MAPEWFAC Board Members attend capacity building training workshop

The Board Members of Maltaaba Peasant Women Farmers’ Cooperative (MAPEWFAC) in the Upper East Region, have attended a-five-day capacity building training workshop on how to position the NGO to make more impact on the livelihoods of women and children in the area.

The NGO which is into Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, Commodity Value Chain, Entrepreneurship Education and Training, Women Bill of rights, Streetism and Reintegration and Advocacy is operating with sixteen women groups in the Talensi and Nabdam District of the Upper East Region.

The event which was organized in Bolgatanga of the Upper East Region on Tuesday, attracted the Board Members including voluntary staff of the NGO and were taken through topics such as: Monitoring and Evaluation, Safeguarding and Code of Conduct, Financial Management Policy, Board Charter, Strategic Development Planning among others.

The programme dubbed “Shift the Power Programme” is being jointly funded by Wet Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), Star Ghana Foundation and Comic Relief and the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The programme which hired Consultants in the areas of Monitoring and Evaluation, Safeguarding and Code of Conduct, Financial Management Policy, Board Charter, Strategic Development Planning to offer the capacity building training programme to the Board Members and the staff of the NGO, also developed working documents and manuals for the NGO to guide its smooth operations.

Mr. Hayford Christian, Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant, who schooled the participants about the relevance of Monitoring and Evaluation, said most NGOs have folded up because of failure of such NGOs to conduct proper Monitoring and Evaluation exercise about their projects.

“Monitoring and Evaluation Performance against milestones, output, outcome and impact of indicators are very critical to the successful implementation of projects and programmes”, he intimated.

The Consultant observed that most NGOs including the government sector have not made much impact on the livelihoods of the people in their operational areas as result of not putting in place proper mechanisms for the exercise.

Mr. Vincent Subbey, another Consultant, who took the participants through Safeguarding and the Code of Conduct Manual, entreated the Board members to operate strictly according to the manual.

The Board Chairperson of MAPEWFAC, Ms. Mollydeam Zong Buntuya, expressed her profound gratitude to the donors and expressed optimism that the training will translate into the growth of the NGO and stated that majority of the people in the region particularly women and children livelihoods depend largely on the environment.

She said it was against this background that her outfit through its sponsors have implemented a lot of interventions in the area of Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Change, Commodity Value Chain, Entrepreneurship Education and Training among others.

The Director of MAPEWFAC, Lydia Myella, who explained that the programme is aimed at supporting locally – led, Ghana – based CSOs to become more effective, sustainable and to better represent local people’s priorities, indicated that the support will play a critical role in addressing food security amid climate change