UNITAR Hiroshima Fellowship for Afghanistan

Workshop Series for Session 2003-2004

Workshop II: Project Design and Proposal Writing

Date and Venue: 15 - 17 May 2004

Venue: Kabul, Afghanistan

Introduction

The UNITAR Hiroshima Fellowship Programme for Afghanistan is a year long programme that aims at building training and leadership skills and providing technical and institutional support to a core group of Afghan government officials, educators, practitioners, and professional trainers.

The programme hopes to contribute substantively to existing efforts in Afghanistan, and is structured around four main elements – Fellows, Mentors, Personal Development Plans and Instructor-led Training Workshops. The first of the three workshops was a planning and orientation session introducing participants to the methodology used in the Fellowship as well as certain key substantive concepts. The remaining two workshops are primarily planned around the needs identified by Fellows and Mentors through the year. Workshop II of the 2003-2004 Session focused on Project Design and Proposal Writing, which aimed at improving skills identified by the Fellowship group as a critical requirement for meeting professional goals.

Objectives

The objectives of the three-day workshop were

to expand on the project design and proposal writing concepts introduced in Workshop I;

to help participants further develop their project concepts;

to learn quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques to be able to work out project  planning and implementation details;

to enhance proposal-writing skills which help in successfully gathering support for a project.

Organization

This was an intensive hands on workshop structured around the nine key elements of a project proposal. Each session addressed one element and then require the Fellows to work in groups on exercises addressing that element. The case studies used in the exercises were based on the current Fellows’ projects.

Participants

The workshop is specifically designed to meet the needs of the existing twenty-three Fellows (from government ministries, non-profit and academic sectors) who compose UNITAR’s 2003-04 Fellowship for Afghanistan.

Resource Person

The workshop was conducted by David J. Eaton, the Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professor of Natural Resource Policy Studies at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin (UT/A) and Special Fellow for UNITAR. Professor Eaton received his Ph.D. in geography and environmental engineering from The Johns Hopkins University (1977), masters degrees in public health and public works administration from the University of Pittsburg (both in 1972), and A.B. in biology from Oberlin College (1971). Prior to coming to UT/A as Assistant Professor in 1976, Eaton served as a staff member of the US Agency for International Development (1975-76), the US President’s Science Advisor’s Office (1974-1975), and the US president’s Council on Environment Quality (1970-72). Professor Eaton has extensive experience in developing project proposals to be implemented in developing and developed countries, and teaching project design and proposal writing to students from around the world. He has been supporting UNITAR’s work since 1996.

Working Language

The workshop was conducted in English.