The Resident Programme Manager (RPM) workshop is one of IDEAL’s annual traditions. During this week all local managers from the 7 IDEAL countries – South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Mali, Burundi, Somaliland and the Palestinian Territories - visit the Netherlands to exchange and learn from one another. This year’s program was centred around the mid-term measurement and evaluation of the Inclusive Decisions at Local Level Programme (2017-2021). 

Wednesday 4 September – What have we achieved so far?
On Wednesday we discussed the results of the mid-term measurement which was carried out by the IDEAL teams and the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the 7 participating countries. Overall most significant results can be found under: inclusiveness and participation.

In working groups, country teams discussed the most remarkable results for their own context and the rationale behind it. At the end of the day each team had to present an action plan for the upcoming period addressing the key issues flowing from the data collection. 

Thursday 5 September – discovering Nijmegen and The Waal
The second day we travelled to the East of the Netherlands where the Municipality of Nijmegen presented us the Ruimte voor de Waal project (‘Room for the River’). The River Waal forms a bottleneck in Nijmegen and has caused severe flooding back in the nineties. To prevent this from happening again and in order to protect the inhabitants of the city against water this project was developed. The dike in Lent was moved up north and a secondary channel was constructed in the flood plains. This has created an island in the Waal and a unique urban river park with lots of possibilities for recreation, culture, water and nature.  

In the afternoon we paid a visit to the Economic Board. The Economic Board is a driver of innovation in the region of Arnhem – Nijmegen, with Wageningen. As a Triple Helix collaboration among government, knowledge institutes and the business community, they encourage and connect economic activity and innovations in the key sectors of Food, Health and Energy and their cross-overs. Economic Board is about communicating potential and connecting parties. A VR-tour took participants across the region and showed them the most outstanding regional initiatives. 

Friday 6 September – How to navigate toward IDEAL’s objectives in 2021?
On the last day of the RPM Workshop we discussed the findings of the mid-term evaluation of IDEAL and formulated recommendations on the way forward. 

Sub-groups assigned with different themes went into discussion on the design and Theories of Change, sustainability, gender and conflict sensitivity as well as monitoring & evaluation. Teams unanimously decided to validate the discussion document prepared by the evaluator.

The evaluation has provided useful insights in order to improve further implementation. One of them is the involvement of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for which we gained tips & tricks from Jacqueline Wairimu, a WASH expert with great experience in community engagement. 

This week a tailor-made gender and conflict training for the RPMs is taking place in Noordwijk.