-  TRAINING MANUAL  -

THE RATIONALE FOR THE SFLP TRAINING MANUAL

Work with the various National Coordinating Units (NCU) of the SFLP and with local organisations and communities including NGOs in the first year of the programme clearly indicated the need for training in the principles and concepts of the sustainable livelihoods approach and participatory methods that complement these.

This exercise also demonstrated that local organisations and communities needed training inputs on issues such as management, capacity building and institutional strengthening, etc., as well as the need to produce a “Training Manual” to treat these topics which are central to SFLP work. Sub-regional workshops, two in French, one in English and yet another one in Portuguese were organised to test the original version of the manual and to improve on it based on the contributions of participants.

The English, French and Portuguese versions of the training manual can be consulted on this Web Site under the heading: "Publication – Training and Awareness". They may also be downloaded.

THE SFLP TRAINING MANUAL AND NATIONAL WORKSHOPS

The Training Manual of the SFLP has been distributed to the 25 SFLP participating countries who have also been requested to organise workshops with national trainers to disseminate the lessons of the manual and spread the training to other organisations and workers in the field who assist communities to design, implement and monitor  community projects. The first series of workshops were held between March and April 2002. Four were evaluated by the SFLP in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Mauritania and were found to be relatively successful.

The following 4 out of the 15 modules of the Training Manual were used during these workshops:

• A Primer on Sustainable Livelihoods

• The Sustainable Livelihoods Process

• Community Approaches and Participatory Methods

• Sustainable Livelihoods and Gender.

These 4 modules were the minimum requirements to understanding both the sustainable livelihoods approach and the work of the SFLP. According to their training needs each country can decide which modules to present in their future national workshops.