On December 13-16, APRC's Davit Zhorzholiani participated in an Inter-Alliance Workshop in Yerevan organized by Oxfam in the South Caucasus. Approximately 50 people from Georgia, Armenia, Vietnam, Tajikistan, and Lebanon attended the workshop, which was rich with intensive training, presentations, panel discussions, group works, and more.

The focus of the workshop was alliances and networks, and to better understand how they are set up and how they function. The participants improved their advocacy skills, learned how to influence policies efficiently, and organize civil societies to engage in policy changes.

Representatives of various kinds of networks or alliances (formal and informal, registered or non-registered) shared their experiences and best practices with each other, discussed insightful cases, and came up with some solutions for the challenges their colleagues or they themselves face. The participants discussed the issues of sustainability in tandem with strategic long-term visions and utilized each other’s knowledge to come up with means of tackling problems in the agriculture and rural development fields.

The workshop was important to ferment new ideas for developing networks and for increasing their effectiveness. Examining different practices and contexts from different countries helped the participants realize their own role as a member of their own alliances/networks, and showed them ways in which they can contribute to alliance/network sustainability.

The Inter-Alliance Workshop managed to gather together motivated and experienced people, and engage them in dialogue to generate inspiring ideas for effective networking.