Regional training in West Africa under the Belgian CHM partnership

Sub-regional CHM training for West-Africa, January 2006

In January 2006, the CHM national focal points of Burkina Faso and Belgium will jointly organize a sub-regional training workshop. The Belgian CHM is discussing with the Secretariat of the CBD on the possibility of also participating in the organization of this workshop as they did on earlier occasions in Workshops in 2003 and 2005.

The workshop in Burkina Faso aims to strengthen national capacities and promote the involvement of partners from four countries in the West African Region (Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Niger).

The aim of the training workshop is twofold: (I) continue education by providing refresher courses to former trainees and (ii) train new persons involved in national CHMs.

Part of the training curricula will be on new technologies such as the EC PTK, XML, web services for a contact database and inter-operability between CHM web sites.

From each country at least three persons, whom are actively involved in their national CHM, will participate in the training.

Currently Belgium has a partnership with the following countries and regional organisations:
Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo-Brazzaville, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, DR Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Vietnam, SACEP and COMIFAC