By Olimatou Coker
The Child Protection Alliance, CPA with funding from Save the Children International, SCI has organised a four-day capacity building workshop on Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) at a local hotel in Kololi.
The training started last Tuesday.
Speaking during the opening ceremony, Njundu Drammeh first thanked the funders for making the training a reality.
He said the training will develop the knowledge, understanding and practical skills of participants on MEAL by introducing them to the SCI main MEAL concepts and practices.
“We are very grateful that, we are standing on the shoulders of giants like Save Children International.”
“We hope this partnership will continue not for CPA but for the children of this beloved nation,” he added.
CPA MEAL officer, George Nyouki, said monitoring is a basic daily activity undertaken by CPA, and it requires practical skills and experience, resources and management support.
According to him, for an organisation that is “highly reliant” on donor funding, it was “important that we produce reliable data for the purpose of reporting outputs and outcomes of our work.”
He reminded participants of the values of monitoring, saying it goes far beyond just recording activities to complete reports.
“If we manage our processes and information well, then this crucial part of our project cycles will allow us to develop a culture of continuous improvement. This means that we use data and observation to drive decision-making and planning, that we are responsive to the views of the children and communities that we work with, and that we learn lessons from our work which inform further programmes development.”
Lamin K Saidy, the CPA youth coordinator and advocacy focal person, said of the CPA:
“Our primary role is to promote the right of children and of course advocate for their protection. We work with government in terms of their policies and we also look at the laws related to children and you know, we advocate for those child-friendly laws and to encourage government to put in policies to match with the international standards.”
