Organisation Development is a learning process that is directed towards improved performance and sustainability of the organisation as a whole. This learning and growth process often requires assistance of an internal or external professional, called the adviser or consultant. In this course you will learn how to design and guide an organisational learning process, from the intake up to the implementation of change.

Pakistan: 20 - 31 October 2008
Colombo: 7 - 18 - July 2008

Executive officers, board members and managers of non-governmental and private sector organisations with at least five years of experience in management positions, who feel comfortable with their daily routine and regular management tasks, but seek to become and remain a learning organisation together with the matching leadership qualities and style. Advisors to managers are also most welcome, but the course does not focus on the advisors’ role.

Pakistan: € 1,275.00
Colombo: € 1,275.00

Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

This five-day course will assist you to create real added value as a workshop or team facilitator. It broadens and improves your personal interaction skills, provides insights into the underlying dynamics and techniques of participative group processes, and offers methods and tools for different categories of participative decision-making events.

You will intensively practise group interaction skills while facilitating simulated workshops and meetings, using a variety of different workshop methods and procedures. You will receive personal feedback to help strengthen and improve your skills. And you will learn effective techniques to analyse the needs of groups and subsequently to design powerful workshops and meetings to respond to these needs.

Within the course, you will be:
• made aware of your own strengths and challenges in facilitating a group;
• able to apply communication skills: when and how to use many tools for interaction, and to recognise and plan for the different phases in group decision-making;
• be made aware of different methods to gather diverse points of views, to create common understanding and to develop inclusive solutions;
• able to identify and analyse the gap that the participants need to bridge during the workshop and to choose appropriate workshop methods, instruments and tools;
• able to design and facilitate powerful meetings and workshop events;
• aware of the different roles of a facilitator, an adviser and a trainer, and your own potentials as a facilitative manager.

In addition to personal skill and competency development, the course includes information on the different kinds of participative workshops and covers a number of different methods and procedures in detail.

16 - 20 June 2008
6 - 10 October 2008

Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Course Contents: The course deals with common dilemmas and issues faced in international partnerships. These dilemma’s cover a wide range of topics, including financial accountability, formal or informal agreements, individual or multiple partnerships, exchange of learning events, varying value systems, differences in the organisational environment, hierarchical differences, mutual benefits of collaboration.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Course contents
First it will be discussed which conditions should be fulfilled by the project or organisation to permit fruitful monitoring. Secondly, an inventory will be made of the responsibilities and tasks of the various project-actors, organisation-staff or other stakeholders in the organisation. The scope for participatory monitoring will hereby become clear. Thirdly, the focus is on the design of a multi-layered, participatory monitoring system which meets the needs of the mentioned stakeholders. The layers are based on a logical hierarchy of objectives. Attention will also be paid to information-needs and various techniques of data-collection, to monitoring indicators and information flows.

For the necessary analysis of the institutional context and the assessment of organisational capacities the Integrated Organisation Model will be used. This model is also instrumental for understanding the requirements and conditions for organisational learning.

Finally, due attention will be paid to the processing of data and the way in which these should be translated into appropriate presentations of progress serving all categories of stakeholders.

26 - 30 May 2008
1 - 5 December 2008

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: click here

Nowadays many donor organisations apply a similar set of appraisal criteria: relevance, sustainability, feasibility, effectiveness and efficiency. Yet these broad container concepts need to be further specified and defined in order to apply them properly. MDF-Training & Consultancy developed a comprehensive course on the appraisal of proposals. This course enables you whether to accept a project proposal or not, and what aspects should be taken into consideration to decide which proposal is the best.

This course will introduce you to a comprehensive framework for project appraisal, taking into account a whole array of aspects that need to be taken into consideration to guarantee an objective and fair appraisal process. If your job involves the appraisal of proposals, this course will enable you to make thorough decisions on the best proposal

Tuesday:

• Overview of aid delivery methods
• Concepts and steps in appraisal process
• Appraisal criteriaBrush-up Project Cycle Management and logical framework

Wednesday

• Appraisal of the intervention
• Appraisal of the budget
• Appraisal of the institutional environment

Thursday

• Appraisal of the organisational capacity
• Appraisal of the monitoring and evaluation system

Friday

• The ambiguous role of the desk officer
• Comparative appraisal
• Drawing up the appraisal memorandumAppraisal of the organisational capacity

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Indicators can be very powerful instruments for managers of development projects and programmes. The development and usage of indicators forms an essential part in the management of development efforts. However, at all levels, organisations struggle to find appropriate and useful indicators, in order to avoid large and expensive data collecting systems. Moreover, phenomena very often appear too complex to be put into measurable indicators. This course thoroughly deals with the functions and limitations of indicators and proposes ways to identify suitable indicators to the particular context.

Concepts
The concept of indicators will be presented. This includes, of course, the development and use of indicators in planning, monitoring and evaluation. However, indicators also prove to be quite helpful for context and organisational analysis. We will highlight the different schools of thought in relation to indicators and in this context look at some of the Millennium Development Goals and their associated indicators. Moreover, we will discuss characteristics of indicators by analysing different indicators from our daily life.

Development of indicators
You will work in a systematic way on the development of proper indicators for development interventions. This will include indicators at the operational and policy level. Particular attention will be paid to ways to measure capacity development and the general performance of organisations. A practical approach will be applied to define indicators to measure qualitative and quantitative changes at various levels of interventions, including suitable methods for data collection and sources of verification. Due attention will be paid to the differences between so-called SMART and SPICED indicators.

Organisational implications
You will assess the advantages and the limitations of the use of indicators and identify the conditions and possibilities for a sustainable and meaningful introduction and use of indicators. Introduction of indicators within an organisation should not be restricted to a specialised section of the organisation, but must be seen as an integrated element of the way all people involved in an organisation deal with tasks and responsibilities on project and individual level.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

New thinking on development assistance and international health recognise that country ownership and leadership is crucial to successful development, and that fragmented approaches by international and local development partners can inadvertently undermine national systems that need to be strengthened or maintained. Development assistance should therefore be delivered in ways that allow governments to incorporate it into its national strategy and national resource envelope, that contribute to the strengthening of national capacity, and that minimise the transaction costs involved.

Course objectives
Upon completion of this course you will have more insight into the actual features of (inter)national development policies along with a focus on capacity development and ownership, public sector reform and institutional development. You will know about the consequences and ensuing requirements of these new approaches for your own organisation. You will also learn how to translate these requirements into changes for your own organisation in terms of staff competencies, division of responsibilities, improved systems for policy development monitoring and evaluation, accountability and transparency.

Course contents
You will be exposed to the current ideas and trends in international health development co-operation and get opportunities to discuss the consequences of these for your own organisation. You will learn how to deal with these consequences from your own perspective by using the models that MDF and HERA have developed. Experiences and best practices in your own and in other countries will be analysed in order to draw conclusions about what changes are needed for effective co-operation.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here

Course objectives
At the end of the course, participants will:
• Have sharpened their minds and deepened their insights in the complex relationship between development and aid;
• Acknowledge the importance of a more equitable international economic order for sustainable, global development.
• Understand the changing roles and responsibilities of donors, implementing agencies and (semi-) government agencies in development interventions
regarding ownership, alignment and harmonisation.

Tel: +31 (0)318 650 060
Email: mdf@mdf.nl
Internet: Click here