Encouraging gender balance in Para sports leadership was among the topics covered at the events, with the National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) of Mali and Benin who mentioned as model examples for others in the region to follow.

Founded in August 2012, the Agitos Foundation is the development arm of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and is the only global charity focused on the development of Para sport.

The two training events in Cotonou were follow-ups from June’s launch meeting in Benin, where the country’s first Organisational Capacity Programme (OCP) event was hosted under the NPC Development Programme.

The OCP seeks to develop Para sport at a national level via a two-year mentoring process, and the steps to do so for many African nations are currently underway.

In Cotonou, a four-day level one training workshop involved two prospective Programme Leads from eight NPCs - Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo - who are expected to take the knowledge and skills they learn back to their respective organisations.

They learned specifically about how to develop strong workshop facilitation skills, effectively transfer knowledge to participants, administer an OCP event and achieve tangible outcomes.

“I am leaving this workshop enriched with new knowledge that will be very useful for our NPC,” said Claude Magbli Koya of the Ivory Coast NPC.

“The organisation of the OCP national workshops will boost Paralympic sports in the Ivory Coast."

Prior to the training workshop, a three-day course was held to train new French and English-speaking educators for the OCP which was conducted by IPC Academy, an education partner of the Paralympic Movement’s global governing body.

With the subsequent OCP training workshop, the newly trained educators had then their first hands-on experience.