Planning and writing quality research proposals - 5 days training

Public: Agricultural Research for Development programmes and networks

• Traditional training curriculum on writing successful project proposals usually deals with writing the concept notes or proposals only, with no emphasis on participatory strategic planning. One of the objectives of this specific training activity is to combine training on "planning for product delivery to the user" with training on "writing a successful proposal to donors".
• Sessions like problem analysis, stakeholders analysis, choice of partnerships, impact pathway, product delivery to users, logframes are included in the curriculum. This inclusion ensures that participants understand the significance of planning a project for delivery to users in order to optimize the impact of a project, and ultimately convince the donors.
• Other sessions on co-financing, bilateral fund raising, funding opportunities, and meeting with a donor can also be included in the curriculum.
• A short but essential session was developed on criteria used by donors to select projects; a list of all donors' potential questions and criteria is used throughout the training week. Participants are asked to play the part of a donor and question partner participants using these criteria.
• On the last day of each respective workshop, all participants receive a CD containing all power point presentations, bibliography material, pictures of the training workshops, etc.

Coaching approach (teaching and learning style)

• To make the learning process more effective, I have adopted a coaching approach that encourage participants to 'restructure' their experience and knowledge. I use questions, comments and answers from the participants themselves to encourage 'self-learning'. "The best resources are sitting under your hat and standing in your shoes." This sentence opens each of my workshops as a way to let the participants know that they will use their own resources to learn new tools, to give the best of themselves, and at the end of the workshop, to feel confident in applying and using the new tools and skills developed during the week.
• Even if the course is not meant to be a "train the trainers" workshop, suggestions are given throughout the course to ensure that the participants realized that their skills in planning, writing and submitting concept notes and proposals could be used to review their colleagues proposals, to advise on a fund raising strategy or to train their colleagues.
• To encourage the development of participant's self confidence, participants are asked to volunteer, work out exercises, analyze readings and provide feedback at every session

Background

• I started this training activity while working at IPGRI, in 2005. Having identified the problem of partner's lack of capability in planning and writing quality proposals, I wrote and submitted a concept note on "planning and writing quality research proposal training workshops" which was successfully funded by the Generation Challenge Program (GCP). I developed the training material based on my 4 years of experience in resource mobilization at IPGRI, organized the logistics of 3 workshops in Asia, Latin America and Africa and delivered the trainings using coaching methods.
• A few months after this initial project, I was commissioned by the Sub-Saharan Challenge Programme of FARA/CGIAR to train their CORAF, ASARECA and SADC pilot learning sites' teams of multi-stakeholders. I adapted the training material and the agenda to the specific conditions and timetable of the winning teams. The training workshops would emphasize more on developing logframes and writing full proposals in a few weeks only…
• You can find 2 models of agenda that will give you an idea of how the agenda can be adapted to the needs of your organization.

Agenda Concept Note    Agenda Proposal

For more information on customized trainings, contact kmalgrand@gmail.com