Regular Capacity Building key to Eliminating Briefcase NGOs- Jinja Chairperson
The LC V Chairperson Jinja District, Mr. Titus Kisambira applauded Uganda National NGO Forum for regularly conducting capacity building trainings for NGOs in the country arguing that most people start NGOs without essential skills to run them leading into brief case NGOs. Mr. Kisambira, who confessed to a strong NGO background, stressed his appreciation for the relevance of NGOs in supplementing government efforts, building and transforming society. He called upon legitimate NGOs not to let the briefcase NGOs hide amongst them to spoil their good work as this would affect the image of the sector. He gave these remarks while officiating at a Policy Advocacy training held for CSOs in Eastern Region held on 15th – 16th February 2017 at Travel Hotel Jinja.
The training, organized by Uganda National NGO Forum, was attended by about 40 CSO leaders from the districts of Pallisa, Mbale, Tororo, Busia, Manafwa, Busia, Kamuli, Kaliro, Namutumba, Bugiri and Jinja and aimed to build the advocacy capacity of participants and deepen their knowledge and skills in policy engagement, influencing and advocacy, share best strategies and approaches for required policy influencing in all stages of policy processes.
CSO leaders were taken through the 8 steps of Advocacy by the Executive Director UNNGOF, Richard Ssewakiryanga, who is a certified Policy Advocacy trainer: Identify and analyze the problem ; Formulate a proposition ; Analyze the decision-making space ; Analyze channels of influence ; Do a SWOT analysis ; Design advocacy strategies ; Develop an activity plan ;Carry out continuous evaluation.
As a key outcome of the training, each CSO leader developed an advocacy plan that would inform their next engagement at a district level. These will be documented, monitored and evaluated from time to time. The training was timely and relevant; a participant had this to say “every topic we shared was just good and I realized every time the facilitator shared with us advocacy skills, I realized I didn’t know them. I have indeed learnt a lot”.
