ELD Newsletter January 2015

EL D Tr aining New s
F eb r uar y 2 0 15
empowerment learning development
RECENT EVENTS
Welcome to our second newsletter of 2015.
PME IN NEPAL
SUPPORTING SAA
AFRICA IN ETHIOPIA
TRAINING FOR THE
UNITED SOCIETY IN
YANGON
TRAINING ON
REPORTING SKILLS AND
PROPOSAL WRITING AT
YANGON
UPCOMING EVENTS
We began 2015 with a running start,
conducting assignments in East Africa,
South Asia and South-East Asia.
We took our first steps in Ethiopia with a
presentation to development professionals
on our plans for the region, while at the
same time helping one country-wide
agricultural project to develop their
end-of-project document of lessons learned. In Nepal, we ran a training on
PME, while we also ran our first training courses in Myanmar - first for
United Society and after that for a mixed team of professionals from a
range of organizations. This was also our first chance to work closely with
our local partners CBI.
Please read on for the full story!
RESULTS-BASED
MANAGEMENT IN
NEPAL
TRAINING SCHEDULE
2015
Neil Kendrick
Director
ELD Training
For 15 years, ELD has supported its development partners
worldwide through practical training and consultancy. Our
training services are available to development organizations
and practitioners in Asia, Africa and Europe, and globally
through Customized Training, Distance Training Programs
and publications.
Manchester United Kingdom
Tel: 44 (0)161 818 8226
mail@eldtraining.com
pr of essional development f or development pr of essionals
PARTICIPATORY MONITORING AND EVALUATION IN NEPAL
2015 training stated in Kathmandu, Nepal, with a
five-day course on Participatory Monitoring and
Evaluation. Eight participants joined from Nepal and
Bhutan (sadly our Afghanistan participants had visa
issues) representing AMDA Nepal?s HAMI project,
Care Nepal, UNHCR, SIL Internationals and the
SAARC Development Fund. The course ran from 26 30 January and was held at the Summit Hotel,
Kupondole.
The course covered a range of topics such as Project
Cycle Management (PCM) and the Logframe,
stakeholder analysis and defining indicators, and
presented and gave participants practice in a range
of participatory tools for conducting Monitoring and
Evaluation.
PARTICIPATORY MONITORING AND EVALUATION,
KATHMANDU, NEPAL
Participants on PME training at the Summit Hotel, Kathmandu, Nepal
SUPPORTING SASAKAWA AFRICA IN ETHIOPIA
Meanwhile, ELD Director Neil kendrick visited Addis Aababa, Ethiopia, to assist Sasakawa Africa?s
SG2000 program with documenting their five-year evaluation and lessons learned on agricultural
extension throughout Ethiopia. Interestingly, this assignment came as a direct result of training three
Sasakawa team members in Kenya in 2014 at a Reporting Skills / Proposal Writing workshop. On their
return they shared the learning with the rest of their team and 16 authors developed 16 separate
chapters which now form the core of the book soon to be published. It was good to see that through
using Mind Manager - a mind mapping software we introduce in some training courses - they had all
turned out consistently well-organized and focused contributions, making the document a potentially
valuable learning for others working in agricultural extension.
PRESENTATION AT ADDIS ABABA
While in Addis, ELD also held a small presentation to
share on its plans for upcoming training in Ethiopia.
Invitees joined us at the Desalegn Hotel opposite the EU
building in Bole, where we had an open discussion on
how ELD can best serve the development community.
So far, our work in Africa has been mainly focused on
Kenya as a regional centre. However, the number of
participants coming from Ethiopia and neighboring
countries indicates that there are good reasons why we
should establish an operation in Addis - and, in line with
Neil Kendrick discusses ELD Training's plans for Ethiopia at
Desalegn Hotel, Addis Ababa
our strategy for developing several regional hubs of
activity, we plan to develop local capacities over the
next five years so we have, in Addis as well as
elsewhere, training teams able to meet the needs of development professionals in various regions.
MYANMAR: TRAINING FOR THE UNITED SOCIETY
After Ethiopia, we had two training assignments in
Yangon, Myanmar. This was a first for us, and the
initial reason for travelling there was an invitation
from the United Society (UK) to train a team of 22
participants on Reporting Skills and Proposal
Writing. The team was diverse - with participants
from the UK, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India,
Bangladesh and Myanmar - and the six-day
program included a field trip to visit a Farmer
Training Center supported by USUK. The training
ran from 2 - 7 February.
