The Caribbean region is especially susceptible to a wide range of natural hazards – droughts, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and landslides – leading to an estimated US$3 billion in annual losses. Shocks that affect a large number of people simultaneously, such as the recent volcanic eruption in St Vincent and the Grenadines, require appropriate assistance mobilized rapidly and effectively to those in need.
The World Food Programme (WFP) manages a large portfolio of programmes and activities on Shock-Responsive Social Protection (SRSP) in the Caribbean to strengthen regional and national emergency preparedness and response capacities. As part of this engagement, WFP is developing a training programme to equip practitioners and policymakers to better understand the role of social protection and disaster risk management in preparing for, responding to and mitigating the impact of shocks.
The Centre for International Development and Training (CIDT) at the University of Wolverhampton has been contracted as a learning partner to design these face-to-face, online and self-paced distance learning solutions aimed at building participants’ knowledge, skills and competencies to prepare social protection systems ahead of shocks and to respond to emergencies through the social protection sector.
CIDT are preparing a series of deliverables working in close collaboration with WFP including: curriculum and training resources to deliver a webinar series, face-to-face training, including a train the trainer input and self-paced online learning modules.
The first important step was the development of a programme learning framework as team leader Ella Haruna explains:
“We worked closely with WFP and consulted regional stakeholders to map out the ‘learning journeys’’ of each of the target groups, who may engage with the programme in different ways. The Framework details these learning pathways as well as the targeted training audience, the learning ‘gaps’, the training aims and objectives and the specific learning approach and training methods. We developed a schema of how the different components of the learning programme are to work together to deliver the desired impact and outcome. This learning framework essentially represents the road map for programme design and is the means to ensure that the different components of the training programme come together to create impact at scale… to become more than the sum of their parts.”
The CIDT team includes Prof Rachel Slater and Daniela Baur and is comprised of social protection experts, capacity strengthening experts and specialists in graphic and online course design.
