18-Oct-21 Monrovia, Partners in Development (PADEV), a national environmental organization has successfully completed a weeklong in-house training for eight (8) of its field extension staff. The training essentially focused on the fundamentals of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI), Biodiversity Conservation, Conservation Communication as well as Geo-Information Services (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) operation. The principal objective of the training was to improve the technical capacity of the organization’s staff; build and prepare a resilient team of reliable front liners to support the implementation of work related to biodiversity conservation and ensure the delivery of quality services at the project level.
The training was hosted in the conference facility of Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) in Congo Town, and it ran from October 5 through the 13th. The lead facilitator for the training was Dr. Samuel N. Koffa, an independent consultant and a scientist with extensive experience in the forest sector of Liberia. Co-facilitators included Shadrach Kerwillain, a Conservation Biologist at Fauna and Flora (FFI) and Manager for FFI activities at the Sapo National Park (SNP). Abednego Gbarway, Wildlife Manager at the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) provided lectures on Protected Area (PA) management while Macdonald Ndorbor made presentations on GIS and how to use GPS. Speaking to participants at the opening of the weeklong exercise, PADEV Team Leader, Nobeh, Jackson underscored the significance of strengthening the technical capacity of the field staff. He said as the organization braces to engage with forest fringed communities across the country, it was extremely important to raise the level of alertness of the field staff on the fundamentals of conservation forestry and basic principles that apply to working successfully with people who live at the peripheries of the forests.
“Even though I have explicit confidence in your individual and collective capacity to deliver, this training is designed to further boost your confidence, integrity and to give you the necessary skills you need to enable you all cope with the changing trend of things in the forestry/environmental sector. Once you are equipped with the requisite technical skills and knowledge that are applicable to the evolving context of natural resource management, it will give you the advantage to surmount challenges you may face in your work”,
Nobeh asserted as he inspired the participants at a brief program before the start of the training.
PADEV was founded in August 2016 to contribute to national development. It is a leading national institution that builds its intervention on the collective competence of its diverse professionals. The current PADEV team worked extensively with the USAID funded Land Rights and Community Forestry Program (LRCFP), which supported the development of the Community Rights Law (CRL) with Respect to Forestland and its regulation, and helped to establish the initial five (5) Authorized Forest Communities (AFC).