United Society participants visit a Farmer Training Center in Myanmar
We were supported by two expert facilitators from
our local partner the Capacity Building Initiative
(CBI), so the training team consisted of Neil
Kendrick, Phyo and Tay Zar. Even as three people,
we were all very busy throughout, especially when
the teams were developing logical frameworks for
their projects. It is interesting to note that almost
no-one in the group had encountered the Logframe
/ LFA before. Yet, they all still managed to develop
Logframes that worked, even down to having
relevant indicators and realistic assumptions.
Participants were extremely enthusiastic
United Society participants on a training course on Reporting Skills and
Proposal Writing at Yangon, Myanmar
throughout and very positive about the course.
Many described the course as ?excellent? and a
?wonderful learning opportunity? and were keen to improve their future projects through logical
planning, clearer objectives and better Monitoring and Evaluation.
MYANMAR: PUBLIC TRAINING ON REPORTING SKILLS AND
PROPOSAL WRITING
While in Myanmar, we also decided to extend
our training services to the wider
development community. We already had
participants travelling frequently to join our
courses at Bangkok, so we scheduled a course
on Reporting Skills and Proposal Writing at
Panda Hotel, Yangon, from 9 - 13 February.
Altogether, 11 participants came - five from
DFID, two from the Central Cooperative
Society, two from the Livelihoods and Food
Security Trust Fund (LIFT) and one from CBI.
Again, we were supported by CBI facilitators,
and CBI also offered us a training venue for
the final two days for the sessions on
Logframe and developing proposals.
Participants from DFID on our public training course on Reporting Skills and
Proposal Writing at Yangon, Myanmar
While there were a few minor logistics issues - it was, after all, our first time in Myanmar - participants all
rated the training highly. To quote one participant?s feedback, ?I am very happy with the training. It was
well-organized. The trainers explained things very well and also gave a lot of opportunities to practice,
which makes it more likely we will be able to apply the skills.?
UPCOMING EVENTS
Over the next couple of months most of our activities - apart from some customized training
assignments - will be in Nepal.
RESULTS-BASED MANAGEMENT - March 16 - 20 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - March 23 - 27 2015
WORKING WITH GROUPS: FACILITATION AND PRESENTATION SKILLS - March 30 - April 3 2015
MANAGING SYSTEMS AND PEOPLE: PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS - April 19 - 24 2015
However, from May onwards expect to see more ELD training courses in East Africa (Ethiopia and Kenya)
and South-East Asia (Thailand and Cambodia).
TRAINING SCHEDULE 2015
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
FROM PLANNING TO PERFORMANCE: PROJECT PLANNING, PROPOSAL WRITING AND REPORTING - May 11 - 15 2015
FROM PLANNING TO PERFORMANCE: PROJECT PLANNING, PROPOSAL WRITING AND REPORTING - November 9 - 13 2015
Bangkok, Thailand
MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION: REPORTING SKILLS - June 1 - 5 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - June 8 - 12 2015
MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION: REPORTING SKILLS - October 5 - 9 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - October 12 - 16 2015
Kathmandu, Nepal
MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION: REPORTING SKILLS - February 23 - 27 2015
RESULTS-BASED MANAGEMENT - March 16 - 20 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - March 23 - 27 2015
WORKING WITH GROUPS: FACILITATION AND PRESENTATION SKILLS - March 30 - April 3 2015
MANAGING SYSTEMS AND PEOPLE: PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS - April 19 - 24 2015
MEASURING TOGETHER: PARTICIPATORY MONITORING AND EVALUATION - May 25 - 29 2015
MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION: REPORTING SKILLS - June 22 - 26 2015
RESULTS-BASED MANAGEMENT - July 6 - 10 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - July 13 - 18 2015
MANAGING SYSTEMS AND PEOPLE: PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS - July 26 - August 1 2015
WORKING WITH GROUPS: FACILITATION AND PRESENTATION SKILLS - August 10 - 14 2015
MEASURING TOGETHER: PARTICIPATORY MONITORING AND EVALUATION - September 14 - 18 2015
MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION: REPORTING SKILLS - November 16 - 20 2015
RESULTS-BASED MANAGEMENT - November 23 - 27 2015
IDEAS INTO ACTION: PROJECT PLANNING AND PROPOSAL WRITING - November 30 - December 4 2015
MANAGING SYSTEMS AND PEOPLE: PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS - December 13 - 19 2015
Nairobi, Kenya
FROM PLANNING TO PERFORMANCE: PROJECT PLANNING, PROPOSAL WRITING AND REPORTING - July 6 - 10 2015
Phnom Phen, Cambodia
FROM PLANNING TO PERFORMANCE: PROJECT PLANNING, PROPOSAL WRITING AND REPORTING - June 15 - 19 2015