GACF is going to organize a Regional workshop in coordination with FECOFUN and RECOFTC Thai Program. The goal of this workshop is to conduct a formal gathering of federations/networks from different parts of Asian region and develop a strategic plan on strengthening networks and federations working for empowering Community based organizations. The workshop will be of total five days including three days of dialogue and two days of field visit.
Short Glimpse of Workshop
The Global Alliance of Community Forestry (GACF), established in 2004, is a loose network of community forestry based organization formalized with the aim of creating a common ground to meet the necessities, interest and experience of the stakeholders' representing forest communities from different parts of the worlds for securing rights to forests at the international, regional, national and local levels. GACF holds the membership of 11 regional organizations throughout the world which in turn have affiliation of many local organizations within one region. From its inception period GACF has been working on strengthening networks & federation at both regional and international level. To achieve its one of the objective of promoting capacities, knowledge, and experience & information exchange between community forestry organizations, GACF has organized different national level and international level workshop, conference acquiring active and noteworthy participation from the local communities of the respected region. For the local communities even with collectiveness in the form of networks and federations, securing rights is not an easy process. They have to go through various techniques of advocacy such as consultations, dialogues, press releases, interactions, protest letters, protest rallies, etc. before minimal of their right is secured. In this context, the process of advocacy becomes very important in order to do effective lobbying and plan strategic advocacy and campaigning. The regional networks of GACF however does not have all the expertise it needs to advocate in the most effective and efficient way. As such, these networks can learn from each other through peer‐learning system as well as through a learning sharing workshop.
Workshop Description
With the mention objective of GACF, workshop is moreover expected to meet the existing demand to strengthen community forestry based network and federations for the effective running of community organization. Workshop will not only provide an opportunity to share the knowledge on successful advocacy tools and techniques but also will give overview on shortcomings of advocacy process and develop common strategies for empowering community based organization. Through out the Asia region, different community organization has been working towards securing the rights of community on the forests, especially natural resources. This workshop will also cater updated status on how each individual organization and federation are moving to secure the goals of community. Moreover, the workshop will explore and analyze existing status of these networks and federation and draw out a regional level strategy of GACF as a future direction.
Time Frame
Workshop will cover five days in total beginning from March 25 ‐ 29, 2010. The initial three days of the workshop will be spends in a dialogue model where participants and facilitator will gain more insights of the workshop focus objective. Last two days will be more of field visit through out the community forestry area of Bangkok.
Objectives
General: To derive possible strategies for strengthening community forestry based networks and federations in the Asia region in particular while linking global strategies in general
Specific:
- Exploring existing status of CF network and federation from the perspective of Asia region
- Identifying key learning, challenges, opportunities and future direction of each respective country in relation to fortifies their federations/networks status
- Supporting & strengthening existing regional network through providing linkages between various projects being implemented in the region
- Identifying best practices in the field of policy advocacy and campaigning of the region in order to replicate them in the respective region.
- Sharing knowledge and experience
- Building concrete action plan
Participants
Participants are always deemed important for achieving event targeted goal. As the program overall set goal is to derive possible regional strategies for strengthening community forestry networks and federations, participants will be mostly from community forestry federations and network. Participant will be selected as per their presence in the past GACF event and workshop to ensure the commitments from the participant's side as well. Total number of participation is expected to be 25.
Participating Country: Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan, Laos, Bhutan, India (other countries can be added as per the workshop need)
Venue: Bangkok, RECOFTC
Date: March 25 – 29, 2010
For more details: contact GACF Global secretariat, Ph: 977014622271, email: info@gacfonline.com
Organized by: GACF/FECOFUN/RECOFTC, Thai Program
Supported by: Rights & Resources Initiatives (RRI)
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| GACF-FECOFUN-Workshop.pdf | 193.76 KB |
