International & NGO

AtKisson has extensive experience in working with international sustainability and development issues. Our clients in this category include UN agencies, global NGOs, foundations and research institutes. We are well versed on issues like climate change, water management, and the promotion of human rights; and we can provide expert support at the highest level of organizational strategy, program design, and management.

Founder and CEO Alan AtKisson twice stepped away from his role in the AtKisson Group to serve as the transitional executive director of an NGO, most recently for the global Earth Charter Initiative (2005-2007, see below). He also serves, in an individual (non-AtKisson Group) capacity, as strategic consultant to the 10-country Nile Basin Initiative. And he continues to serve (in a volunteer capacity) as the president of an international foundation that networks sustainability researchers and change makers.

Other AtKisson senior associates also have extensive experience in this sector and with these issues, in both a developed and developing country context. We are sensitive to the cultural, economic, and political issues that must be negotiated in working with sustainable development, especially in a multi-country context. We can be relied upon to provide expert technical, organizational, process and communications support.

Examples of clients and assignments in this category:

United Nations Environment Program - Asia & Pacific
The AtKisson Group has provided design, training, and facilitation support to UNEP's advanced training program for SE Asian leaders for the past several years. Those elements of the program that use the ISIS Accelerator tools and AtKisson facilitators consistently receive the highest evaluations from participants.

Earth Charter International
The Earth Charter is a consensus statement of ethical principles for sustainability, modeled on the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It has been formally endorsed by a wide range of leading international institutions, including the IUCN, UNESCO, and thousands more. The Commission that created it includes Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, Wangari Maathai, and many other well-known leaders internationally.

The AtKisson Group was engaged in 2005 to provide a comprehensive international evaluation and set of strategic recommendations for the next five years of the initiative's development. Virtually our entire network, from Brazil to Japan, was engaged in this project, partly on a pro bono basis (to honor the enormous amounts of volunteer work that have gone into making the Charter a reality).

Then, at the request of the Steering Committee, AtKisson Europe (our Stockholm office) took on the task of leading the implementation of the new strategy, with Alan AtKisson serving a two-year term as the transitional Executive Director. The renamed and expanded Earth Charter International now has new or expanded programmatic initiatives in business, religion, and youth; a rapidly growing website that attracts over ten times as many visitors; new partnerships with international institutions; and more. For more information on the Earth Charter, please visit their website, www.earthcharter.org. (2005-2007)

WWF
Over a one-year period, AtKisson provided strategic and technical support to a WWF International program on fostering more sustainable trade policy with China. We surveyed alternative policy models, drafted reports, and helped prepare for meetings with senior Chinese officials. AtKisson is currently assisting WWF-US on issues of climate change strategy in the corporate sector.