General Information
Estonian School of Diplomacy (ESD) was established in 1990 with the aim to train future competent personnel for the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At the change of millennium ESD extended the scope and focused to wider audience including trainees from other public institutions as well as from outside the country. The training program was named International Relations and European Integration and language of instruction was changed from Estonian to English. In 2005 ESD launched the first joint scholarship program in coopertaion with the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to enrol students from the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy. Soon after the Estonian and Finnish ministries of foreign affairs began to contribute to the scholarhip program in order to support young diplomats and state officials from Moldova and Georgia. Since 2011 the US Department of State has sponsored the Belarusian civil society activists in their studies at ESD.
Today the ESD has more than 500 graduates working in the field of foreign relations in state institutions, non-governmental organisations and private sector. Many graduates have become successful carreer diplomats holding diplomatic posts both for Estonia as well as for the EaP countries.
ESD operates as a non-governmental institution with an objective to promote theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of international politics, diplomacy, European studies. In this framework ESD organises:
On 23.12.2002 a 5-member Board was elected. ESD is a member in the following organisations focusd on studies and teachings in international relations and related fields: The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), the European Information Network of International Relations and Area Studies (EINIRAS), the International Affairs Network (IAN), the International Forum of Diplomatic Training (IFDT), the International Studies Association (ISA) and the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES).
Over the years ESD has carried out several training projects focused on following topics: Estonian integration to the EU and NATO; foreign service formation; international negotiations; state and democracy building. A number of projects have been tailor-made to diplomats and civil servants from Kosovo, Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine.
ESD has been actively focused on the developments of the European Union Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) with a special interest in the Eastern Partnerhip (EaP) initiative. Already in 2009 a tradition to organise multilateral seminars and conferences targeted to the state officials of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, was established.
On 1st Jan 2011 in co-opertaion with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ESD established an a sub-unit named the Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership (ECEAP). ECEAP is a reseach and training center focused on the activites of the EaP partner countries with the aim to strengthen their administrative capacieties and approximation to the European Union. The activities of ECEAP involve training courses for senior and mid-level civil servants, expert round-tables, seminars, conferences, a thematic online magazine called the Eastern Partnership Review, various publications etc. For more information please visit the web page www.eceap.eu
Our main supporters are: Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Co-opertaion Agency (SIDA), Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Department of State
ESD students in 2012/2013 came from the following countries. Do you recognize their flags?
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