Note: All course fees include room and board costs for the duration of the training.

Participatory Approaches to Development Management
Course fee: US$2,500
May 8 - 26, 2006
Venue: Philippines

This course is designed for senior and mid-level development managers and other professionals covering development trends, multiple development approaches in managing sustainable and people-centered development programs, and managing development organizations. It addresses the challenges of facilitating participatory development within the development organizations and their partner communities. Participants are introduced to real-life experiences in development. The course is built around observations of community-level development efforts in the Philippines.

Participatory Innovation Development (PID): A Training of Facilitators
Course fee: US$ 1,800 (subsidized by DGIS funding thru the Prolinnova project)
June 26 – July 11 ,2006
Venue: Kampala , Uganda

This training workshop is an initiative of Prolinnova, a NGO-led global programme to promote local innovation in managing natural resources for sustainable agriculture. It is being organised by IIRR with Environmental Alert in Uganda.

The training workshop is open to practitioners from Prolinnova as well as from other organisations and networks. It recognises the need for researchers and extension officers to be more capable of supporting farmers' innovations, validating, documenting and spreading them more widely, conducting joint experimentation with farmers, and building on farmer innovation in their work. The course will employ methodologies that will contribute to the personal transformation of participants towards giving value to participatory processes and becoming facilitators of learning during the PID process. Key learning methodologies include experience sharing, field practicum, interacting with local people, action planning and group work. The participants will thus become aware of the challenges faced by development professionals and scientists in moving local innovations further towards joint experimentation and integrating relevant information and ideas coming from others, including formal research.

For more information and to receive an application form, contact Angie Algo (Angie.Algo@iirr.org) or visit the Prolinnova website.

Gender Mainstreaming: From Programmatic to Organizational Transformation (Featuring the Gender Audit of InterAction’s CAW)
Course fee: US$2,250
August 14 – 25, 2006
Venue: Philippines

Designed for senior and mid-level development leaders, managers and professionals who have the ability to influence their organizations – people who can coordinate and facilitate the change process within their organizations – the course builds on: 1) a review of experiences in mainstreaming gender within their organizations, programs and projects; 2) an introduction to various tools for gender mainstreaming; and 3) focus on use of the gender audit tool developed by InterAction's Commission on the Advancement of Women (CAW) to deepen understanding of gender mainstreaming efforts within organizations. The gender audit focuses on the dimensions of political will, technical capacity, accountability and organizational culture as part of a holistic gender integration framework. Direct interaction with community people allow participants to reflect on a few gender analysis tools for mainstreaming gender in projects. Practical exercises prepare participants for the planned change process to mainstream gender equality in their organizations. Interactions between and among participants on their organization's gender mainstreaming efforts provide an array of approaches and challenges at project, program and organization levels within particular contexts.

NGO Leadership, Development and Social Change
In collaboration with the Global Partnership Program (partners include BRAC, Escuela para el Desarrollo, and the School for International Training)
Course fee: US$2,500
August 28 - September 15, 2006
Venue: Philippines

This three-week course enables NGO leaders to critically reflect on, develop and refine core competencies strategic to managing development organizations in an era of rapid globalization. This course is designed to increase the learner's ability to describe and critique NGO social change strategies; review concepts and theories of leadership, and allow them to reflect on their own leadership style and behavior; and identify characteristics of effective leaders and to apply them. The course approach encourages self reflection and stimulates participants to take the initiative in defining their own learning objectives which are consistent with their personal and organisational goals and contexts.

Participation in Extension: Farmer-led Approaches
Course fee: US$2,500
September 18 – October 6, 2006
Venue: Philippines

Designed for rural development extension staff, officers, and specialists, this course helps extension professionals to develop new capacities for planning, managing and evaluating participatory approaches to agricultural extension programs. The design of the course carefully considers opportunities for interaction between participants, farmers, extension officers from NGOs and the government Department of Agriculture in the Philippines. The course also features case study experiences that focus on transitions in extension approaches within organizations.

Participatory Action Research for Rural Development
Cost US$2,630
October 9 – 27, 2006
Venue: Philippines

This course is geared specifically for decision-makers working on rural development. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect upon and share experiences in rural development, explore principles of participatory action research (PAR), and experiment with a range of tools for examining multiple perspectives relevant to rural development with stakeholders in the field.

Participants critically analyze the PAR approach in relation to rural development and document their insights to add to the on-going discourse on PAR for rural development. Emphasis will be placed on providing a stimulating environment for sharing of ideas among participants, facilitators, and other resource people.

