In support to strengthen the capacity of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Women’s Rights Groups/Movement to integrate into coalitions and Networks to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls under Pillar six (6) of the EU UN Spotlight Initiative, Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L), a national organization with primary trust in capacity building training, signed a Project Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with UN Women to (amongst other deliverables) train CSOs and Women Rights Groups in five (5) Spotlight counties. The CSOs Peer Learning Event, which was conducted with 42 (20 females and 22 males) participants representing five CSO Secretariats from the five Spotlight Counties and one additional CSO Secretariat from Bong (a non-spotlight county), focused on experiential learning among CSOs taking into consideration leadership and decision making, conflict mediation/resolution mechanisms, coordination, networking and collaboration, and resource mobilization and sustainability.
Among other things, the Peer Learning Event was meant to provide the space and opportunity for CSOs actors across the five Spotlight Counties to share their experiences in relation to their achievements, challenges, and key learning, during the implementation phase in the spirit of learning from one another and improving their work as the project comes to a close. During the process, CSOs shared their achievements, challenges and shared amongst themselves
key recommendations that would enhance their work. Based on the engagement, DEN-L believes that CSOs have some level of capacity to mentor one another and withstand potential challenges as funding draws down. In other to cement the existing capacity, however, DEN-L recommends the following:
Keep the current CSOs Secretariat engaged in the next phase of the Spotlight through regular update meetings and providing them grants to enhance the current work;
DEN-L and other partners are strong that there is a need to do similar interventions in other
non-spotlight counties to increase the scope of the impact.
