A hike, a bike and good company. The Dutch kick-off of the RPM week raised some questions: “Why do you have a bike with you?” “Are we going to walk to the office?”. The local teams from South Sudan, Mali, Rwanda, Burundi, the Palestinian Territories and Somaliland did some sightseeing on their way to VNG International where they joined the Hague team for a workshop on the IDEAL programme. Inclusiveness at heart…

Inclusiveness is key for the IDEAL programme: ensuring that every citizen gets a seat at the table of local decision-making. At our table new and familiar faces of the IDEAL team exchanged all kinds of local needs and challenges to learn together and from each other. Everyone played their part in either French, Dutch, English or even Kirundi, Somali or Arabic, because ideally… Change starts at the local level.

Our Theories of Change were topic of reflection following a presentation of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), while on Tuesday we discussed how to collect Most Significant Change Stories. Gender and conflict sensitivity were on Wednesday’s menu and the joint programme ended on Thursday with a workshop on ‘The IDEAL communication’.

We closed the week in a very Dutch way as well: our boat tour literally fell into the water. However, we did not leave our teams high and dry and collected some Ubers to take everyone home.

For more information about the content of the RPM program, click here.