Democracywatch Capacity Building Program for local NGOs
Capacity Building Areas for NGOs
Different studies regarding capacities have stated that the NGOs need assistance to enhance capacity to implement development programs by establishing effective management and administrative system. The assistance should include means for developing appropriate mechanisms to plan and carry out tasks in collaboration with other organizations. The capacity building programs should include management training of key decision makers of NGOs who tend to be more activists than managers, building the capacity of management and other staff by assisting them to acquire organizational, management and behavioral skills so that they can produce an interesting combination of home grown activism and modern management technique that would help them to achieve better results.
The capacity building programs focused on assisting individual staff members to understand the importance of performing and completing their tasks within the given time. It is necessary to assist them to learn taking initiatives to respond to the emerging needs of the communities they serve. In addition, the staffs need to understand their responsibilities better vis-à-vis their beneficiaries. Establishing these simple but core work principles can make NGOs more effective in implementing development programs. Development efforts can be more effective if they are run and managed by trained personnel who understand the process of planning, management including decision-making, communication and human relation skills. The training and human resource development activities will enable the NGOs to achieve what they have set out to in the first place. The process would help them understand their strengths better and identify areas where they should concentrate most establishing priority. This way they would be able to be efficient, transparent, accountable and sustainable organizations. It is generally known fact that the NGOs can do some of the work that the larger membership organizations like youth organization and women's organization cannot do. Although they are stronger because they are usually supported by external agencies including the government. But their agenda is more political than developmental.
Most of the NGOs are working to promote Good Governance, Democracy and fair election in Bangladesh. But unfortunately they do not have the quality to work in this field efficiently. So there is a need to train NGO activist to improve their quality and skills.
In general, the need of the training of the local
NGOs in following areas:
- Awareness rising
- Local resource mobilization
- Decentralized planning and management system
- Continuous and effective monitoring and evaluation
- Strong co-ordination system among NGOs
- Increase women participation and gender equality.
- Development of local literacy materials
- Training program for Good Governance and Human Rights
- Training on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
- Development of networking system