West Africa Civil Society Institute wacsi.org

CSOs congratulate WACSI for strengthening their institutional and operational capacities

Civil society organisations (CSOs) from Benin, Niger, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire were thankful to WACSI for a two week institutional strengthening training which benefited them. The training which took place from August 28 to September 8, 2012 in Conakry, Guinea empowered 26 CSOs from these four Francophone countries with knowledge and skills in Board Development and Strategic Planning, Human Resource Management, Financial Management, Budgeting and Grant Reporting and Monitoring and Evaluation. These courses were designed to enable the organisations to acquire essential skills to enhance their professional effectiveness and efficiency and strengthen their institutional structures. The training had a social relaxation component that promoted networking, experience sharing and the strengthening of professional relationships.

Participants appreciated the high organizational standards of the training. They commended the suitable training content which addressed their challenges, the dynamic, competent and experienced resource persons who facilitated the different modules and the training methodology which created room for them to participate effectively. Participants lauded the tactful skills of the facilitators who encouraged experience sharing among participating organisations.

In appreciation of this initiative which aims at professionalizing CSOs in West Africa, the participating organisations gave WACSI a symbolic award in recognition of its efforts to strengthen CSOs by empowering them with the vital and needed skills.

A unique aspect of the training which enabled participants to meet their expectations was the technical support of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). Adding to its financial support which enabled the training to take place, some of OSIWA’s staff provided their technical expertise to provide participants with a detailed understanding on how to adopt appropriate organizational practices that would win the confidence of their stakeholders, notably beneficiary communities and donors.

The Country Director of OSIWA Guinea, Mathias Hounkpe, the Director of Finance Officer, Aitta Sarr, the Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, Hutton Hounsinou, Acting Grants Manager, Khaita Sylla and the Guinea Programme Coordinator, Abdoul Diallo spent some time coaching participants on best institutional practices that could be adopted to enhance the managerial standards of their organisations. These OSIWA staff used this opportunity to explain the expectations of OSIWA to beneficiary organisations. They clarified doubts with respect to grants management and reporting and the best techniques to utilize to win the trust of donors.

These clarifications, together with the different modules they undertook enabled participants to be clear on how they would lead management processes in their organisations. Participants pledged to be more discrete and professional in managing funds allotted to their organisations.

In a visit to WACSI’s Accra office on Friday September 14, 2012, Flora Agoua Ogounchi, a participant at the training who represented ONG Soeurs Unies à l’œuvre (S.U.O) – Benin, used the opportunity to extend her profound gratitude to the Executive Director of WACSI, Nana Afadzinu for the training. She affirmed that the different modules have enabled her to deeply understand the best managerial approach which SUO would adopt henceforth. She further expressed her satisfaction with WACSI’s quality standards of delivering trainings to empower CSOs and noted that she would like to participate in other trainings organized by the Institute.

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