Just before the start of the rainy season in March 2012, 24 participants gathered in Juba to spend full 4-days learning about EU development aid. Ruth Faber (Secretariat) and Adrian Hawthorn (Tearfund) delivered a programme based on EU-CORD’s nine previous workshops and on the needs and expectations of the participants.
In July 2011, South Sudan became an independent state – but one with a lot of development goals. In response to this the European Union established a delegation in Juba in order to focus their strategic approach in this new country. Head of Delegation Sven Kühn visited the workshop presenting the EU’s strategy and generously staying to answer participant’s questions.
The training formula was a mixture of theory and practice. The workshop took participants on a journey from an overview on how the EU functions in terms of its development approach to the practicalities of writing a logframe, budget and concept note in response to the EU Call for Proposals system. Some of the most energetic moments came when participants were invited to role play ‘visiting a donor office for the first time.’ Some participants took the role of the donor while others were the NGO – all the challenges of communication, misunderstanding, and time pressures were played out while others observed the action and suggested how the interaction could have been improved.
At the end of each day, a wrap-up quiz was held to test what had been learned.
By the end of the course, logframes and concept notes had been drafted and critiqued and as one participant put it: ‘We are now empowered and look forward to tackling the ‘giant’ of future applications.’
These regional workshops are just one way that as a network we support each other in improving the quality of our work and building the capacity of local partners.
