Whatever one’s position on the UN actually is, fluency in the UN’s standards can be dead handy when making an argument as to the successes and failures of the institution.

Such fluency can also be useful when examining the gaps between rhetoric and operations for the wider international community as well.

Accordingly, I thought I would share that POTI (the United Nations Peace Operations Training Institute) is providing free training and certification in the following:

Gender Awareness Training 

1. Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions on the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in South Africa
2. Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions on the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Asia and the Pacific
3. Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions on the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean

“Common Core” Courses

1. Principles and Guidelines for UN Peacekeeping Operations
2. Core Pre-deployment Training Materials

Each course appears to be approximately 300 pages of reading and comprehension, and comes with free online practice exams.

Successful completion of each course provides a POTI Certificate – which might look quite nifty on one’s CV (but nowhere near as spiffy as the uber-nifty, magical and deep-level understanding of a SCID MSc credential!!!)

Each course is designed to be completed via distance learning and is readily portable (The PDFs can be downloaded onto your iPad)

The fact POTI is providing Gender Awareness Training free of charge indicates a certain level of commitment to changing the global paradigm, and (I suspect) the credential would be reviewed with additional favour for anyone seeking to slip into the future stream of UN endeavours. Of course, what one section of the UN is thinking might very well be different from another.

Here is the link for all interested parties…

https://www.peaceopstraining.org/courses/