Workshops and Workshops and Workshops Oh My

Norbert Mao, or Chairman Mao as he is known here in Gulu, not because of his political leanings which seem squarely democratic, but because he is the chairman of Gulu District, famously declared a few years ago that he was never going to attend another workshop in northern Uganda again. This declaration was radical. It was radical, because it thumbed its nose at the international community’s intervention du jour: the workshop.

Workshops are perceived by the international community and now, by extension, developing countries as a good tool for quick and comprehensive learning in an emergency or development setting. People spend all day interacting with colleagues or people they don’t always have time to meet otherwise from their field of expertise. They build connections and learn from each other. The workshop topic is usually one that is of interest and of critical need to participants. For example, here are some recent topics on offer in Gulu: improving health and hygiene in villages, public-private partnership in economic recovery, assessing the current state of peace, transitional justice, etc.

Facilitators are often expert guests flown in from exotic locations like the UK, Sierra Leone, or South Africa on the dime of an eager NGO or donor wanting to demonstrate its ability to bring the most relevant experts to a situation ripe for input. It’s also a good way of advancing the goals of the project, because workshops are monitoring and evaluation darlings. When tallying up impact on the project, workshops are tangible and measurable (i.e., # of people trained in transitional justice).

You’re waiting for the “but...” Here it is:

But…word on the street, spread by Chairman Mao and others, is that workshops don’t necessarily have the good intentioned impact bestowed upon them. First of all, a one day on transitional justice does not a legal expert make. Participants do not become experts on the subject after one day of training or fraternizing with colleagues. However, and despite the fact that many facilitators issue precisely that disclaimer at the start of a workshop, many participants believe they are experts. There are increasing cases of new workshop knowledge being put wrongly into action. Just yesterday I attended a rally in Gulu on cancer awareness and one of the speakers said “If you are aware of cancer you will not get cancer.” Hmmm. I’m pretty sure he knew what he meant, but for the 1,000 people listening, I fear they may now assume they are no longer going to catch this thing called cancer, because they now know it exists. Perhaps if he had a few more workshops on cancer awareness, he’d have gotten that talking point right. (“Do no harm” alarm bells starting to ring yet?)

The flip side to the workshop eager beaver is the participant who fails to apply workshop knowledge. I feel this unintended consequence is more often a culprit. I’m not trying to be self righteous here. In fact, I’ve even issued my own disclaimer to try and circumvent this problem very recently at a workshop I myself am guilty of organizing. I said something like: “While this first step of training on conflict sensitivity is important, it is only a first step. To help you apply this knowledge, we are going to follow up with site visits, evaluations and recommendations, yada yada yada.” Workshop organizers know that a workshop does not go far enough, but very rarely does anyone have time to follow up with activities needed to deepen the knowledge and help participants apply that knowledge. I’m going to try, but time keeps on slipping…

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the workshop these days is that since the whole international gang has arrived in Gulu and the workshop is intervention du jour, there is constantly a workshop on offer. The average civil servant in northern Uganda must be invited to at least two or three workshops a week! The steady promise of three meals and a sitting allowance (that’s right, a payment to attend a workshop) has meant that civil servants would rather attend his or her third workshop on, for instance, the nature of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) return than actually do the work to assist the IDPs with return. Besides, workshops are fun. At my last workshop, the best part of the day was the clapping competition. Clapping competitions occur when a presenter finishes and the other participants demonstrate their appreciation by clapping. Acknowledging appreciation is fairly common, of course, but adding a layer of competition to it is, I think, a sign of workshop overdose. Participants were competing on the most creative ways to clap in appreciation. The Mosquito clap, the Mandela clap, the Macarena clap. Yes, the Macarena dance became a clap of appreciation during my last workshop. Alas, this may have been the most engaging part of the day.

It was the clapping competition that got to me. It’s so clear that we’ve workshop-ized every NGO worker or civil servant in northern Uganda. They know the drill: learn a little, eat a lot, play fun crowd engagement games, get paid for it…all in a day’s work in Gulu.