1. When notified by the System about the arrival of a new Proposal, the Regional Team in Washington begins working to liaise between the Program Offering Partner and the Network Centers. For offers from the World Bank Institute, our counterpart on the GDLN Services team serves as the focal point.

2. We review the Proposal to anticipate any need for additional information for the Centers. Sites want to know thoroughly about the activities offered in order to support them successfully!

3. We contact the Offering Partner to receive or ask any questions that arise and we communicate the following steps. We are very concerned with assuring that all are well informed and comfortable with the procedure.

4. Once the proposal is ready to announce, Centers receive a notice for their personal page, to review the new proposal. If they have questions, they ask them from the Proposal Discussion space, on-line. Beginning an exchange, the Offering Partner receives a notice that the comment has arrived and enters the System to respond.

5. Centers analyze the offer with a market survey and, according to their scheduling availability on the proposed dates, they confirm their participation (or not) through the System, on-line.

6. Once participation has been concretely defined, the Offering Partner and participating Centers work together directly to organize the activity.

7. Meanwhile, the GDLN Service unit works with you to fill out and sign the Activity Agreement, an on-line form establishing the roles and responsibilities of the Offering Partner and the participating Distance Learning Center.

How do Centers make decisions on offers?

When Center belonging to the Global Network receives an announcement for a learning event, what are the factors that it takes into account to decide whether to take part. The most important factors are described below:

In addition to the factors that you will find in the following paragraphs, let us give you an example of the decision-making and marketing process.

Does it meet the local Training and Dialogue needs in my country?
The main factor in a Center’s decision regarding an offering’s contents are the local needs. Centers get to know directly the needs of those comprising the sector, through meetings, interviews and the outcomes of their participation in Global Dialogues. When they receive the news of an offering, they review the contents according to their knowledge about needs, along with an initial market survey specifically evaluating the course or dialogue being offered.

How sustainable is the offer?
Another important element that Centers analyze is the ability to recover the costs of offering the activity. Centers in the Region operate in a self-supporting manner, although our mission is to impact development; member Centers are independent and must recover their operating costs. Therefore, each activity announcement calculates a budget including the costs incurred in offering the program and its contents (if not free of charge), the connection, the printing of materials, the snacks and the operating costs (staff, electricity, etc.) They compare this information with the income that they would receive by offering the activity, on the basis of the target audience’s ability and willingness to pay. If the income will not cover costs, the Center must supplement the additional financing - whether through the donation by some sponsoring firm, scholarship grants from some international agency, input from the Offering Partner, etc.

Is the Center available?
The Region’s Centers offer training contents from various “channels” or sources, so it must be assured that the each Center will have the proposed schedule available within their programming. The activities of a single session tend to stay to the schedule initially proposed by the Offering Partner, although there is always flexibility to assure that the day is acceptable for all participating Centers; whereas courses are announced months in advance to provide sufficient time for the local marketing to straighten out the schedules between the Offering Partner and participating Centers once the group of participating sites has been determined.