Hi everybody,
as new members of the soundplanning community, together with my colleague Claudia Onnis, I would like to share our experience in applying the PCM  methodology in the framework of a new cooperation project managed by Formez: the Balkan Project for  “Innovation and Cohesion of Central and Local Public Administrations in the Balkan Region”.
The project aims at building and strengthening the capacity of public administration in the Balkan Region. It is a regional cooperation programme of the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, supporting the strategy defined by the Italian law n. 84/2001 (" Provisions for the Italian participation to stabilisation, reconstruction and development of the Balkans").
As responsible for the Cultural Heritage line of the Balkan Project, we are now developing a specific training program in the 4  beneficiary countries of the activities for the Cultural Heritage sector: Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.
The training programme includes a special training session aimed at presenting the PCM Methodology to participants (mainly civil servants and ONGs from the Cultural Heritage sector) and a Project Work session, dedicated to the drafting of a Logical Framework for a Project proposal agreed by participants and related to a specific cultural asset or activity.
The special training session on PCM (The Project Cycle Management (PCM) and the Logical Framework Approach (LFA) - focusing on evaluation criteria and their link with the logical framework) has been developed by Paolo Bonesso, who you certainly already know to be a member of the Soundplannig community and one of the best Italian trainers on the PCM methodology.
During this first session, participants showed great interest in this methodology and approach. They are interested in applying the PCM methodology to projects to be funded by the EU and other international organisations, as and they know that the PCM approach is recommended by the European Commission. This is why we have introduced the community of practice on Sound Planning: in order to provide them with a collaborative space to increase their knowledge of PCM methodology and to share their experience in applying PCM to the cultural Heritage sector.
At the end of the training programme, participants will be asked to present to this community their project proposal, so that they can share their opinion with other members and experts and ask for some suggestions.
The real problem for them to be involved in this community, could be the language. Most of them in fact don’t speak English and they need a translator. But, we have tried to create a network between them, so that they can help each other.
Hoping that our contribution will be useful for the whole Sound Planning Community,
Mary and Claudia