A ‘joint’ workshop was held in Nairobi by the AGDEN Ford Foundation Rights in M&E project from Monday 14th until Wednesday 16th of June at the beautifully green Fairview Hotel in Nairobi. This workshop represents the final one in the Ford Foundation funded project intended to bring together human rights, women’s rights and M&E. It was ‘joint’ because two previously planned workshops for Lagos and Cairo were put together and offered as one. The first in the series of workshops was held in Johannesburg in August 2009. One major difference between this workshop and the Johannesburg one was the length; instead of five days, the Nairobi workshop was given for three days as requested by the Ford Foundation Programme Officers at a crucial meeting in April. Most participants felt three days were inadequate to cover the workshop content.

The pre-workshop training needs assessment conducted by AGDEN revealed that participants were keen to learn more about participatory methods, human rights and gender equality as they relate to monitoring and evaluation. Most of the 35 participants stated that they hope and expect to tighten their understanding of monitoring and evaluation of human rights programming.
Participants expressed the need to be introduced to the latest tools for gender analysis and be taken through the process of designing monitoring and evaluation plans and frameworks for human rights. This expectation is the reason why the Ford Foundation funded the project. The project unveiled the toolkit for Rights and Gender Responsive M&E at this workshop. The workshop was oversubscribed and AGDEN is seriously considering offering a similar workshop in the near future.