Kenya: Regional Livelihoods Workshop announcement

Regional Livelihoods Workshop Announcement
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WHAT: A workshop for UN, international and local NGO staff working on economic and gender-based violence programs (enterprise development, vocational training, skills development, micro-finance, agriculture, cash and food for work programs, etc) with displaced and returning populations.
WHEN: June 23-26, 2009
WHERE: Nairobi, Kenya

WHO: UN and NGO economic programming managers and practitioners from throughout the West Africa region working with displaced and returning populations. The workshop will be limited to 35 participants. The Women’s Refugee Commission and the SEEP Network are holding a four-day highly participatory workshop designed to bring practitioners from throughout the region to learn new techniques, share experiences, and collect tools designed to improve practice on the ground. Participants should be able and willing to read the Minimum Standards for Economic Recovery after Crisis. A participatory discussion will be held before the workshops on the scope and concepts presented in the aforementioned publication. Two days of the workshop will focus on findings from the Women’s Refugee Commission’s three-year research project on livelihoods in refugee, IDP, and returnee settings and will include practice sessions on usage of the newly released Livelihoods Field Manual. A third day of the workshop will cover findings on the Commission’s project on livelihoods as a tool of protection against gender-based violence and how GBV and livelihood programs should complement each other to better protect women. The SEEP Network will conduct the final day of the workshop to introduce practitioners to SEEP’s Minimum Standards for Economic Recovery after Crisis, developed as a potential companion to the SPHERE Minimum Standards handbook. This workshop will familiarize participants with and collect in-depth feedback on the Standards.
Deadline for application: May 30, 2009

Participants will be required to cover their own travel expenses. Meals and materials will be provided. Participants attending from local NGOs can apply for
financial assistance for partial coverage of travel and hotel expenses. Please ask for a Financial Assistance Request Form. To request an application or for any questions, please contact Sonali at [email][email protected]

Participant criteria

Each of the three livelihood workshops will target local and international NGO staff members as well as those from UN agencies, host governments and donor governments. Program managers and implementers of economic and skills development programs are the primary audience.
A participatory discussion will be held before the workshop on the Minimum Standards for Economic Recovery after Crisis, published by the SEEP. Therefore participants should be able and willing to read the aforementioned publication. The workshops aim to assist practitioners in strengthening their livelihood interventions by improving intervention choices, design, assessments, and tools use to ensure that programs are market driven and participatory.

Participants should:

* Design, manage, implement or fund economic programs (or GBV programs)
* Be conversant in English
* Able to commit four days to attendance
* Able to influence program policy or practice within their organizations
* Be committed to improving their economic programs