The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Macedonia requested services to perform a Capacity Building Workshop for the nine local organizations that have been or are about to be awarded with USAID Grants. All of these organizations are very well versed in the technical areas that they are covering, but most of them find themselves in the role of primary implementer of a USAID project for the first time and need detailed introduction into USAID processes, procedures and requirements related to project management. They also have different levels of experience in implementing donor funded projects.

The goal of the workshop is to strengthen the capacities of the employees of the Private Clients sector & Direct and Indirect Sales Sector of Macedonian Telecom in order to successfully manage Partner Sales Networks. The focus of the workshop is on the operational level
Through this workshop the participants will:
• Gain new knowledge, tools and skills to manage indirect sales partners;
• Gain new knowledge in planning, organizing, communicating and improving the reward system of the indirect partners;
• Gather new skills to support indirect partners in increasing sales volume and decreasing costs;

The objectives of the workshops were dual, passing knowledge and skills on the Strategic planning process and creating one relatively complex and detailed Strategic plan for NGO’s, as well as preparing an action plan for 2011. The first workshop was designed to cover the following topics from the Strategic Planning Process: Strategic thinking and planning – new paradigm; Vision and mission statement – importance and process of creation; Practical creation of the Vision and Mission of the NGO; Theoretical presentation on the 3 analysis used in Strategic planning: SWOT; PEST and Functional analysis; Practical exercise of performing a SWOT Analysis; Practical exercise of performing a PESTLE Analysis; Sorting out priorities; Determining strategic areas and priorities; Implementing the strategy – Guidelines Divisions into groups for detailing the action plans for Training part 2.
During The second part, the group once again verified the Mission and Vision statement, worked in groups on the action plans for MIR, ANTICO and Fokus in 2011.

The main goal of these trainings is capacity building for NEA staff in the process of negotiation and lobbying for Economic Empowerment of rural women within NEA; defining what is the Group for Economic Empowerment of rural women within NEA and what are its activities, explain the process of lobbying and advocacy and what are the approaches available, define the term “influencing others”, define the problem, proposing goals for representation and defining the target audience / audiences. This training aimed to assist in the preparation of an advocacy plan, introduction with the planned activities for 2011, spreading the group’s activities in other rural areas.

One of the main objectives of the Project for Modernization of Education refers to the professional development of teachers. The goal was to establish a new institutional framework where training services for teachers would be provided by multiple providers with high quality standards. It aimed to empower the schools in making choices for performing basic activities, including that they will independently choose a training provider that can best meet their needs during the operation. CDS was chosen as a provider for trainings in the following two subjects:
•    Project Management
•    Team Work

Entrepreneurial Skills Training for Roma aims to encourage entrepreneurial spirit and develop entrepreneurial skills in Roma youth. The basic message is how to start up a business including basics of administration of business enterprise, incomes and expenses, calculation of price and marketing of products. Through theory and lots of exercises participants will be able to build the necessary firsthand experience with the entrepreneurial skills.

Job Skills Trainings for Roma aim to help Roma youth increase their skills for successful participation on the labor market.

Basic skills communication training adjusted to the specific needs of the company, their values and company culture. It was especially important to design this training so that they would be able to incorporate the new communication skills, both in their internal and external communication. The project was realized as  two 1 – day workshops for a different target group based on their position within the company and their level of interaction with the clients.