Capacity-building for the forestry sector in Congo: RIFFEAC and ATIBT organise training for trainers in Brazzaville

More than 10 participants (including one woman) from the project's four target countries (Cameroon, DRC, Gabon and Congo) benefited from support in the process of building in-service training modules in forest botany, based on the needs expressed by forestry companies.

The seminar was led by two experts provided by EGIS FORHOM and Oréade Brèche: an expert in andragogy and training engineering and an expert in forest management, specialising in forest botany.

The latter provided the beneficiaries with the tools they needed to write high-quality training modules on forest botany.

This seminar is part of the ongoing ADEFAC project, which aims to make the forestry/wood industry a leading economic sector in sustainable forest management, the fight against climate change and the development of wood resources, in particular by supporting the development of SMEs/SMIs and the craft industry in this area.

The aim of the seminar was to support a group of forest management trainers from the four target countries of the ADEFAC project to produce Continuing Professional Development (CPD) modules on species recognition (forest botany), forest inventories, reforestation activities and monitoring and evaluation of timber resources.

The session was opened by the Regional Coordinator of RIFFEAC, Mr Félix KOUBOUNA, who explained that RIFFEAC contributes to sustainable forest management through training, research and communication. He also reminded participants that their attendance at this technical-pedagogical coaching session would commit them to the forthcoming implementation of training modules for companies, and that forest botany, the subject of this coaching session, is the foundation of forest management, as it is based on knowledge of the forest. Finally, he called on the selected trainers to get involved in all the activities planned during this seminar, following a co-construction approach involving the pooling of know-how and professional experience.

From a methodological point of view, the work carried out during this technical and pedagogical coaching focused on the following stages:

Analysing the continuing training needs of forestry companies and reporting on the surveys,
Drawing up specifications and the CE sheet
Development of the learning scenario
Drawing up the assessment form attached to the module
Drawing up the outline of the modular model (plan of the learning support)

As far as the next stages are concerned, a roadmap was defined and validated by all the parties involved, and the Expert Trainers reminded the participants that the coaching process would only be completed once they had successfully delivered the training modules in companies.

At the end of the training, the learners expressed their satisfaction with the high quality of the content and the way in which the training had been conducted, acknowledging that they had received useful knowledge that would enable them to effectively improve their professional performance in the field.

The seminar was closed by the ATIBIT representative, Alain Bertin TIOTSOP, who began by asking the facilitators of the sub-groups to share their feelings following the training, highlighting the workshop's achievements. He also encouraged participants to continue working hard after the workshop, mentioning the need to produce TWG-certified training modules, which will be rolled out shortly. He stressed the importance of training the trainers of tomorrow, thanked the AFD (donor), the expert trainers and the participants, and offered participants the opportunity to continue to call on the experts through him.