Ten partners of the MenEngage Africa network, including MenEngage Botswana, Kenya MenEngage, MenEngage Tanzania and MenEngage Swaziland, are meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for our annual capacity building programme. Held from 4th April 2017 to 6th April 2017, the training will focus on a wide range of topics including strengthening media and communications, improving monitoring and evaluation systems, network building and sharpening the thematic campaigns of the MenEngage Africa alliance.
Our thematic focus areas largely focus on upholding women’s and girls’ rights, but more specifically, but with specific focus on preventing and addressing sexual and gender-based violence, advocating against female genital mutilation (FGM) and promoting men’s and boys’ involvement in preventing and addressing HIV and AIDS in Africa.
The overall goal of this capacity building workshop is to build an African network of organisations with increased commitment and capacity to implement, document and advocate for effective, evidence-based and scaled-up interventions to engage boys and men in achieving gender equality.
The four priorities for this year’s capacity building include:
- Strengthening institutions and governance systems and building capacities for collaboration and coordination, including strategic plan development, visibility and accountability.
- Strengthening project implementation including monitoring and evaluation, effective reporting, knowledge management and experience sharing.
- Advocacy, understanding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in country processes, engaging with International Human Rights Instruments and Accountability processes such as UPR (the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Maputo Protocol, and so on.
- Operationalising MenEngage Africa campaign priorities at country level.
Objectives and expected outcomes
The overall goal of the Workshop is to build capacity for key regional resource persons with the skills necessary to implement activities across the key MenEngage thematic areas through, documentation and building strong partnerships for effective interventions to engage boys and men in achieving gender equality. The Workshop will assess progress made, identify existing obstacles and challenges, and exchange experiences and share good practices amongst participants on ways for overcoming these. The expected accomplishments at the end of the Workshop include:
- Improved knowledge about the processes, institutions and structures required to put in place strong functioning Men Engage Africa networks.
- Improved capacity to implement programmes and evaluation reporting on joint country projects, in relation to submitted work plans and to the Men Engage Africa strategy.
- Understanding of Men Engage Africa campaigns structures and approaches for implementation at country and regional level.