In early July, 36 local NGO partners of EU-CORD members gathered in Kigali for a four day workshop on EU development aid. The local partners work in Burkina Faso, Burundi, DRCongo, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Uganda as well as Rwanda. This was the eighth regional workshop on this topic that has been run by EU-CORD in the last three years and it again depended on institutional funding experts from their members Dark and Light and Tearfund UK as facilitators.
The workshop was very well appreciated by the local partners that attended. In fact, a second workshop in the region may be needed in order to fully satisfy the demand that there is.
The Roadmap of the workshop led participants along a path to gain understanding about the national, local and community contexts of EU development aid. They also looked at donor priorities and the Call for Proposals. The participants were also taken through very practical steps, including constructing well thought-out log frames, writing budgets and a set of compelling concept notes, these were all also evaluated. The importance of working in a team was emphasised from the beginning, and energising team games turned theory into practice with competition lightened by laughter.
A representative of the EU Delegation in Rwanda also led a session to explain the Delegation’s priorities for working with NGOs in development. He spoke very positively about the value of such a workshop and appreciated the contribution it made to building the capacities of national NGOs to manage EU funded projects well. He was pleased to take away copies of the workshop manual to share with his colleagues.
The agenda for this workshop was designed to be as participative as possible, and the entire programme was run in English and French.
The group responded enthusiastically and indeed one of them commented that, ‘In this workshop we are all facilitators’.
Picture taken by Diana White.
