Day 1: Pre-Dialogue Sessions Capacity Building Workshops
The FANRPAN 2012 Annual High Level Regional Food Security Policy Dialogue is being held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from 3-7 September 2012. Prior to the main conference, 3 Capacity Building Workshops were organized on 1st and 2nd September 2012, which were for some projects by FANRPAN and Journalist Training.
This blog post gives an over-view of the 3 workshops that took place on 1st and 2nd September 2012.
Capacity Building Workshop 1: HaSSP Seed Policy Development and Harmonisation
The Harmonized Seed Security Project (FANRPAN-HaSSP) was developed through a consultative process and represents a direct response of the Member States of SADC to the low availability and limited access to key agricultural inputs by farmers in the region. This pilot project is is being implemented in 4 countries (Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe and up scaling to Tanzania and Mozambique.
The overall objective of the HaSSP Project is to contribute to improved food security and poverty reduction through increased seed security and better disaster preparedness in the SADC region. FANRPAN Commissioned a policy study in June 2012 (i.e, the HaSSP Policy Study) to examine the standard domestication processes ordinarily followed in the pilot studies, and to assess the challenges being faced by HaSSP project country Steering Committee and Task Teams in policy alignment.
The 2-day workshop was expected to enhance the capacity of country teams to expedite national alignment processes and come up with action plans for preparing draft legislation for presenting to the parliamentary and cabinet committees for approval. The training sessions were conducted by 2 trainers from the Centre for Applied Legal Research (CALR).
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| One of the Groups discussing during the HaSSP workshop |
Capacity Building Workshop 2: Youth Contributions for Policy Dialogue and Change
On 2nd and 3rd September 2012, FANRPAN Held a Pre-Policy Dialogue preparatory Meeting for selected young people working on Country Case Studies on Current and Emerging Youth Policies and incentives with a Special focus on links to Agriculture.
The objective of the meeting was to identify the thematic priorities for discussion, reflection and action from a youth perspective at the 2012 FANRPAN High Level Regional Food Security Policy Dialogue. Youths present at the workshop were from Mauritius, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
During this workshop, Ms. Sithembile Mwamakamba, the facilitator and coordinator of the project, explained to the youths that the overall objective of the workshop was to prepare the youths for the different sessions and activities that are going to take place duting the Regional Dialogue. She gave an overview of the programme of the Regional Dialogue, and the role of each of the youths in different sessions and activities that were on the agenda. The case studies conducted in the 6 countries (Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) were discussed and it was also planned how the findings would be presented by the youth consultants at the Regional Dialogue on Wednesday 5th September 2012. The youths discussed and agreed on the flow of the presentations of the case studies and worked on this aspect during the whole day.
This workshop gave the youths an opportunity to become familiar with all 6 case studies and the issues that need to be highlighted during the presentation og the findings and the way forward.
Capacity Building Workshop 3: Journalist Training
The 3rd workshop was on journalist training. Journalists from Tanzania and other African countries were present at the Regional Dialogue to share in their countries the discussions that are taking place in Dar Es Salaam.
Before the Journalist training itself, the youths who were present in Tanzania got the opportunity to attend the official opening by Dr. Sibanda, the CEO of FANRPAN. In her speech, Dr. Sibanda explained that FANRPAN is about Food Security policies that bring everybody who has a stake in policy development from farm to fork. It brings together different stakeholders, including the government, farmers, private sector, Research, Extension, etc. and in 2007, FANRPAN has included the media in the Regional Dialogues that were held. According to Dr. Sibanda, there are millions of people who are concerned with the discussions taking place at the Regional Dialogue and want to know what is happening here, which is where the role of the media comes into place. She explained the importance of sharing what is happening at the Regional Dialogue in their respective countries and then gave more details on the activities of FANRPAN, including the support to youth in Agriculture since the Regional Dialogue held in Swaziland in 2011 and the theme of this year’s Regional Dialogue is also focused on youth: “From policy to Action: Advocating for Active Engagement of Youth in Agriculture Value Chains”. Journalists were encouraged to follow their passion and share the maximum they can with their audience. This was also an opportunity for youths to know the journalists present at the Regional Dialogue and shared the findings of the different case study.
The training of journalists was done by 2 facilitators, Mr. Ben Rootman and Mr. Martin Van Niekerk. The material generated during the one-day formal training would be disseminated to individual media houses and also for the publication of a newsletter. Journalists are expected to conduct interviews and participate in daily press briefings to generate material.
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| The Journalist Training |
These 3 workshops were conducted in parallel, and each one was focused on a specific objective, but overall all of them were focused on capacity building of the stakeholders involved so that are are able to give the best of themselves during the Regional Dialogue.
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