On the 29th and 30th November, 34 participants gathered in Maubara, East Timor, for a teaching session designed to strengthen knowledge and skills for the analysis of management tools, researching information and ways to use these sources of information for advocacy.
“Development: my country undergoing change” was the theme for this first training session of the project “More Citizenship, more Development” that brought together representatives of 14 civil society organizations selected to benefit from the initiative.
With a participative methodology and through discussion groups NGO representatives had the opportunity to meet and propose questions about the State Budget for 2011 and discuss ways to search and analyse information sources. Moreover they discussed the right means to use these sources for advocacy and support to local NGOs – a session given by Juvenal Dias, a member of the National NGO La’o Hamutuk and expert in the field of research and analysis of public policies. There was still time to analyse the 2010 Census – a training conducted by Nani Rolando from the National Office for Statistics of East Timor.
The training also provided the opportunity to share experiences among NGOs on monitoring the projects from the Programme for Decentralised Development (PDD) and Local Development Programme (LDP) in the district and the difficulties and doubts when carrying out an advocacy process. Two intense days of work that participants rated as “very important” for the strengthening of their skills.
The project “More Citizenship, more development” began in June this year, with a study on civil society in the Liquica District – where the intervention takes place – which included 17 local NGOs active in the district, five cooperatives, among other institutions.
The document, which covered an analysis of the state of art of civil society and the socio-economic and political context of the country, allowed the project team to map out activities for the following months to achieve the defined objectives, including training and strengthening Civil Society and Community-Based Organisations to improve the efficiency and sustainability of their actions.