Baobab has been developed as a public-private partnership between Deutsche Stiftung für internationale Entwicklung (DSE), the German Foundation for International Development, funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ), and development practitioners, Lohmeier-Wyley Associates. Within DSE the Centre for Social and Economic Development (ZWS, Berlin) and, since 2000, the Centre for Food, Rural Development and the Environment (ZEL, Feldafing and Zschortau) have been responsible.

 

Services

BAOBAB provides:

• a learning facility for development managers and practitioners worldwide
• access to a support network and exchange of ideas for learners and development practitioners.

 

BAOBAB offers:

Interactive learning facilities/modules for self guided learning in:

Development Design

• Approach and methodology
• Ecological dimension
• Economic dimension
• Socio-cultural dimension
• Political-institutional dimension
• Roles of projects / programmes and external funders

 

Project Cycle Management

• Analytical methods in planning
• Logical Framework planning
• Managing implementation (including operational planning, organising, monitoring, evaluation)

 

Facilitation and Consulting

• Theories/concepts (including Gestalt- and complexity theories and practice)
• Communciation
• Group/team working (including conflict management and intercultural management)
• Procedures/Tools
• Process skills
• The facilitator/consultant
• Practicalities of facilitated events

 

Comprehensive handbooks on a development management system, developed and used over the past 13 years for training development managers from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

A Resources Centre listing books, periodical articles, journals, and other websites of interest to development workers.

Support to BAOBAB users in the practical application of the development management approaches and tools offered. This includes advice and comments from BAOBAB staff in response to users' queries, referrals to other sources of expertise, and the networking of users with other users working in similar projects or programmes and facing similar challenges.