CAPACITY TRAINING AND SUPPORT

A new International Programme Support (IPS) department was set up in 2016, with responsibility for goals including capacity strengthening, establishing horizontal collaboration in technical networks between head office and our countries of operation and filling gaps in capacity within our programmes.

The overarching goal of the new department is to transfer knowledge and capacity away from our head office towards our countries of operation - in effect becoming a global team. Over the course of 2016 members of the department spent a significant amount of time working on capacity strengthening with teams in our programme countries.

At the same time staff at head office took up interim assignments and picked up programme management roles in instances of reduced capacity and unexpected gaps. Moving forward, however, our strategy has been designed to ensure that our in-country programme teams are less dependent on head office than before.

There were many highlights over the course of the year with our work in the areas of education, child protection, psychosocial support and advocacy. Within education, we initiated a cross-country network to develop policies and exchange best practices on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Within the area of child protection we provided training on Child Friendly Spaces for our Burundi team in Bukavu; and provided child safeguarding support to TeamUp, including development of the training content. Within the area of Psychosocial Support we trained facilitators on our DEALS life-skills course in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Iraq; and further developed our programming within the area of structured recreational activities.