THE United States Agency for International Development (USAID/Guyana) through its Governance Enhancement Project (GEP), recently conducted three three-day training programs in Advanced Participatory Methods (APM) for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) , GEP Partners and individuals.  The workshops were held in Corriverton, Berbice and in Georgetown. The purpose of this training programme is to provide participants with an effective process to motivate and empower key citizen groups. Additionally, APM aims at enabling participants to facilitate groups more effectively and makes more productive meetings, workshops and seminars.  It can create a sense of teamwork among participants and maximise productivity of the groups using the technique.

APM is useful for consensus building, networking and advocacy. The APM training is also intended to increase the skill sets of GEP partners to strengthen public participation skills in development activities in order to build capability, enhance performance, engage stakeholders, and refine institutional accountability.

Sixty participants benefited from the training, which was conducted by Trevor Spence, a trainer and consultant with Tetra Tech ARD – the implementing contractor of this USAID-funded project.