The Office of National Water Resource (ONWR) joined with GIZ, under the Thai-German Climate Programme – Water (TGCP-Water), and other partners to organise the Training of Facilitators programme from 27 – 29 April 2022 at Centara Grand at Central Plaza Ladprao, Bangkok. The three-day training programme aimed to equip participants with the knowledge and facilitation skills to effectively organise climate-sensitive water management training in the future, which supports scaling up climate-sensitive river basin management and the application of Ecosystem-based Adaptation in the river basins across Thailand as planned by ONWR. The 15 selected participants came from a diverse group of stakeholders (government agencies, river basin committee members, education institutions and locals) from Yom and Sakae Krang River basins.

During the training, the master trainers from GIZ’s Academy for International Cooperation (AIZ) led the participants through the essential learning area of basic training skills which included the adult learning approach, different facilitation techniques, training cycle and training design. In addition, experts on climate vulnerability risk assessments, Ecosystem-based Adaptation and river basin management also provided technical knowledge to the participants and put the acquired knowledge into practice. Each training session provided ample practice on various modules through a diverse set of activities.

The Training of Facilitators aims to provide a solid foundation for future training and will help ONWR to expand training capacity and upskill relevant stakeholders in climate-sensitive river basin management from key building blocks – training design, facilitating skills and technical knowledge. In addition, taking part in the Training of Facilitators programme can also add value to participants, offering them an opportunity to become resource persons and share information after the training.

“The Training of Facilitators paves the way for committed stakeholders in the water management realm to become long-term trainers ready to transfer knowledge and promote learning together with water stakeholders in the river basins,” said Dr. Napon Anuttarangkul, a lecturer from Mahidol University Nakhon Sawan Campus.

The Training of Facilitators is part of the “Capacity Development Programme (CDP) on Cooperation Management for climate-sensitive Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA)”, a comprehensive and multi-phase capacity building approach developed by the TGCP-Water project under the collaboration between ONWR and GIZ that started in December 2020 and will go into its 3^rd and final phase in August 2022.