Fourth Day

1. Capacity Building of Actors Fourth Day 5 July, 2012

2. Empowerment What do we mean by “empowerment”?

3. • Empowerment is about people • taking control over their lives • pursuing their own goals, living according to their own values, developing self-reliance • being able to make choices and influence - both individually and collectively - the decisions that affect their lives • Empowerment is a process, which can be long and complex. • For women and men to be empowered, conditions have to be created to enable them to acquire the necessary resources: knowledge, political voice and organizational capacity

4. Some abilities • Ability to make decisions about personal/collective circumstances • Ability to access information and resources for decision-making • Ability to consider a range of options from which to choose (not just yes/no, either/or.) • Ability to exercise assertiveness in collective decision making • Having positive-thinking about the ability to make change

5. • Ability to learn and access skills for improving personal/collective circumstance • Ability to inform others’ perceptions though exchange, education and engagement. • Involving in the growth process and changes that is never ending and self-initiated • Increasing one's positive self-image and overcoming stigma • Increasing one's ability in discreet thinking to sort out right and wrong

6. Whose abilities? The individual level Individuals, represent the first layer. For societies and organisations to transform and grow, they need individuals with skills, knowledge and experience. Here development takes place through • processes of learning • sharing, experiencing • participation in communities of practice • on-the-job training and coaching • other learning techniques that empower and place the individual in a central and active position.

7. The organisational level The second layer of capacity is the organisational or institutional level. • as individuals make up organisations and institutions, the sharing of • skills • knowledge, • experience • values amongst individuals belonging to a group or organisation translates, over time • into the very organisation’s capacity, consisting of procedures, systems, policies and culture.

8. Some lessons learned Respect, trust, and social relations matter The best technical ideas have to be • communicated • owned • defended It takes time, skills, resources, and patience to build consensus and trust.

9. Participatory processes and conflict management go together Participatory processes should have • clearly defined rules of engagement • rules and mechanisms for resolving conflict and disagreements that are known and agreed to by all.

10. Poor people’s realities are the starting point Looking at the world through the eyes of poor women and men and then searching for the best-fit policies for that political, economic, social, and institutional context will prevent many mistakes. This must be complemented by an attitude of learning by doing.

11. Four empowerment elements act in together access to • timely and understandable information • inclusion and participation • accountability and investment in local organizational capacity all reinforce each other to deliver better poverty reduction outcomes.

12. Example from Serbia(by GIZ) The majority of young people do not have any possibilities: to fruitfully participate in shaping their environment, or to improve their personal situation, or to bring their potential in building the society. There are not any offers of open extra-curricular work with the young, which will enable the young in a less favorable position and belonging to marginalized groups to access the support, which will remove the danger of marginalizing a large part of young population. A lack of intercultural and integrating offers is fertile soil for continuation of interethnic tensions. The National Youth Strategy define the young as people of 15 to 30 years of age. In Serbia there are around a million and a half young people, which makes twenty percent of the total population.

13. GIZ Serbia Strengthening of the youth GIZ programmes for the strengthening of the youth aim at providing support to the young directly, directing the activities at the raising of individual and social capacities of the young themselves in the sense of transfer of knowledge, skills and competences. Within the scope of the programme Strengthening of the youth, GIZ is implementing the following activities: Support to the youth activities – promotion of participatory relationships in society by supporting ideas and actions of the young through projects they themselves or together with our office design and implement. Leaders/peers education establishing different educational models with the aim to implement activities of strengthening the youth and youth groups both through individual projects and cooperation with partner organizations and professionals who work with the young.

14. Whose capacity? The individual level Individuals, represent the first layer of capacity. For societies and organisations to transform and grow, they need individuals with skills, knowledge and experience. At the individual level capacity development takes place through demand-driven processes of learning and knowledge acquisition and sharing, experiencing, participation in communities of practice, south-south learning initiatives, on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching and other learning techniques that empower and place the individual in a central and active position.

15. The organisational/institutional level The second layer of capacity is the organisational or institutional level. As individuals make up organisations and institutions, the sharing of skills, knowledge, experience and values amongst individuals belonging to a group or organisation translates, over time, into the very organisation’s capacity, consisting of procedures, systems, policies and culture. Developing organisations or institutions’ capacity means fostering change within their complex system of policies, systems, procedures, regulations and organisational culture; a process, fully owned and controlled by the organisations and institutions that are undertaking change.