Bo, 21 October 2021-The Building River Dialogue and Governance (BRIDGE), with support from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has concluded a three-day training workshop on Leadership, Institutional Development and Sustainable Development in Bo, for members of river basin committees and national platform members.
The training brought together local platform members from the Moa/Makona river basin, Mano river basin, Little & Great Scarcies basins to share knowledge on how to mobilize partners and financial resources, to ensure the functioning, visibility and implementation of activities at the various transboundary water.
Participants were trained on leadership and organizational development, technical and financial autonomy and sustainable financing mechanisms. They also looked into institutional diagnosis of their committees and propose solutions. They also reviewed the strategic action plans of their various platforms.
Representing the Mano River Union (MRU) Secretary-General, the Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant at the Mano River Union, Patrick Masuba said with support from technical and funding partners, MRU works with the member states to strengthen the capacities of national and local actors for better management of transboundary water resources, thereby finding sustainable solutions to the challenges posed to the current and future development of the shared basins.
“The BRIDGE project has thought it necessary to organize this capacity reinforcement workshop. It is hoped that through this training, the committees would be equipped and become operational in mobilizing partners and resources in carrying out their mission. This means that committee members in this workshop must give account to their respective groups by sharing knowledge and developing action plans.” Mr. Masuba said.
The Director-General of the National Water Resources Management Agency, Junisa P. Bangali Esq., when officially opening the workshop, said though the Agency has been robustly mobilizing resource as prescribed in Section 20 of the National Water Resources Management Agency Act of 2017, their participation is a clear manifestation of their desire to explore all avenues to improve water resources management in Sierra Leone.
“We are hopeful that at the end of this workshop, we’ll find better ways to device an enhanced resource mobilization strategy for our different institution. I therefore call on all of us to think for a change, be inspired, and personally be a resource donor than just a resource mobilizer.” DG Bangali said.
It is expected that the knowledge from the workshop would translate into institutional diagnosis to strengthen national platforms; sustainable leadership, organizational development, technical and financial capacities of which would improve the standing of the river basin committees, and consolidated strategic development plans of national platforms of water users.
The BRIDGE project is funded by IUCN and implemented by the Mano River Union. It has successfully established four Transboundary Basin Committees and National platforms since 2016, which are reliable monitoring mechanisms for transboundary waters, which protection fall under the mandate of the National Water resources Management Agency. it has also held several awareness raising activities in transboundary communities, around issues affecting transboundary waters like, harmful mining, fishing, and farming activities.
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