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Social protection is a subset of public actions that help address risk, vulnerability and chronic poverty. Social transfers and social services are a long-term investment. They carry lifetime benefits and high individual and social returns. Social protection aims at ensuring groups and individuals to live a fulfilling life, taking into consideration the role of the state in facilitating this, and the vulnerabilities of particular groups or individuals. As a set of policies, social protection consists of interventions which address vulnerabilities and factors which hinder a group or individual's capacity to enjoy a fulfilling life.

Capacities of both women and men must be harnessed so that they can address vulnerable conditions and protect themselves, their families and communities against hazards. By attending this training, participants’ knowledge and skills in integrating gender in the concepts and practices of Community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) will be strengthened hence aiding them in addressing this critical developmental challenge.

After independence, the first president was interested in achieving three things for the country; ie the eradication of extreme poverty, illiteracy, and extreme hunger. This was necessitated by the fact that then and through the colonial system, Kenyans had been treated as second-class citizens which increased their vulnerability and exposure to the three issues. However, this was not achieved then and subsequent governments have been trying to address these issues by encompassing them in development plans and policies. The promulgation of the new Kenyan constitution in 2010, brought forth government’s commitment to providing for vulnerable populations that are unable to meet their basic needs, including women, children, older persons and the youth. Kenya’s economic blueprint (Vision 2030) contends that “no society can gain social cohesion if significant sections of the population live in abject poverty.” Reducing vulnerability and poverty is a key element of many social policies across government ministries in Kenya.

Developing countries’ disaster profiles are dominated by droughts, fires, floods, technological accidents, diseases and epidemics that disrupt people’s livelihoods, destroy the infrastructure, divert planned use of resources, interrupt economic activities and retard development. In addition to this, a fast-tracked pace of development in the developing world has brought with it the perils of precarious living, pressures on non-renewable resources, densely populated spaces that are unplanned, unsafe and risky and environmental degradation among others. As a consequence, the frequency of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, cyclones, landslides, droughts, and fire outbreaks has gone up. Something needs to be done.

Modern day organizations and governments have embraced Cash transfer programming (CTP) to address the needs of communities during disasters and early development period. CTP has become popular because it gives dignity back to people and is seen as an appropriate emergency response to provide for the immediate needs for food and non-food items. This approach is also used to support the recovery of livelihoods after disasters and put communities back on the path to development.

Why do governments, NGOs, Foundations, CBOS and other organizations roll out projects and programmes in different sectors? It is because they want to make an impact in the lives of the target audiences/ beneficiaries through thoroughly thought out series of actions whose end result is improved livelihoods and quality of life. How do they ensure they meet this objective? This is done through effective monitoring of these programmes so as to ensure that they are still on course and if they aren’t, take actions that take the projects back on track. This training aims to enlighten the participant on the entire process of monitoring of projects and evaluating them to ensure that the intended development related results are continuously achieved.

Monitoring and evaluation is a concept and practice through which organizations evaluate where they are, where they are going, how they will get there and basically what needs to be done to achieve preset objectives. The practice enables organizations to understand what they need to do, ultimately understand if they achieved the same and if they didn’t, evaluate what could have been done to improve results of rolled out projects. This five day’s training serves as a guide and introduction to development practitioners primarily those involved continuously in project implementation on how to monitor and evaluate projects and programmes in an effort to achieve objectives and also help beneficiary communities in improving their livelihoods.

Climate change (CC) threatens progress on development particularly in developing countries because they have the least capacity to cope. Adaptation to climate change in these countries is therefore critical. These adjustments in response to the negative impacts of climate change are necessary as they are locally focused and inexpensive. Adaptation efforts based at the local level address exposure of vulnerable recipients to the adverse impacts of climate change. Community-based climate change adaptation identifies and facilitates local development activities that strengthen the capacity of local people to adapt to the capricious climate. This approach employs participatory processes and disaster risk reduction.