Sustainability and Cross-Country Networking Workshop for ILO WED Certified Trainers in Kenya,Tanzania and Uganda; Arusha, Tanzania
The ILO project, Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Economic Empowerment (WED-EE), is organizing the above workshop to bring together the pre-established groups of certified trainers from the three countries and provide them with key tools as well as the space to develop national action plans and a joint regional road map.
20 November 2014
Background
The International Labour Organisation has been promoting women’s entrepreneurship development (WED) as a means to job creation, women’s economic empowerment and gender equality for over ten years. The ILO’s WED programme provides a comprehensive package of tools to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to promote women’s entrepreneurship and increase job creation by women. The programme is unique within the UN family, and works to strengthen the capacity of local and national partners to support women to start and improve their businesses by providing specific tools and approaches for women entrepreneurs, while also identifying and working to remove systemic barriers they face.
Under the Irish-Aid partnership, a project called ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Economic Empowerment’ (WED-EE) aims to help government, constituents and other key stakeholders to identify key constraints, barriers and opportunities to be acted upon in order to help foster women’s entrepreneurship development in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda; support financial and non-financial service providers to identify ways in which to better serve women entrepreneurs and facilitate women’s consolidation of sustainable businesses and livelihoods and access to markets; and finally facilitate the networking and organization of women entrepreneurs into groups as a means to increase their voice in policy-making arenas.
To foster business development service provision at country level, the ILO WED programme supports and promotes the development of local capacity in and broadening of training services to serve women entrepreneurs and women entrepreneur associations. Within WED-EE, ILO WED efforts have specifically focused on building a network of high-quality trainers in gender sensitive business management training “Gender and Enterprise Together: GET Ahead”.
By 2016 in each of the three WED-EE countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), the ILO WED programme aims to have in place a network of at least 10-20 highly qualified, committed and certified trainers in ILO WED tools, particularly GET Ahead capable of offering to women (but also men) entrepreneurs gender sensitive business trainings and services in an economically viable manner, meaning with no or minor ILO contribution once Irish-Aid funding comes to a close. Additionally it aims to foster and nurture the development of formal and informal, personal as well as professional ties between the three national networks as a means to ensure continuous cross-sharing, learning and jointly seizing of market opportunities.
To do so, the WED-EE is working closely in 2014 with groups of trained trainers in GET Ahead in the three countries to ensure that: 1) for each country a group of at least 20 ILO-certified trainers in GET Ahead is created, 2) that these groups have formal or informal mechanisms of communication and coordination among all or a majority of trainers to ensure the widest coverage possible of GET Ahead trainings around the country and 3) and that as a group they have a vision of where they wish to be in terms of number of clients, geographical outreach etc. in the country within the next two to three years.
Objective
The objective of a “Sustainability and Cross-Country Networking workshop” is to bring together all three pre-established groups of certified trainers and provide them with key tools as well as the space to develop national action plans and a joint regional roadmap . Ideally, a regional action plan would be developed but it will depend on the level of preparation and willingness from the different national groups.
Participants and Selection Process
This event is organized for ILO certified trainers in the gender sensitive business management training package “Gender and Enterprise Together – GET Ahead” in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
The event is planned for around 30 certified trainers. This is a significantly smaller number than all the total number of certified trainers in the three countries.
There will therefore be a selection process to identify the final participants. Trainers interested in taking part will be requested to submit an application with their CV, training history since 2012 to today and a motivation letter. The motivation letter will be no more than 2 pages long and address the following questions: 1) why they want to take part in the event individually but also as a member of national network, 2) what connections they have to other trainers in GET Ahead and to organizations (BDS, public agencies etc); 3) how they plan on marketing and using GET Ahead in the next 1-2 years and 4) their expectations for the workshop in terms of content that could help them advance in their individual and network work plans.
Trainers will also be requested to include whether they would be ready to cover some expense for their participation and to what extent – travel, accommodation, food etc and in what percentage.
Trainers must submit all documentation by February 13th. Applications will be reviewed by members of the WED programme in ILO Headquarters as well as the head of the Irishaid funded project “WED-EE”. A final list of participants will be made public in the first half of the week of February 16th, 2015.
Structure and Logistics
The event will be a three day workshop.
• The first day, trainers will be introduced to some tools and ILO tips and advice on how to ensure sustainability in trainings. Sessions will cover key issues such as promotion and marketing of training, costing/budgeting and resource mobilization.
• The second day will be the opportunity for the different national groups to learn from each other on where they stand, what they envision and how they plan to move forward. This will be a first building block to having all three groups start identifying synergies or additional joint activities they can develop together for the benefit of all groups. These activities would have to include self-funding mechanisms.
• The third day will provide additional time and space for national and regional action planning and would close off with a final presentation and discussion on the final action plans and steps forward.
A draft agenda is provided at the end of this document.
Approximately a month and a half prior to the workshop, certified trainers in each country will be convened by the national project coordinators for a half day session. This session will have a double objective: 1) inform trainers on the upcoming workshop and the requirements for participating and 2) provide them with a form they will have to jointly fill out at national level as a base not only for their presentations on the second day but also to highlight strengths, needs and challenges they face in order to ensure training sustainability at country level. This will help workshop organizers better tailor the first day to trainers’ needs to develop sustainability strategies. This form will have to be submitted two to three weeks prior to the workshop.
