Sustainable Development Strategies, Geneva, Switzerland

Ida Koppen has worked as an expert in mediation, negotiation and facilitation since 1989. She is a registered mediator in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland; Senior Practitioner Consultant with the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Vice-President of the Sustainability Challenge Foundation in the Netherlands; and external Faculty member at TiasNimbas Business School at Tilburg University. She has Dutch and Italian citizenship. Her working languages are English, French, Italian, Dutch and German.

Her consulting work focuses on conflict management and facilitation in the context of sustainable development and environmental policy. Past projects include Local Agenda 21 for the City of Spoleto, Italy; Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue at PrepCom IV in Bali of the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development; International Consultation on Education for Sustainable Development in Göteborg, Sweden; mediation in Laag-Holland (Low-Holland) and De Groene Uitweg (The Green Way-out); facilitation of the ENCORE network (Environmental Conference of the Regions of Europe).

Since 1994, she is a permanent member of the Faculty of the International Programme on the Management of Sustainability. She was Director of the Regional Programmes on the Management of Sustainability in Dakar, Senegal in 2006 and 2008. From 1999 until 2002 she was Professorial Lecturer of Negotiation Techniques and Environmental Conflict Management at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Centre. Since 2006, she teaches Negotiation Skills and Techniques at the UNEP/University of Geneva/Graduate Institute Certificate of Advanced Studies in Environmental Diplomacy in Geneva.

She holds degrees in environmental studies (BA, Honors College, University of Oregon, 1980) and in law (JD University of Amsterdam, 1985). She did postgraduate research and training at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and, as Fulbright Scholar, at MIT and at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. She is a member of the Swiss network of mediators for international child abduction.