Capacity building of voluntary organizations,
Grassroots Communities and Partners of Open
Forum has been one of Open Forum's main strengths.
It provides Capacity Development and Intellectual
Trainings different thematic areas some how
or the other central to core issues of development
activities. The TCB team has been providing
training on advocacy, NGO governance and management
and facilitates exchange of ideas through forums
and seminars. Open Forum holds an annual convention
that is organized around a theme that is relevant
and useful to its members. Experts and leading
figures in civil society and government are
invited to speak or conduct seminars and workshops.
As the breadth of its ICD activities indicates,
Open Forum’s, support for such Trainings
and Capacity Development Programmes forms part
of a package of ICD engagement, also focused
around poverty reduction. Open Forum’s
commitment to ICD remains strong and its role
within organization’s overall objectives
is currently a matter of further reflection
within the organization. Open Forum identified
three areas where it believes access to and
use of ICTs contribute to empowerment, poverty
reduction and improvements in the quality of
life:
| 1. |
Using
ICT to facilitate access to relevant information
and knowledge; including information of
direct personal and financial value, increased
market access and self-training. Open
Forum's activities in this area include
commitment to telecentres, programmes
in ICT and education, and knowledge-sharing. |
| 2. |
Strengthening the
voice of the poor excluded and disadvantaged
people in decision-making and self-expression
of their culture; including participation
in decision-making, increased transparency
and cultural diversity. Open Forum "supports
the appropriate and systemic use of traditional
and new ICTs in partnerships which strengthen
the voice, participation and capacity
of the poor and marginalized." |
| 3. |
Using ICT for networking
and human communication; including knowledge-sharing,
the promotion of rights and political
influence. There are a number of organizations
who perform as Open Forum’s key
partner in this area. |
Open Forum also identifies
three main modes of activity which it sees as
central to its work to develop of effective
ICT4D as tools for Training & Capacity Building
Programme:
| • |
Innovative
approaches to pro-poor ICT integration; |
| • |
Capacity development;
and |
| • |
Policy influence
and networking. |
Open Forum perceives the potential
value of ICTs in poverty reduction as lying
primarily in their ability to:
| • |
increase
efficiency by reaching more beneficiaries
at lower cost; |
| • |
increase effectiveness
in terms of process, ownership, participation
and service delivery; and |
| • |
improve productivity
in micro-enterprises. |
| |
It also cites their
potential to improve monitoring of targets
(including MDGs) and job creation. |
Open Forum has identified
a number of lessons from the work which it has
undertaken under Trainings and Capacity Development
Programmes. In particular, Open Forum believes
that its experience demonstrates the value in
programme/project design and implementation
of nine key factors. The nine key factors which
Open Forum considers positive are:
| • |
A participatory
and demand-driven approach to initiatives,
based on community needs and functional
technology; |
| • |
Local ownership of
initiatives, associated with capacity
development of user skills; |
| • |
Technological flexibility
and diversity, relating technology applied
to local social contexts and the skills
and characteristics of target users; |
| • |
Multistakeholder
partnership in programme and project design
and delivery; |
| • |
Alignment of ICD
initiatives with other development efforts; |
| • |
A sound institutional
base for project leadership and management; |
| • |
An open market environment,
in terms both of freedom of expression
and technological and service delivery; |
| • |
Financial and social
sustainability; |
| • |
And prior assessment
of potential risks to project success. |
Trainings and Capacity Development
Programmes, which aim to ensure that the skills
and institutional capacities exist to support
local ownership of projects. For the most part
capacity building programmes are implemented
by local partners. Open Forum is dedicated to
‘voicing the voiceless’ –
strategically positioning ICT tools (traditional
and new) to enable the poor to effectively communicate
and articulate issues of concern and thus influence
decisions and policies that affect their lives.
Because of its extensive community media work
Open Forum has been at the forefront of the
development of participatory impact assessment
methodologies, which will be examined in more
detail in further pages of portal. The evaluation
framework for the advocacy centres is built
within a framework of community participation,
community management and community monitoring.
Criteria used to assess the impact of the centres
include:
| • |
The nature
and quality of training workshops; |
| • |
Content generation
and circulation; |
| • |
Community participation
and outreach; |
| • |
Assessment of the understanding of partner
organizations (CSOs) of the purpose and
potential of the media programmes; |
| • |
Access to the technologies used to create
print, web and radio products; and |
| • |
Ease of use of the technologies. |
We at Open Forum, believe that
knowledge sharing and capacity building under
the Trainings and Capacity Development Programmes
can be achieved through: 1.
Training of trainers, managers and producers,
2. Knowledge sharing and research
and 3. Technical guidance and
support. Open Forum has also been promoting
good governance among its partners in order
to have credibility and legitimacy to seek the
same from the Government and other actors in
society. It has also initiated the process of
self-evaluation and assessment among NGOs based
on a set of norms and practices and motivated
them to abide voluntarily. This programme will
very soon come up with a group that promotes
accountability, democracy and transparency through
a process of certification and needless to state,
Open Forum has been instrumental in promoting
this process among NGOs.
