PH ex-chief negotiator in Mindanao peace talks joins UN int’l mediation team

Mirriam Coronel Ferrer is now a member of the UN’s standby mediation team. WIKIPEDIA

NEW YORK — Miriam Coronel Ferrer, the former chief negotiator of the Philippine government in the Mindanao peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, has joined the United Nations’ standby mediation team, the UN’s Department of Political Affairs announced.

Coronel Ferrer is now with the UN’s Standby Team 2018, a group of full-time mediation experts that can be rapidly deployed to provide technical advice to United Nation’s officials and others leading mediation and conflict prevention efforts. Team members remain in their home countries and are deployed when needed.

Team members possess expertise in a wide range of issues that tend to arise in negotiations including constitution-making, gender issues, natural resources, power-sharing, process design and security arrangements.

Coronel Ferrer is also a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines. She received the 2015 Hillary Rodham Clinton Award for Advancing Women in Peace and Security.