From 19- 22 February 2018 in Libreville, sixteen civil society representatives, including four from the forest administration and Technical Coordinating Committee (CTC), undertook training on project design and writing funding proposals. These stakeholders, who directly or indirectly work on issues of forest governance, came together for a four-day workshop organised by Brainforest as part of the CV4C project in Gabon.
The training was very focused and was based on a set of presentations, group work, direct interactions between participants and a case study, enabling participants to make better use of some basic tools and methodologies for project development as well as writing funding proposals. These tools included the Results-Based Management grid, Problem and Objective trees, stakeholder and risk analysis, as well as logical frameworks and more.
One of the trainers, Dr. Aurelian Mbzibain, noted, “If members of the platform are trained in project development, this will allow the platform to mobilise the necessary resources to enable its members carry out actions to support forest governance in Gabon. At times, NGOs do not have access to funding and therefore develop activities that aren’t executed. This training provides the tools and skills needed for more effective project development and increased success in securing project funding “.
Participants were mainly from the ‘Gabon Ma Terre Mon Droit (GMTMD)’ platform, the Administration in charge of Forests and the Technical Coordinating Committee (CTC). They have gained knowledge of the subtleties of proposal writing that can attract the attention of donors.
The training was found to be very practical, as suggested by most of the participants. Below are views from some participants:
“I was very satisfied with the organisation, the pedagogical methods and the competence of the trainers. All these elements combined, allowed us to acquire knowledge and develop skills and abilities that can now be used to set up projects for our various organisations. Four days may be insufficient for such training. It may be advisable to increase the number of days in future training programmes.” Charles Moubeyi, from the NGO MUYISSI ENVIRONMENT.
“This was an opportunity for me, as I have not yet had the chance to participate in or develop a project. I discovered the different aspects that constitute the outline of writing a project. What I now need in the long run is to practice and master the process of developing a project.” Sylvana Laura Ntsame Nguema, from Agence Nationale d’Exécution des activités Filière Bois
This capacity building workshop complements others that have been delivered as part of the CV4C project, including such as – Organisational Development, Independent Forest Monitoring, Gender mainstreaming in Forest Governance, Financial Management and more. These have all benefited project partner Brainforest and other non-state actors in Gabon involved in the process of improving forest governance.
