Joint learning event on Fragility, Decentralisation and Local Governance

The Hague Academy organised together with VNG International in November 2015 a training on Fragility, Decentralisation and Local Governance for the Development Partners Network for Decentralisation and Local Governance (DeLoG) in The Hague.

The participants were development practitioners from DeLoG member organisations and worked amongst others for UNDP, UNICEF, GIZ, SDC, UN-Habitat, LUX-Development and BTC. The overall objective of this three-day joint learning event was to enable a structured exchange of information and experiences, lessons learnt and good practices on the relation between the three central topics. It provided participants with an opportunity to exchange experiences, jointly analyse concrete cases and discuss new ideas and approaches to adapt and strengthen decentralisation reforms and local governments in fragile contexts.

The course helped participants to:

• Distinguish and characterise dimensions and, types of fragility and assess in what ways these different types impact the enabling environment for support to DLG;
• Reason the objectives for decentralisation in fragile contexts and structural entry points for DLG processes;
• Discuss critically to what extent DLG support in fragile contexts could have cou nterprod uctive effects ;
• Develop ideas for assessing and measuring the impact of interventions;
• lncorporate good practices and lessons learned from development partners’ experiences in supporting DLG in fragile contexts into their own programming and project design;
• Build a network of practitioners in this particular field.

“The wealth of knowledge and the diversity of perspective and organisations made this course exceptionally interesting and rewarding”, said Hanne Kristoffersen who works for UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support. Read more about her impression of the course in the DeLog Newsletter.

If you are also interested in a training course on this subject you can still apply for the summercourse The Hague Academy organises in July. The summercourses Peacebuilding and Local Governance in Barcelona and A local perspective to the SDG’s  in The Hague are now open for application.