Five CSOs attend training on monitoring and evaluation

Five Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are undergoing a five-day capacity training programme in Monitoring and Evaluation and Grants Management in Accra to strengthen their competencies.

They will be equipped with the necessary skills to monitor and evaluate their projects to achieve better results.

It was being organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WASCI) with funding from the French Embassy in Accra under its Fund for Social Development project.

WACSI is a capacity building institute in West Africa that serves as civil society by providing them with requisite skills to promote professionalism within the sector.

The beneficiary organisations of the grant and capacity development scheme were Global Mamas at Ningo-Prampram, Greater Accra Region; Hunger Alliance of Ghana, Accra; Centre for Alternative Development, Tongo, Upper East Region; Children we Care Foundation, New Tafo, Eastern Region; and the Foundation for Information and Strategic Development, Sandema, Upper East Region.

Mr Charles Kojo Vandyck, Capacity Building Officer of WASCI, said the two trainings would serve as learning and sharing platform for the participants.

He said during the period, participants would be provided with requisite knowledge to promote efficiency in the management of project grants provided by the French Embassy.

“Four months after the training, WACSI will provide beneficiary organisations with technical advice to support their project management operations for projects specifically supported by the French Embassy.

“This is to ensure that the knowledge and skills acquired from these trainings are effectively utilized to achieve better results that would contribute to enhance social development in Ghana,” he said.

Mr Gilbert M. Atta-Boakye, Managing Partner at CICADA an M&E Consortium, said so far NGOs activities have made some progress but not getting things right.

He said even though the donor communities were making monies available for development projects at the end of the day, there was nothing to prove and stressed the need to evaluate their activities to see why things were done that way.

He said in some cases, the project vanished immediately the donors left the place and even those NGOs who included sustainability plan in their proposal did not implement those plans, so after two to three years, there was nothing to show for such projects.

“We need to find out if it is our thinking or our culture that is making us to think that those projects are not ours because the funding does not come from us,” he said.

Mr Atta-Boakye recommended that development practitioners should sit back to analyze and see if their targets were being met, if not they should go back and evaluate things all over.

He stressed the need for communities to see development as their own and develop the interest and the zeal to sustain them.

He also advocated serious governmental involvement to hold NGOs accountable for whatever contract they signed with the donors and to ensure that it was implemented to the later.

Every year, the French Government supports small and medium-scale development projects in Ghana by providing financial support to community-based CSOs with its special programme “Fund for Social Development”.

It was established in 1999 and focuses on poverty alleviation, especially on economic and social empowerment of the women and the deprived youth mainly through the support of income generating activities.