Pre-Announcement: Training course on local governance and rural decentralization

April 2012

Dates: 11 - 22 February 2013 ( NB: Applications for NUFFIC scholarships must be submitted before 27 April 2012)
Type of event: Training course
Location: Wageningen, The Netherlands
Organization: Wageningen UR - Centre for Development Innovation and Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)
More information: Download brochure (pdf)

The course is designed for people who are involved with governance processes in a context of rural decentralisation, including government officials, project and programme managers, policy makers, consultants, NGO staff, federations of community organizations or private sector organizations.

Thinking about the relationships between government, the private sector and civil society has changed considerably. The role of governments is shifting towards creating and enabling environment and to facilitating development, rather than steering it. Local governance for rural development is increasingly approached as a multi-stakeholder process with interactions taking place amongst actors with different ambitions or perceptions. Efforts of local governments are measured in terms of responsiveness and accountability to citizens; improved service delivery; its leadership in promoting pro-poor economic development; and its capacity to negotiate with the private sector, NGOs, local authorities and central government. These changes challenge the actors involved to develop new “institutions” – formal and informal norms, procedures and practices, accountability relations – in order to adjust to new functions and challenges in society.

This short international training course will address the challenges faced around building local governance in support of rural development. The focus will be on multi-stakeholder processes and social learning as means of enhancing the success of the various strategies in use. By relating theory to practice, course participants, with support of trainers and resource persons, will analyse existing complex situations, and develop strategies to develop opportunities and overcome barriers.

The course uses interactive training methods and is facilitated by trainers and other resource persons with a wide experience in local governance issues in a number of settings. It will build on the experiences of the participants, which will be discussed and compared with theories and practice around local governance in rural settings and its role in development, as well as change theories in general. Role plays, case studies and excursions will be incorporated.