Project Design and Proposal Writing

This past weekend I finally facilitated my capacity building workshops to ZANGOC member organization on the topics of project design and proposal writing. I feel that the 2 day workshop was a success and it was nice to have full support from my supervisor and everyone at ZANGOC. I even had the ZANGOC account arrange lunch and transportation for the food, all I had to do was hand over the money to him! So that was one less thing I had to worry about. 

For the most part, everything ran smoothly which was somewhat of a surprise! The only small glitch was on Day 1 when lunch arrived about 30 minutes late do to some unforeseen issue at the restaurant!

The workshop was similar to the one I facilitated to the member organizations in Pemba but here in Unguja I went into a lot more depth as it was a 2 day workshop (from 9am to 3pm) instead of just a 3 hour workshop! 

Workshop outlines

On day 1 I gave my participants a pre test to see their current level of knowledge on the project cycle and the results chain. The scores from the pre test showed that there was very little prior knowledge about the stages of the project cycle and project logic (identifying activities, outputs, outcomes and goals). I was kind of surprised about this because when I facilitated the workshop in Pemba, I felt that most participants had a good prior understanding of the project cycle and could even identify most of the the 5 main stages (assess, design, implement/monitor, evaluate and reflect).

On day 2 of the workshop I taught the participants about Logical Framework Analysis which is a very hard concept to teach. A logframe (also known as a Project Framework) is a tool for planning and managing development projects. It looks like a table (or framework, or matrix) and aims to present information about the key components of a project in a clear, concise, logical and systematic way. The logframe model was
developed in the United States and has since been adopted and adapted for use by many other
donors, including the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). A lo frame summarizes, in a standard format:

• What the project is going to achieve?
• What activities will be carried out to achieve its outputs and purpose?
• What resources (inputs) are required?
• What are the potential problems which could affect the success of the project?
• How the progress and ultimate success of the project will be measured and verified?

I had my participants do a group work exercise whereby I gave them a LFA grid with an overall goal and they had to basically design a project identifying the activities, outputs, outcome and the measurable indicators, means of verification and assumptions for each level of the LFA. During the exercise I was sitting with all of the groups and discussing their designs. Most groups had trouble identifying risks and assumptions as well as moving from outputs to outcomes. But I also explained to each group that I spent 1 full year studying project design and proposal writing and finally understood the concepts thoroughly after I was able to put the concepts to practical use! I was impressed how much they were able to grasp after only a 2 day workshop! 

A participant presenting his group's logframe

At the end of day 2 I gave my participants a post test so that I am able to evaluate the transfer of knowledge. I have read through all of the tests and I am happy to report that all at the end of day 2 all participants were able to identify the 5 stages of the project cycle, and the 5 links on the results chain. Also most participants were able to tell explain the purpose of a logframe! I feel so proud of my students! I think the next step will be for me to find someone who can help me translate my powerpoint presentation into Swahili so that when I leave ZANGOC the Executive Committee members will be able to continue the training to other participants.