Tadjourah, Djibouti: The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) this morning brought together CSOs from Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia sponsored under the IGAD Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) Grant Facility for a Regional Workshop of Exchange of Experiences in the coastal town of Tadjourah, Djibouti.
The objective of this workshop was to have two delegates from each CSO come together and exchange ideas, discuss around achievements reached and challenges encountered within the implementation of their respective projects funded under the IGAD CSO Facility Grant as the project is being phased out soon.
The opening session of the workshop was presided over by the Chair of the Regional Council of Tadjourah, Mr. Hassan Houssein, in the presence of the Deputy Prefect of Tadjourah, Mr. Omar Djama, and the Director of Administration and Finance of IGAD, Mr. Ali Daher.
The Chair of the Regional Council of Tadjourah welcomed the participants to his home town and thanked IGAD for giving his town the opportunity to host a regional level workshop. “I wanted to attend this workshop in person as it is very unusual for our county town to host such a meeting of regional stature”, he said.
“But I also know that the Association for the Integrated Development of Mabla (ADIM) has been very active in the CSOs landscape of Tadjourah and has done a lot for our community”, he added. He continued that local authorities of Tadjourah will be learning a lot from this CSOs workshop, while highlighting that the CSOs from Kenya and Somalia will be bringing new perspectives.
He lauded the key role played by CSOs in the building of resilience of communities and the role of local authorities in making projects sustainable along with the commitment from community members. Mr. Hassan Houssein then declared the workshop opened.
Mr. Ali Daher, speaking on behalf of the Executive Secretary of IGAD, reminded the audience that the Denmark funded IGAD CSO Facility Grant was closing soon. “This is a golden opportunity for the beneficiary CSOs to come together in order to come to know each other for networking, exchange ideas, present their achievements, point out to the challenges encountered, and suggest ways of improving such a project”.
All five CSOs did present along the lines determined by the objectives of the workshop and suggested ways of sustaining their projects which mainly consisted in building resilience of communities through establishment of water catchments and capacity development in water resources management, tree nurseries and agriculture techniques for agro-pastoralists.
The delegates from the CSOs will be going for a field visit to Daymoli village, half an hour drive from Tadjourah town, where ADIM has implemented its tree nurseries under the guidance of ADIM members and the Coordinator of the IGAD CSOs facility Grant and Programme Manager of Natural Resources and Renewable Energy, Mr. Daher Elmi.
