A five-day training on local project management for
recipient communities of the regional sustainable land management and climate
change adaptation in the Sahel and West Africa Programme (PRGD) will run from
the 11th till 15th
August 2014, at the Ocean Bay Hotel.
In
his welcoming remarks, the governor of North Bank Region, Lamin Queen Jammeh,
said the forum was aimed at developing the capacities of rural communities,
project managers and promoters through training, using a regional approach
towards Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and climate change adaptation in the
Sahel and West Africa.
It
was due to the commitment of the respective governments, development partners
and individuals’ efforts that the PRGDT project was conceived some time back,
he said.
He
noted that individual projects under the main project are being harmonised for
training and are currently being attended to with great enthusiasm from
participants in The Gambia.
“This
training workshop, which converged all stakeholders on SLM starting from the
local communities at rural policy makers and at national levels, was a clear
manifestation that decentralization is taking place in a context of
differential but shared responsibility in the management of our scarce
resources,” Governor Jammeh added.
He
said countries through the realization of the impact of climate change,
particularly in the rural areas, is affecting livelihoods, and adaptation as a
climate response to the communities could not be overemphasized.
The
use of sound knowledge and appropriate tools to address climate change effects
and impacts as desired by the training could be one of the surest means of
improving community livelihood which would ensure environmental sustainability.
“I
wish to assure you that the Government of The Gambia under the leadership of
President Jammeh has and will continue to give its political will to support the
SLM initiatives provided by CILSS in strengthening the decentralization process
in our various countries,” Governor Jammeh said.
The
regional sustainable land management and climate change adaptation in the Sahel
and West Africa programme, PRGDP, had been initiated and implemented by CILSS
with technical and financial support from the European Union and the
International Development Research Centre, IDRC, since 2011, he added.
The
aim of the programme is to assist the 17 CILLSS and ECOWAS Member countries in
the implementation of synergetic actions for the sustainable improvement of
agro-forestry, pastoral productions through investment for the rehabilitation
of degraded lands on the promotion of the governance of natural resources and
adaptation to climate change, on the other hand, he said.
The
overall objectives of the training was to contribute to building the capacity
of recipient communities of PRGDT funding in local project implementation, to
equip the beneficiary communities to fully exercise their roles in investment
implementation and to provide communities with tools/knowledge necessary to
promote involvement and intense sharing of ideas amongst local stakeholders for
a stronger commitment to the common causes of sustainable development, he stated.
Opening
the five-day convergence, the deputy permanent secretary Cona-CILLSS under the
Ministry of Agriculture, Assan Jallow, said the training was not only one
response to this concern, but also a platform for multi-stakeholder and
multi-country exchanges of experiences gained since the advent of
decentralisation in the PRGDT area of intervention.
He
assured the participants that the programme partners highly appreciated the
support provided by CILLSS in strengthening the decentralisation process.
Undoubtedly,
he added, it was part and parcel of dynamics created by the political will of
the leaders to boost
grassroots development, by empowering the local actors
they represented.
According
to DPS Jallow, building the local capacity in project ownership and management
remains a priority and an essential competence for all communities to
contribute to the good governance of the scarce resources available.
He
therefore urged the participants to actively participate in the training
session which would focus on several topics, all equally important, including
accounting, management, procurement, communication, management of structures
monitoring and evaluation.
Mr
Jallow thanked the CILLSS Technical and Financial Partners, particularly the
French Cooperation, for their commitment and marked interest in sustainable
land management in a context of climate change in the ECOWAS/CILLSS region.
He
further reaffirmed that states would spare no effort towards the smooth and
successful implementation of the projects being executed.
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