DPMF’s
Sub-Regional Sensitization Workshops for Senior Policy Makers and Managers
The objective of the workshops is to deepen democratic governance in African countries and to help the regional integration process which has so far been government driven. To date DPMF has conducted sensitization workshops in the SADC and IGAD sub-regions. Reports of these workshops are available at www.dpmf.org. The next sensitization workshops in 2003 are planned to be conducted in the East African Community (EAC), and the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC). In 2004 the workshops will cover the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Community of Sahel and Sahara States (CEN-SAD) Sub-Regional groups.
The work of DPMF has been scrutinized to determine if there was a need for a different approach that would be more relevant to African conditions, and appropriate and effective in responding to the challenges facing African countries. An approach, moreover, that would be comprehensive taking into account government and civil society perspectives in identifying problems and how to deal with the challenges being faced.
With
the use of DPMF’s different and perhaps unique approach in the form of
research and sensitization towards democratic governance, the aim of the
workshops is to bring together policy makers and civil society actors,
researchers and those involved in training, to interface and exchange views and
experiences on the problematic of democratic governance and other issues
confronting the African states in the 21st Century.
Furthermore,
the workshops bring together senior policy makers to discuss and to sensitize
them to contemporary challenges of governance for which most of them have not
been trained to address. The issues in past workshops that are generally not
dealt with by institutions that train senior policy makers are:
i.
Democratic
Governance –
principles and institutions, related issues and challenges confronting African
countries.
ii.
The
State, civil society and conflict
– issues and problems arising from the state/civil society interface that
policy makers need to be aware of and address. Almost all countries in Africa
have some kind of conflicts that need to be put on the agenda so that policy
makers and civil society are familiarized with them as well as with other
related issues.
iii.
Preparing
for the future: Strategic Thinking and Long term Planning
– long-term perspectives, knowing where governments are going in the following
decades. Policy makers must be sensitized to the aspirations and visions of the
people, and the appropriate strategies in realizing the future visions.
iv.
Institutional
Governance: Policy process, Analysis and Management
– the policy process is looked at from wider more comprehensive and
comparative perspectives.
DPMF
believes that it is imperative for civil society actors and policy makers to
become sensitized to the above themes, issues and challenges. Hence, workshops
should start at the national levels and move onto sub-regional levels, which has
been the DPMF practice so far. Recently it was decided that the workshops should
focus on the sub-regional level.
Themes
The workshop will consist of the following themes: -
1) Challenges facing the African state – Conflict, AIDS, Globalization etc
2) Institutional Governance: Policy Process, Analysis and Management
3) Democratic Governance: Theory and the African experience
4) Governance and Regional Integration
5) Preparing for the Future: Strategic Thinking and Long term Planning
Workshop Format
The workshop is scheduled to function for five working days. Each day will be devoted to discussing one theme. Resource persons will start the day with a presentation of the day’s topic for half an hour to one hour followed by participatory discussions.
Participants
thereafter will form working groups to discuss the country papers prepared by
participants and discuss the country experiences with regard to each of the 5
themes.
At the end of each day, the workshop returns to a plenary session to discuss, for one hour, the reports of the working group.
This process will be followed for the five days - each day discussing in great details, one of the themes listed above.
On the fifth and final day (Friday) the meeting will start early in order to encapsulate a whole days proceeding to the morning session, which would end at 13:00h. The afternoon will be a plenary session, which will consist of general discussions on the overall issues, suggestions, lessons, and recommendations that have emerged from the whole workshop. At this point the workshop will come to an end.
Focus Group
The
breakdown of the workshop participants will consist of the following:
* Senior policy makers/managers from the sub-regions
– Civil servants, legislates, judges etc - 65%
* Members of secretariat from sub-regions - 5%
* Leaders of Civil Society Organizations
– Trade Unions etc and researchers - 25%
* Private Sector - 5%
The participants will include senior people from Ministries, representatives from the 3 branches of government: Executive, Judiciary and Legislative, as well as from the civil society and the private sector.
Reading Material
Participants of the workshop will be provided with two sets of general reading material and literature. Firstly, the articles will consist of general (theoretical) articles and case studies. Secondly, there will be a process of selecting relevant articles to be distributed to the participants during the workshop and after. This set of reading will include the papers prepared by the participants for the workshop. It is hoped that the literature will prove useful after the workshop and in the work environment.
Evaluation
At the end of each workshop evaluation forms will be distributed to participants to fill in anonymously and the reports of these workshops will be available on the DPMF website www.dpmf.org.
Impact of the Workshop
An
adequate impact assessment of the workshop can only be determined by visiting
the respective countries involved to determine how the participants have
utilized their knowledge and skills acquired during the sessions. This will need
some resources. Therefore, DPMF may possibly conduct a follow up with the
participants of the workshop after a one-year period. Furthermore, for the
impact assessment to be useful and meaningful many more workshops of this kind
would have to be conducted several times over the years within the sub-regions.
There have been suggestions that these workshops be carried out on a regular
basis. DPMF has been asked to
consider conducting one or several workshops per sub-region per year.
At
the beginning of each workshop, participants would be requested to look out for
any issue that might interest them during the workshop. Thereafter, if they feel
that they would like to carry on researching or doing something further with the
particular topic of interest, DPMF would be agreeable to work with them closely.
It
is hoped that this process of sensitization will have raised the capacity of
policy makers to cope with the issues and challenges discussed and that the
newly acquired knowledge will be shared with other colleagues within their
respective offices and countries. More importantly, a sub-regional network is
likely to be formed as part of the process of strengthening regional
integration.
Participants
The following resource persons were involved in the development of this workshop curriculum: -
Prof. Ibrahim Wani, Regional Representative of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights-Eastern Africa (OHCHR)
Prof. Assefa Medhane, Head, Political Science Department, Addis Ababa University
Prof Ahmed Mohiddin, Executive Director, Twenty First Century Africa Foundation, Kenya
Prof Adebayo Ninalowo, Sociology Department, University of Lagos
Dr. Jide Balogun, Senior Regional Adviser, UNECA
Prof Abdalla Bujra, Executive Director, DPMF
Ms. Martha Bakwesegha, DPMF
Ms. Muna Abdalla, DPMF