Eric Blanchot, the Executive Director of Promediation, is a mediator and negotiation expert.
His work with Promediation focuses primarily on crisis contexts in Mali and Libya. Since February 2013, he has also been acting as a mediator in Chad on behalf of the CAO, the World Bank’s Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman.
Previously, in 2011, he joined the United Nations Mediation Support Unit (Department of Political Affairs, New York) as a mediator, and from July 2012 to May 2014, he served as Sahel Coordinator for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD). Eric has also undertaken assignments for the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) and the Berghof Foundation.
As a senior consultant with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR, Multilateral Diplomacy Programme), he has conducted negotiation training sessions for diplomats and senior officials in Ethiopia (for UNECA, AU, and OIF), Nairobi (UNEP), New York, Vienna, and Geneva (UN). He has trained diplomats from Kenya, Eritrea, Palestine, and Iraq, as well as foreign ministry officials in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt, through missions led by the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA Paris).
Eric Blanchot has also contributed to the ILC (Initiative for Collaborative Leadership) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, facilitating and training in Kinshasa, Goma and Beni (North Kivu), Bukavu and Baraka (South Kivu), Matadi (Bas-Congo), Lubumbashi (Katanga), and in Rwanda over the past decade. In 2009, he acted as a third-party facilitator for UNDP in Côte d’Ivoire during meetings between the Republican Forces and loyalist forces on Security Sector Reform (SSR), and in 2011 for the OECD during Chad’s national consultation on the Principles for Engagement in Fragile States (PEF).
Since 2004, he has taught in continuing education programs at the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) and occasionally at INET (National Institute for Territorial Studies). Since 2003, he has also lectured on corporate communication at Paris IX Dauphine University (Department of MIDO and Peace Studies), and teaches in the Master’s program in International Relations and Foreign Policy at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development – Master’s in Crisis Management), as well as in the Master’s program in Conflict Analysis and Peacebuilding at Sciences Po Lille.
He has also acted as a facilitator in French interprofessional negotiations, including those on labor market reform (2007) and on unemployment insurance negotiations (UNEDIC, 2008 and 2010).