By Ebunoluwa Sessou

In furtherance to fighting Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, SGBV, the Women’s Rights and Health Project WRAHP, organised two days of training for 12 Community-Based Organisations, CBOs, in Lagos on Basic Monitoring and Evaluation and Information Management.

The event was funded by Global Affairs Canada through ActionAid Nigeria in partnership with Nigeria Women’s Voice and Leadership Project Community-Based Organization.

Speaking, Executive Director WRAHP, Bose Ironsi explained that the training was aimed at strengthening the capacities of the 12 CBOs’ in effective monitoring, evaluation and documentation.

Adding that the knowledge and skills acquired would enable them to objectively measure their progress, identify gaps as they arise and make timely adjustments to achieve the desired results.

“An effective monitoring and evaluation system is highly crucial in measuring project results and impact attained.

“This is part of efforts towards attaining the ActionAid Women’s Voice and Leadership project’s anticipated outcome of improving management and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations, and enhancing advocacy and programming for gender equality.

“The training also contributes to improved documentation among the CBO partners as well as the development of a one year annual operational plan and a monitoring and evaluation plan.

“In the last Quarter, WRAHP during In-Person and Virtual monitoring observed that 70 percent of the CBOs’ lack technical competencies in monitoring, evaluation, information management, and documentation”, she said.

Also, Segun Babalola, Programme Officer, reiterated that through the two days training, the participants have been able to understand the importance of having accurate data which would help in their programming.

“Their challenge was the use of technology and to manage information, you need to be digitally equipped as well as protecting your information. So, it is a good opportunity to be exposed as they gained more knowledge on information management.

In his contribution, Francis Umoh, Programme Manager, who lectured on documentation, said that the essence was to be able to tell the story to a larger society. “If your success story is only limited to your community, the impact will not be felt and this might hamper the growth of your organisation. Documentation is key to your growth, success and visibility”, he said.

One of the participants and also a representative of Epe Women Help Association, Adetola Edokpayi, said the training was an eye opener and a means of education to her and her organisation.”I have learnt that our project should be geared towards achieving results”, she said.

Another participant, Adeyanju Temidayo, representative of the Women of Wisdom Ministry, said “I have been trained to know that our projects should be geared towards the change and positive result we get as feedback from the community.