The Center of Excellence Projects of the University of Abomey-Calavi (CEA-SMIA of the Institute of Mathematics and Physical Sciences), CEA-C2EA of the National Water Institute, CEA-Co-EIE of the Ecole Poytechnique d'Abomey-Calavi) held today, in the meeting room of the Avrankou town hall a mini workshop with the Executive Secretaries, the Local Development and Planning Officers and the Prefects of Ouémé and Littoral.
The objective is to present the Centers of Excellence in their specificities, missions and training offers and to collect the needs of the participants in terms of training and/or capacity building, the aim being to accompany the communes in the overall achievement of development objectives.
After the speech of Mr. Gabriel GANHOUTODE, Mayor of Avrankou, main facilitator of the meeting, representing the President of the National Association of Communes of Benin and member of the National Steering Committee of the Centers of Excellence projects in Benin, the coordinators of the three Centers of Excellence projects in Benin presented one after the other their project as well as the opportunities for the participants.
This step gave way to a discussion session during which the executives of the town halls present at the meeting had answers to various concerns raised by the interventions of the organizers. In terms of concerns, it was mainly a question of capacity building in monitoring and evaluation, project planning and in the field of administration.
The last step was the workshop exchanges and the closing plenary. The participants were motivated to identify their training and/or capacity building needs in their specific sectors of activity. This is a crucial and determining step according to Mayor Gabriel GANHOUTODE because it will enable the Centers of Excellence to provide better support to the communes for a real impact on development.
The mini-workshop with the Executive Secretaries, the Local Development and Planning Officers and the Prefects of Ouémé and Littoral was closed in an atmosphere of mutual satisfaction between participants and organizers. The objectives of the meeting were fully achieved according to the coordinators of the Centers of Excellence.
For the Mayor of Avrankou who closed the meeting, the Centers of Excellence will have to re-examine the list of participants' needs and establish priorities. He congratulated the participants for their promptness in responding to the invitation and promised that the Centers of Excellence will follow up on the mini-workshop with the same promptness.