On November 22, 2016, it was not yet 8 a.m. when some twenty representatives of international NGOs active in Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, etc. gathered around croissants at the Équilibres & Populations office in Ouagadougou. On the agenda: Equipop's à la carte offer for capacity building for West African civil society organizations (CSOs).
A customized support package
Last year, Equipop launched the "Breakfast" concept based on the publication "Tips & Tricks." NGO representatives were able to learn about Equipop's support activities in the areas of resource mobilization, advocacy, and organizational development for the benefit of CSOs in West Africa.
Today, international NGOs, which often delegate the implementation of their projects to local CSOs, are in the spotlight. The aim is to present Equipop's full range of services, both in terms of institutional development and on the theme of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Several members of Burkinabe CSOs were also present to testify to the support they have already received, at various levels of investment ( on-site training, long-term support, etc.) and in different areas (social and political mobilization, administrative and financial management, etc.).
[blockquote text="Without Equipop's support through the Alliance Droits et Santé network, SOS/JD would not have been invited to facilitate major international conferences and would not have been able to raise such significant funds from English-speaking donors. Celestin Compaoré, Director of SOS/JD" text_color="#f7461c" border_color="#b3ada9"]This breakfast meeting also provided an opportunity for the associations to apply Equipop's tips and tricks for mobilizing resources through networking and building relationships with technical and financial partners.
When supply meets demand...
Equipop's initiative was welcomed by the NGOs present, for whom Equipo's offer meets a real demand to ensure the successful implementation of their projects. For their part, West African CSOs, facing challenges during and after collaboration with international organizations, emphasize the need for such support in order to upgrade to the standards of their international partners and ultimately become autonomous.
It was this dynamic that prompted Médecins du Monde Spain (MdM-E) in Burkina Faso to include Equipop in an ECHO project on malnutrition. In anticipation of its gradual withdrawal from the Sahel region in favor of its local partner organizations, MdM-E tasked Equipop with strengthening the institutional capacitiesof ACD/Naangue and Khoolesmen. The first training session in June was a success, as evidenced by the representatives of the associations concerned, who are eagerly awaiting the start of the second session following the breakfast meeting.
…participants are already thinking about future prospects!
The NGOs that responded (Handicap International, Action Against Hunger, ABMAQ, Terre des Hommes, Iamaneh, Plan International, Internews, Médecins du Monde France, ASMAE) wished to continue bilateral discussions with Equipop with a view to integrating capacity building for their West African partners into their projects. These discussions focused in particular on the form of collaboration that could be envisaged between the three stakeholders (financial arrangements, contractualization, duration and geographical coverage of the support, etc.).
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