United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sep 2005
InterWorks conducted a five-day workshop on Environmental Management in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania from 5–9 September 2005. The training workshop was intended to raise awareness of UNHCR’s policy of mainstreaming environmental considerations in refugee operations and to make stakeholders aware of various practical means by which to do so. The workshop also sought, for the first time, to introduce a Training of Trainers (TOT) element in order to facilitate the running of “spin-off” workshops at country level. The workshop was attended by representatives of UNHCR, operational partners and refugee-hosting governments from 11 African countries.
The workshop was designed and facilitated by InterWorks. Key learning objectives after the first three days included: describing potential environmental impacts of refugee populations; identifying UNHCR’s role in addressing these impacts; describing the environmental assessment processes and tools; identifying several environmental management strategies; and preparing a community environmental action plan. The objective of the additional two days of training was to empower the participants to facilitate workshops of their own at country level on environmental management in refugee situations.
The course and its facilitation were great…provided tremendous support in helping to build my confidence in facilitating future workshops… the level of expertise from facilitators was great.
– Workshop participant