Following a successful PCM course organised for global UNICEF staff in Copenhagen, UNICEF decided to organise two PCM courses simultaneously in English and French in Brussels for their staff from mainly Africa who are involved in drafting proposals for the ACP-EU Water Facility.
• The 31 participants were highly motivated to learn, alert, open-minded, stimulating and highly participative. Most had only heard about the method and only very few had attended a previous training. None had participated in a real planning workshop guided by a moderator.
• They enjoyed immensely exchanging their national field experience and getting to know each other. Participants were very pleased with the facilitation, they liked the group exercises, and became clear about the main concepts, like the testing of Assumptions with the algorithm. It seemed that Africans found the PCM logic easy to understand maybe because their interactive tradition is stronger than in other cultures.
• Most participants would like to have the course extended to 4 or even 5 days and some suggest organising similar courses or real planning workshops in country.
• Two workshops took place simultaneously in Kenya and in Guinea to work on real proposals.
• The three projects brought to the workshop (one for each country) was worked on in detail and discussed and finalised in plenary. Participants said they felt at “ease” to prepare the detailed project document, “happy” and “aux anges” (in heaven) with the work they had achieved during the workshop