Regional Training Programme for FITCA established through a Training Needs Assesment in Kenya and Uganda..PDF

A consultancy was commissioned in March 2000 to assess the needs for training at regionallevel in the FITCA programme, before engaging in any training activity.FITCA is a regional project for the East African countries Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia andTanzania and will be joined by Rwanda and Burundi at a later stage. It has a regional Coordination Office in Nairobi at the offices of OAU/IBAR, the umbrella organisation ofFITCA. The objective of the regional component is amongst others, to offer training which isbeneficial to the national projects under FITCA.At the time of this consultancy only Kenya was operational as a project and Uganda wasabout to start with the Technical Assistant already in place. It is for this reason, that onlyKenya and Uganda were visited during the consultancy.In order to design a training programme, the target group and its training needs need to beidentified. This was done through interviews with stakeholders in the programme, researchand training institutions, NGO's, study of project and related documents and through TrainingNeeds Assessment Workshops which were held in Kenya and Uganda. Participants of theseworkshops represented the job categories which will implement FITCA project activities.In Kenya the 2-day workshop was held in Busia where the Project Management Unit (PMU)is based. Participants represented Government (Veterinarians, Zoologists, Agriculturists) andCommunity based Organisations, the Kenya—Finland LDP and private Veterinarians andAnimal Health Assistants.In Uganda the 2-day workshop was held in Jinja, where the PMU shall be located, once theproject starts. Participants represented Government (Headquarter, District level Veterinarians,Entomologists, Sleeping Sickness Control Medics, Agriculturists). Although projectimplementation will eventually be carried out also by the private sector, no representatives areas yet involved in project preparation.An approved methodology for the assessment of training needs was used, in which a duty andtask analysis of jobs was carried out. The skills required for these activities were thenidentified. The next step of analysis was modified to fit the needs of FITCA. Instead ofcomparing these skills with the participant's own job description, as usually done, they wereasked to compare the skills with their future role in FITCA and identify the knowledge gaps.For a better understanding of this role FITCA activities and the human resource profilerequired for implementation were elaborated. Participants were also asked to extend theirassessment to their subordinates, or, in the case of non-Government participants, to theirclients. The latter part of the exercise gave the required information to assume the needs ofjob categories and beneficiaries, such as farmers, not present at the workshops.Training needs were identified and ranked for priority for each job category. For the groups ofAnimal health/disease control personnel, Rural development (crops and livestock) personneland Tsetse control personnel, the training needs in Kenya and Uganda were comparable andcommon needs were listed. Although as groups not comparable because they featured only onone workshop, the social and extension workers, the private entrepreneurs, SS controlpersonnel and managers also had certain training needs in common with the other groups.