Civil Society Training Workshops
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Facilitating workshops in Libya
Dr. Hany El Banna, Dr. Mohamed Abu-Elmagd and Mr. Tarek Abdelgawad visited Eastern Libya from 24/4/2011 to 3/5/2011. During this visit, four workshops have been conducted in Benghazi and Albayda to build the capacity of leaders of the Libyan NGOs. Over 180 participants attended these workshops (over 40 % were women). They represented NGOs from Benghazi, Albayda, Durna and other surrounding towns. Also, two hands on sessions have been conducted to help Libyan NGOs utilize the internet in networking and communicating their achievements.
Background of the Humanitarian Activities in Libya
Most of the NGOs in Eastern Libya are newly formed or not registered yet. The National Council has recently set up a committee to regulate and coordinate humanitarian activities. Some of these NGOs are led by Libyans just returned from living in Europe and North America.
The work of the Libyan NGOs is focusing mainly on relief and emergency activities for displaced persons and on fulfilling basic needs (food, water and shelter) for poor communities. Most of the major international organizations and NGOs are present on the ground but are not fully involved in the humanitarian work, for security reasons.
Most of workshop participants have no or little experience in the humanitarian work. There was some difference in the participants' background, experience and competencies.
The Main Outcomes of the Workshops
They have improved the capacity of the participants and provided them with state of the art knowledge and skills of the Results Based Management (RBM) approach to effectively plan, implement and monitor relief and development programmes.
They enhanced the participants' knowledge of how to attract and manage volunteers and the importance of networking and coordination.
The Expected Outputs of the Workshops
At the end of each workshop, the trainees were able to:
- Recognize the concepts and principles of the RBM method/approach
- Recognize the national and international trends for using the RBM
- Develop and use the results chain, the performance indicators and the Performance Monitoring Framework (PMF)
- Recognize and use the planning tools of RBM and be able to prepare the reports of their different project/activities
- Use these tools to plan, manage and monitor their projects
- Recognize and use the tools and methods of collecting data and measuring performance
- Recognize the importance of networking and coordination
- Recruit and manage volunteers effectively.
List of the Main Topics Presented In Each Workshop
- Fundamentals of Results Based Management (RBM)
- Problem Analysis
- Results - Results chain
- Stakeholder Analysis
- Risks and Risks Mitigation Strategies
- Operational Plans
- Performance indicators (Quantitative and Qualitative)
- Development of Performance Measurement Framework ( PMF)
- Data sources and methods of data collection
- Performance Measurement and Reporting
- Networking and Coordination
- Volunteers Recruitment and Management
Workshops Implementation Methodology
Dr. Mohamed Abu-Elmagd, the main facilitator, prepared the training material in a simple way to suit the trainees' capacities level.
The training methodology combined lectures with practical sessions using the adult training tools and techniques. This included for example:
- lectures and discussions
- brainstorming
- card-storming
- role playing
- individual, group, and plenary work and exercises
The group exercises have included the following:
- practical exercises on the concepts that need to be understood (short exercises in plenary sessions)
- small group exercises on the use of several concepts
- group study, with as much open discussion as possible on some selected topics
- practical group exercises on selected projects
Workshops General Evaluation
At the end of each workshop, an evaluation questionnaire was distributed to assess participants' opinions regarding the knowledge gained, training materials, trainers' performance and organizational matters.
In general, the participants were satisfied with the different aspects of the workshop. Most of their comments are taken into account in the lessons learned and the recommendations sections.
Conclusion
The workshops have been successful in achieving its results. It was useful and has a noticeable positive impact on the participants.
The workshops enhanced participants' knowledge and developed their skills to apply RBM principles and tools in the work environment. The participants became able to begin developing an integrated plan for their projects by using RBM tools, starting with determining the problem tree, and ending with preparing the performance measurement framework for their work plan.
