Setting up a programme for women entrepreneurship, lobbying parliamentarians for financing water management, creating a climate-smart village and becoming national advisor for local integrity policies. These are just a few changes reported by our open course alumni of 2019.
The Hague Academy invests a lot in training sessions about change management and action planning. In our courses, we discuss the steps necessary to create change and strategies to deal with obstacles in the implementation. Annually, one year after they took their training in The Netherlands, we ask our participants about the results of their change process back home.
The survey of 2019 showed that nearly all alumni (93%) initiated change after returning home. Of the changes mentioned, 96% related to starting a new project or changing an existing project, 51% to a new policy or a change in existing policies, and 63% to the involvement of new stakeholders.
“I obtained external funding to implement a programme aiming at providing access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene services for more than 25 schools throughout Jordan.”
Previous participant, 2019.
According to 95% of the respondents, the training they took in The Netherlands was an important success factor for the change they initiated. Moreover, the alumni report a change in organisations and communities as often as personal change. The support of superiors and the organisation, and the cooperation with other stakeholders were also mentioned as success factors for their follow-up actions.
Apart from stimulating change, the courses also contributed significantly to further knowledge dissemination: 86% of the participants shared the acquired knowledge from the training with colleagues or stakeholders. Moreover, the courses create a sustainable network of practitioners: after a year, all alumni are still in contact with their fellow participants.
2020 was the third year that we conducted the impact survey amongst our open course participants. The method of Sprockler was used to collect not only figures but also valuable stories about what they learned and how they tried to give follow up. The survey was completed by 36% of the open course participants in 2019.
“I shifted my focus to the local level because I learnt if I want to push for real change, I need to work at the local level”
Previous participant, 2019.
Would you like to see the survey results and read some of our participant’s change stories? Click here.