarian programs, Mil Niepold has built a strong internal facilitation practice with the Gender team, and Catherine Morris recently facilitated an OA internal workshop on agribusiness issues in Africa.

>> CBI is hard at work creating a global grievance mechanism for UNDP, and helping UNDP pilot that mechanism in countries where UNDP is supporting REDD+ (a pilot program to create carbon credits for countries that reduce their rate of deforestation). David Fairman did grievance mechanism assessment work in Cambodia earlier this year. He along with David Plumb will be doing additional assessments in Suriname and Honduras this fall.

For more information: contact David Fairman.

COMMERCIAL AGREEMENTS PRACTICE

>> Patrick Field, Rachel Milner-Gillers, and Senior Consultant Hal Movius, completed a negotiation lessons-learned document and set of tools with Pfizer based on a new drug launched last year

>> David Fairman and Bennett Brooks completed a 10-day series of training and coaching assignments for Pfizer vaccines’ “Emerging Europe, Russia, India and Turkey (EURIT)” group; and a 1-day training in the Netherlands with the Poland and Romania teams.

>> CBI has moved from the pilot phase to full implementation of our groundbreaking “Art of Negotiation” virtual training partnership with CorpU (Corporate University Xchange). 

 For more information: contact David Fairman

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, AND LAND USE PRACTICE

>> CBI is pleased to announce the publication of Land in Conflict:  Managing and Resolving Land Use Disputes. Coauthored by Sean Nolon, Ona Ferguson and Pat Field and published by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy (LILP), this book is the culmination of a decade’s research, training, and practice begun by CBI founder, Larry Susskind, and funded by LILP.  

>> Catherine Morris, along with Raab Associates, just launched a new project to review New Hampshire’s energy siting processes and its Site Evaluation Committee, to engage stakeholders and the public, and to produce a final report with recommendations by January 1, 2014.

>> Stacie Nicole-Smith is leading a CBI team to assist the Cape Cod Commission in creating 11 watershed groups across the Cape with a goal of developing watershed-specific approaches for a Cape Cod regional wastewater management plan. Carri Hulet, Doug Thompson, and former CBI Associate, Kate Harvey, are also working on this intensive effort.

For more information: contact Patrick Field.

CORPORATE STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT PRACTICE

>> In January, CBI partnered with a research team from MIT and Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh) to host a Devising Seminar in Santiago, Chile with high-level representatives of various interests in hydropower development, including government, indigenous and other affected communities, and business interests.

>> Merrick Hoben recently facilitated a WWF Forests Meeting in Panama. Discussion focused on shifting from successful but independent forest interventions to an integrated Forest Sector Transformation program that unites WWF’s private sector engagement with policy advocacy and standards work to multiply WWF’s conservation impact. The overall goal is “ZNDD”: zero net deforestation and forest degradation in WWF priority places by 2020.

>> Merrick Hoben led consensus building capacity building for the leadership of the Peruvian Ombudsman Public Defenders Office – representing all 21 of Peru’s provinces. In September, he extended training to the Peruvian National Water Authority involved in serious national scale hydro disputes and water management issues.

For more information: contact Merrick Hoben.