Building on last week's celebrations of the fifth anniversary of the Scotland-Malawi Cooperation agreement and the successful launch of the 2010/11 Malawi pledge, the Scotland Malawi Partnership has this week stepped up efforts to increase engagement with Scottish Local Authorities.

Letters have gone out today to Chief Executives and Civic Heads across Scotland offering free membership of the partnership and promoting a free Local Authority training event to be held in January of next year. Scheduled to go ahead in Edinburgh on Thursday 27th January, the training event is being put together jointly by the SMP and the UK Local Government Alliance for International Development (UK LGAID). The main focus of the day will be on funding issues (sourcing, tapping into and creating funding opportunities) with additional practical workshops on handling media/communications around international work and using a free online LGAID toolkit to suuccessfully plan international work/projects. Confirmed speakers already include Lucy Slack, Deputy Secretary General of the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, and Libby Ferguson, Partnership Manager of UK LGAID.

Current, new and prospective Local Authority members are all encouraged to sign-up to the training event by e-mailing the SMP, detailing the names, titles and contact details of all staff keen to attend.

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