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GAMWORKS technical assistance grant training wraps up

Dec 11, 2012, 10:39 AM | Article By: Abdoulie Nyockeh

A two-week training on technical assistance grant for monitoring and evaluation of project recently ended at the Ocean Bay Hotel.

The training brought more than thirty participants from the line ministries and departments that are implementing the Islamic Development Bank projects.

The training is being implemented by GAMWORKS on behalf of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in collaboration with the Management Development Institute (MDI).

The objective of the project is to enhance the capacity of project management staff of the government ministries and agencies involved in implementing IDB projects, to ensure the successful and timely implementation of those projects.

In his remarks at the closing ceremony, the director general of GAMWORKS, Ebrima Cham, stressed the importance of the training.

He said the just concluded two-week training on monitoring and evaluation of projects was the third and final local training programme under the technical assistance grant for capacity building in project management.

According to him, a robust and effective monitoring and evaluation system would go a long way in ensuring the achievement of project objectives and targets vis-à-vis their constraints, challenges and successes.

He added that the use of monitoring and evaluation results helps officials make informed decisions on improving projects implementation and make best use of resources.

Mr Cham added: “It also tells us how best we are meeting the projects objectives and outputs, contribute to organizational training, learning of best practices, strengthening stakeholders participation and ownership of the project activities, and contributing  to the designing of new projects of public policies.”

Mr Cham also said it is important to point out that the US$307,000 Technical Assistance Grant for capacity building in project management was conceived to enhance performance within project implementation unit, by providing training to project staff of executing ministries and agencies.

Mr Cham further stated that hopefully with the successful implementation of this phase of the technical assistance, the Gambia government would negotiate with the IDB for a second phase of the project to consolidate project management skills in other important areas such as finance management of projects and project proposal writing.

For her part, Dr Jainaba M. L. Kah, director general of MDI, expressed delight and appreciation for her institution to be given the opportunity to help address the longstanding capacity gaps by becoming a partner in the provision of training in three areas of project management – procurement, monitoring, and evaluation - all geared towards building the capacity of staff of line ministries.

Lamin Camara, director of AID coordination programmes and projects at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, outlined government commitment in attaching great importance to such training as the monitoring and evaluation system.

He challenged the participants to utilize the knowledge gained during the two weeks of intensive training, which he said would go a long way in addressing some of the obstacles hindering the implementation of their projects.