Facilitating Community-Managed Disaster Risk Reduction
Course fee: US$2,500 (already includes food, shared double-room accommodation, training-related local travel, and accident insurance. Not included are international airfare, laundry, and incidental expenses. We suggest at least US$100 per week for personal and incidental expenses)
October 23 – November 4, 2006
Venue: Kampala , Uganda

View Course Brochure (PDF File: 107 kb)

After successfully conducting the Facilitating Community-Managed Disaster Risk Reduction Courses in Ecuador in October 2005 and in Kenya in March 2006, IIRR is now bringing the course to Kampala, Uganda.

Today's world population is experiencing frequent disaster caused by natural hazards. Such condition has resulted to widespread human, material and environmental losses causing the destabilization and disruption of society. These situations show us the need to recognize the link between disaster and development. “Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR)' is out forward as an approach to bridge disaster and development. CMDRR refers to a process of disaster risks reduction in which communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis, treatment, monitoring and evaluation of disaster risks in order to reduce peoples' vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities to overcome/reduce the impact of disasters in their community life. While the ‘Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction' paradigm warrants a process facilitation role from development practitioners, the current lack of capacity to do so constrains the application of CMDRR. Responding to the growing needs of learning and capacity building opportunities on the CMDRR approach to disaster management, IIRR designed this course to enable participants to adapt this approach in their programs.

This two-week course is designed to increase the learners' ability to facilitate Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction process. At the end of this course, participants will have:

• Explained concepts of community managed risk reduction and facilitation;
• Demonstrated facilitation skills to conduct participatory vulnerabilities, capacities and needs assessment based on the identified priority hazards pattern within the community;
• Examined the use of selected tools for CMDRR-centered participatory planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning;
• Considered approaches to sustainability of the CMDRR process;
• Prepared an action plan to initiate or promote CMDRR in his her own work settings.

The course will be facilitated by a team of IIRR facilitators. The team ensures effective balance between concepts and practice based experiences among the multicultural group of participants. The course methodology centers on the concept of ‘experiential learning”. Participants are encouraged to reflect upon their own experiences with the inputs provided during the course using a framework for critical analysis and learning. The course includes both a sequential flow of contents and iterative reflections. The synthesis of learning by the participants - both individually and in teams - helps them generate concepts based on their own context. The assessment and action plan that is prepared by each participant helps them to undertake active analysis. The course will use a variety of methodologies including literature review, individual and group exercises, field project and practicum, task specific work groups, informal setting reflections, case study and role-plays.

Leaders, managers, trainers as well as development practitioners from government agencies, NGOs, donors and consultants will find this course valuable.

For more information or to receive a course application form for the course, contact:

Dr. Kennedy N. Igbokwe
Country Program Coordinator
Email: Kennedy.Igbokwe@iirr.org
Tel: (+256) 782692578

Uganda Country Office
Plot 70. Bukolo Street
Kamwokya, Kampala
Uganda
Tel: 006-41-542339
Email: iirr@utlonline.co.ug

Community-based Integrated Watershed Management
Course fee: US$2,700
November 20 - December 8 , 2006
Venue: Philippines

This course offers a new approach in integrating technologies and participatory strategies within the natural landscape or “watershed” for sustainable resource use, conservation and protection. The course is designed for planners and field staff working with government and non-government organizations in the areas of food security, sustainable agriculture, water resources and natural resources management in rural areas. The course aims to share concepts and strategies for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating natural resource management projects in partnership with local communities using the watershed as a unit of analysis, planning and action.

Field visits to community-based watershed management programs and field practicum, where participants work with communities for hands-on demonstration and practice is a highlight of the course. Other training methodologies include workshops, case study analysis, and interactive discussions.

Organizational Learning for Development Action
Course fee: US$2,250
December 4 – 15, 2006
Venue: Philippines

This course aims to address the purposive quest for learning within organizations that requires a mental set of seeing learning as an “integral part of any development organization's plan for sustainable development.” (Korten and Klauss). This two-week course is designed based on careful needs assessment carried out among select leaders and managers representing government and non-government organizations. Leaders, managers, trainers, as well as development practitioners from development organizations as well as donor and consulting organizations will find this course valuable. Students planning a career in development and social change who are into their master's degree are also encouraged to participate.

This course is intended to increase the learner's ability to create shared organizational development vision for collective learning, institute appropriate systems structures and facilitative leadership functions supportive of shared and collective learning within the organization. The course will be based on the concept of ‘experiential learning”, the bridging of theory and practice. Participants are encouraged to reflect upon their own experiences with the inputs provided during the course using a framework for critical analysis and learning.