Event reports
Event: Training Workshop
Date, Place: January, February 2014; Amman, Irbid, Aqaba
Organization: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. Jordan Office (KAS), Ministry of Social Development (MOSD)
Program
Saturday
Welcome Speeches
Mr. Mesleh Al-Krasha
Director of NGOs
Ministry of Social Development
Amman – Jordan
Ms. Nidaa Al Shraideh
Project Manager
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Jordan Office
On Behalf of Dr. Otmar Oehring, Resident Representative of KAS Jordan Office
Session 1: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Legal Field
Mr. Ayesh Al Awamleh
Legal Consultant for the Minister
Deputy Director of Legal Affairs
Ministry of Social Development
Amman – Jordan
Discussion
Session 2: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Administrative field
Mr. Ibrahim Al Tamimi
Inspector
Ministry of Social Development Amman – Jordan
Discussion
Sunday
Session 3: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Financial Field
Mr. Kaid Al Khres
Head of Auditing Department
Ministry of Social Development Amman – Jordan
Discussion
Session 4: Skills of Evaluating the Performance of Charities
Mr. Ibrahim Al Tamimi
Inspector
Ministry of Social Development Amman – Jordan
Discussion
Closing Session and Distribution of Certificates
Introduction
In the past year, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. (KAS) and the Ministry of Social Development (MOSD) have conducted important and fruitful training workshops concerning important issues such as good governance and administrative reforms in Jordan for the staff of MOSD as well as charities. In continuity of this successful cooperation KAS Jordan Office and MOSD conducted a two days training workshop for the staff of MOSD working with charities to optimize their skills and knowledge to ensure an efficient workflow, particularly in the administrative, financial and legal field.
The importance of this issue expanded greatly in the last years, as government agencies are increasingly dealing with complex social, economic and political matters, especially with regard to their collaboration with charities. Therefore, the knowledge and skills of staff working in the social sector on legal requirements has to be improved to ensure an efficient workflow.
These three training workshops, which each lasted for two days, were hold in mid, north and south Jordan with sixty-five to seventy participants each and focused on enabling employees of MOSD to gain the required skills in the areas of administrative and financial law, such as financial statement analysis skills, revision of the legislation skills, knowledge of legal requirements for meetings of public bodies etc. Furthermore, the workshop focused on methods of knowledge transfer to train participants to pass on their gained knowledge to their colleagues to strengthen their capacity to develop and assess administrative and financial reports.
Welcome Speeches
On behalf of Dr. Otmar Oehring, Representative of KAS Jordan Office, Ms. Nidaa Al Shraideh, Project Manager at KAS Jordan Office, thanked MOSD for their efforts and cooperation in organizing these three training workshops. She also thanked the participants who came from different governorates in the south, north and mid of Jordan for their attendance and gave a brief overview about the work of KAS Jordan Office, which includes, raising the performance of associations by teaching the rules of governance and focusing on legal requirements in administration and finance.
Mr. Amer Hamza, Secretary General of MOSD and Mr. Mesleh Al-Krasha, Director of the department dealing with NGOs at MOSD, opened the training workshop by thanking KAS for their effort. The cooperation of MOSD and KAS has been active since the eighties and focused on various areas of community development. Mr. Hamza highlighted the importance of the workshop and the topics of the training; the meaning of the opportunity to transfer and exchange experiences between the staff of the Ministry; as well as the necessity to raise the efficiency of institutional staff to promote the reform process in Jordan. As the Ministry is providing guidance and knowledge to the charities, training is very important for the staff working with charities. Mr. Al-Krasha, stressed that the performance of the staff had already improved as the procedures were simplified to strengthen the performance of charities to serve the community, the ultimate goal for all.
The evaluation showed appreciation for the efforts of the institution and those who organized it as well as a proposal to repeat the workshop and prolong the duration of the training sessions.
Session 1: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Legal Field
Mr. Ayesh Awamleh, Legal Consultant for the Minister of Social Development, and Mr. Aied Al Abadi, Unit Manager of Registration and Publicity, emphasized the importance of capacity building for the staff in order to apply the provisions of the legislation during the period of approval of charities. He also stressed the importance of raising the skills for legal analysis of charities and scheduled registration, regulation and funding as well as General Assembly meetings and meetings of the governing body of the charities. The trainees were divided into four working groups and were given a number of tasks related to violations of the law. They were asked to analyze these irregularities based on the provisions of the “Societies Act” in force. Each group nominated one of its members to present the analysis; subsequently the participants discussed the analysis.
Session 2;4: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Administrative Field, and Skills of Evaluating the Performance of Charities
Mr. Ibrahim Al-Tamimi, Inspector at the Ministry, and Mr. Khalid Mhirat, Acting Head of Local Charities, focused on the review of the terminology and methods of local development-based systems for determining the role of charities as partners. They stressed the impact of activities and programs of the Ministry contributing to the development of the society. The presentation enabled the trainees to understand the internal environment behind the work of charities which increases their ability to determine the input of the administrative process. The training further improves their ability to manage the operations necessary for the work with charities. Their administrative, financial, and legal skills were improved and their abilities necessary to keep up with regulatory developments in the work of the charities in the areas of planning, organizing, directing, monitoring, supervision, evaluation and determining control standards were increased.
The participants also interacted with the exercises about administrative and legal issues, facing the work with charities. They expanded in open dialogues on ways of dealing with the issues.
Session 3: Capacity Building for the Staff of Ministry of Social Development Working with Charities in the Financial Field
Mr. Kayed Khreis, Head of the Auditing Department at the Ministry, and Mr. Mahmoud Hadban, Acting Chief of the Financial Audit Department, focused on familiarizing the participants with the concept of accounting and helping charities to understand the mechanism of the accounting procedures and its relation to the objectives of the charities. They were also shown how to identify the involved parties in the financial operations to determine income and expenses as well as to identify target groups of services. The trainees were provided with knowledge of how to understand the accounts of charities in terms of expenses and revenue as well as the mechanism for the preparation of budgets.
Conclusion
KAS Jordan Office and MOSD will continue to enable direct dialogue between government and citizens. It is in the interest of Jordan and the region’s stability to promote the trend of grassroots development. Project management, proposal and report writing, financial planning, and governance standards are only part of what promotes successful reforms. The manual of the training workshop will be distributed by the participants and by MOSD to the charities.
All participants were awarded a certificate for their participation in the training workshop. The recommendations made by the trainers and participants provided a basic framework for governance standards of civil society organizations. The participants will apply the gained skills in their work and will exchange their experiences with other participants to further optimize them.
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