The workshop targeted civil society organizations and was funded by GEF-Small Grants Program and UNDP, and held at the Wellingara Model Horticulture Centre.
The two-day forum was aimed at strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations in The Gambia, and also to review the draft WACDTC manual and to validate the document.
Speaking at the forum, Sunkary Badjie, a community development officer, said a lot of time and energy was devoted to develop the manual, and the participants in the forum are to improve the quality of the draft manual on the environment, so as to enhance responsiveness to the needs of the animators and community on environmental issues.
Alpha O. Jallow, director of the WACDTC, said the organization is located at Kaw Junction in Latrikunda Sabiji, adding that it is a centre of excellence when its comes to training and research, especially participatory research.
He said the organization was established in 2007-2008 after continuation of a project that was initially supported by Canadians at the GTTI, and was then called the West African Rural Development Training Centre.
The organization has been involved in training and doing research at community level, including participatory rural appraisal, training needs assessment, intervention in climate change, action training and helping community development practitioners to develop project proposals.
He commended the GEF small grants project for providing the funds to enable WACDTC to implement these activities.
Saiba Suso, WACDTC chairperson who also doubles as the project coordinator, said this was a validation workshop.