a look back at last month training of trainers on inclusive governance and gender sensitivity

Mid-March Freddy Sahinguvu (The Hague Academy for Local Governance) gave a training co-facilitated by Brahima Traore, the resident programme manager, to 10 young men and 10 young women coming from the 5 IDEAL municipalities.

After 5 days of course, out of 20 participants, 9 certified as trainers; 11 got a participant certificate. Freddy told us in confidence that: “It was a learning moment for me – basically how do you accompany less experienced participants to understand complicated concepts such social accountability, conflict sensibility and gender -intersectionality, all of this without using PPTs and handouts I had carefully planned.”

When it comes to capacity building at local level, the flexible IDEAL approach allows trainers and programme managers to adapt to their immediate context: “I decided to use oral scenarios reflecting specific problems. The scenarios were fictional of course but fitted the context and the reality of the participants.”, said Freddy. During the training week, trainees had discussions on what are the issues, the actors and what needs to change when aiming at improved inclusive and sensitive governance in their municipalities. More essential, at the end of each session trainees had to come up with their own plan of facilitation with clear time allocation and foreseen facilitation process; it was the first time they were asked to plan in a such detailed manner, which could be a challenge for some of the participants. On the last day, Freddy made a course programme for three days and asked them to consolidate the session outlines they had made over the week and match them with the general programme: “They found it difficult, but they did it very well! They thanked me at the end and admitted that if I would have not pushed them to do it, they would have not done it once back home. Basically, I leave behind a clear programme for three days and good session outlines for all IDEAL communes and 9 good trainers.”

Despite the level of education and understanding, most of the participants showed high commitment and willingness to understand and apply the lessons learned within the youth national council and sensitise their communities once back home. They were also very open on societal issues and their consequences on meaningful participation in local and national governance processes for women and youth.

The monitoring of the follow up of this training session is carried out by the resident programme manager and the resident programme officer, in partnership with the IDEAL municipalities.