Venue and tentative dates
The location of the workshop will be Arusha based on distance from the other countries in order to minimize costs. This will be particularly important given that participants will be expected to bear some of the costs such as travel. The venue would be the MS-TCDC Training Center (http://www.mstcdc.or.tz/)
Tentative dates for the workshop are March 23 to 25, 2015.
The International Labour Organisation has been promoting women’s entrepreneurship development (WED) as a means to job creation, women’s economic empowerment and gender equality for over ten years. The ILO’s WED programme provides a comprehensive package of tools to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to promote women’s entrepreneurship and increase job creation by women. The programme is unique within the UN family, and works to strengthen the capacity of local and national partners to support women to start and improve their businesses by providing specific tools and approaches for women entrepreneurs, while also identifying and working to remove systemic barriers they face.
Under the Irish-Aid partnership, a project called ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship Development and Economic Empowerment’ (WED-EE) aims to help government, constituents and other key stakeholders to identify key constraints, barriers and opportunities to be acted upon in order to help foster women’s entrepreneurship development in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda; support financial and non-financial service providers to identify ways in which to better serve women entrepreneurs and facilitate women’s consolidation of sustainable businesses and livelihoods and access to markets; and finally facilitate the networking and organization of women entrepreneurs into groups as a means to increase their voice in policy-making arenas.
To foster business development service provision at country level, the ILO WED programme supports and promotes the development of local capacity in and broadening of training services to serve women entrepreneurs and women entrepreneur associations. Within WED-EE, ILO WED efforts have specifically focused on building a network of high-quality trainers in gender sensitive business management training “Gender and Enterprise Together: GET Ahead”.
By 2016 in each of the three WED-EE countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), the ILO WED programme aims to have in place a network of at least 10-20 highly qualified, committed and certified trainers in ILO WED tools, particularly GET Ahead capable of offering to women (but also men) entrepreneurs gender sensitive business trainings and services in an economically viable manner, meaning with no or minor ILO contribution once Irish-Aid funding comes to a close. Additionally it aims to foster and nurture the development of formal and informal, personal as well as professional ties between the three national networks as a means to ensure continuous cross-sharing, learning and jointly seizing of market opportunities.
To do so, the WED-EE is working closely in 2014 with groups of trained trainers in GET Ahead in the three countries to ensure that: 1) for each country a group of at least 20 ILO-certified trainers in GET Ahead is created, 2) that these groups have formal or informal mechanisms of communication and coordination among all or a majority of trainers to ensure the widest coverage possible of GET Ahead trainings around the country and 3) and that as a group they have a vision of where they wish to be in terms of number of clients, geographical outreach etc. in the country within the next two to three years.
Objective
The objective of a “Sustainability and Cross-Country Networking workshop” is to bring together all three pre-established groups of certified trainers and provide them with key tools as well as the space to develop national action plans and a joint regional roadmap . Ideally, a regional action plan would be developed but it will depend on the level of preparation and willingness from the different national groups.
Participants and Selection Process
This event is organized for ILO certified trainers in the gender sensitive business management training package “Gender and Enterprise Together – GET Ahead” in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
The event is planned for around 30 certified trainers. This is a significantly smaller number than all the total number of certified trainers in the three countries.
There will therefore be a selection process to identify the final participants. Trainers interested in taking part will be requested to submit an application with their CV, training history since 2012 to today and a motivation letter. The motivation letter will be no more than 2 pages long and address the following questions: 1) why they want to take part in the event individually but also as a member of national network, 2) what connections they have to other trainers in GET Ahead and to organizations (BDS, public agencies etc); 3) how they plan on marketing and using GET Ahead in the next 1-2 years and 4) their expectations for the workshop in terms of content that could help them advance in their individual and network work plans.
Trainers will also be requested to include whether they would be ready to cover some expense for their participation and to what extent – travel, accommodation, food etc and in what percentage.
Trainers must submit all documentation by February 13th. Applications will be reviewed by members of the WED programme in ILO Headquarters as well as the head of the Irishaid funded project “WED-EE”. A final list of participants will be made public in the first half of the week of February 16th, 2015.
Structure and Logistics
The event will be a three day workshop.
• The first day, trainers will be introduced to some tools and ILO tips and advice on how to ensure sustainability in trainings. Sessions will cover key issues such as promotion and marketing of training, costing/budgeting and resource mobilization.
• The second day will be the opportunity for the different national groups to learn from each other on where they stand, what they envision and how they plan to move forward. This will be a first building block to having all three groups start identifying synergies or additional joint activities they can develop together for the benefit of all groups. These activities would have to include self-funding mechanisms.
• The third day will provide additional time and space for national and regional action planning and would close off with a final presentation and discussion on the final action plans and steps forward.
A draft agenda is provided at the end of this document.
Approximately a month and a half prior to the workshop, certified trainers in each country will be convened by the national project coordinators for a half day session. This session will have a double objective: 1) inform trainers on the upcoming workshop and the requirements for participating and 2) provide them with a form they will have to jointly fill out at national level as a base not only for their presentations on the second day but also to highlight strengths, needs and challenges they face in order to ensure training sustainability at country level. This will help workshop organizers better tailor the first day to trainers’ needs to develop sustainability strategies. This form will have to be submitted two to three weeks prior to the workshop.
Venue and tentative dates
The location of the workshop will be Arusha based on distance from the other countries in order to minimize costs. This will be particularly important given that participants will be expected to bear some of the costs such as travel. The venue would be the MS-TCDC Training Center (http://www.mstcdc.or.tz/)
Tentative dates for the workshop are March 23 to 25, 2015.