Tribal area CBOs trained on local governance

PESHAWAR:

A two-day capacity-building training workshop was held here Sunday for members of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) from the merged areas to enhance their skills.

The training covered nine different skills and topics, including development and sustainable participatory development, transparency and accountability, need assessment, data collection and analysis, problem identification and prioritization, environmental, health and hygiene education, resource mobilization for CBOs, leadership skills, record keeping, and developing an effective action plan for implementation.

The two-day event was attended by 88 participants from North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Kurram and Orakzai districts. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Director-General Local Government and Rural Development, Usman Mehsud was the chief guest at the closing ceremony.

Addressing the participants of training, Mehsud highlighted the long-lasting collaboration between GIZ-FDP and Local Government, Election and Rural Development Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (LGE&RDD), and acknowledged the support provided by GIZ-FDP to LGE&RDD.

Usman went on to emphasize the importance of Community-Based Organizations, citing the Community-Driven Local Development (CDLD) programme as an example of how CDLD gave local communities control over development-related decisions and resources. CDLD was considered increasingly as a nexus between bottom-up and top-down approaches to improving local governance and service delivery.

It increased not only income but also citizen empowerment in terms of service quality, he added.

Usman continued by saying that the K-P government had taken significant steps to bring newly merged tribal districts on a par with the rest of the country.

He also added that a World Bank-funded project to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the merged areas would be launched very soon, and that the provincial government had already approved the ‘Qabaail-Led Development Programme’, which will be launched very soon.

He said that the training would not only improve the capacity of CBO members but would also improve the participatory development approach by involving citizens from merged areas in development initiatives.

He added that after getting knowledge and skills about CBOs led development, the participants would share the knowledge and skills with their colleagues in field.

Usman said that the collaboration between GIZ and LGE&RDD would continue with same pace for the betterment of the merged areas and K-P.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2022.