Technical Capacity Building Research Articles

The Role of Communities in Building Peace and Resolving Conflicts in Nigeria

This paper seeks to examine the role of communities in building peace and resolving conflicts in Nigeria. The paper surveyed conflicts and youth restiveness in Nigeria and discovered that there is the need for a broad based and people driven approach to security management as well as involving traditional and community institutions in conflict and disaster management initiatives at all levels. The engagement of youth through skill and technical capacity building programmes were advocated to prepare and diversify their skills for employment. The fight against corruption is also recommended to be intensified in order to combat the endemic institutional corruption in the country while calling on security operatives to abide by the rule of engagements and professions in conflicts situations. There is the need to improve collaboration among all stakeholders to build trust, synergy and confidence in disaster management in Nigeria, while the Nigerian business sector must put in resources to peace making, peace building programs in collaboration with the government. Relevant authorities should build the capacity of Nigerians in ICT and in the application of social media networking in conflict and disaster early warning response, and in confronting misinformation that exacerbates conflicts and insecurity. As Nigerians, we are all stakeholders in disaster management and peace-building efforts. Therefore we have the responsibility to make peace a reality and be conflict managers and not conflict generators.

Victims and witnesses protection: a Commonwealth perspective

Any witness who is not able to testify due to lack of support or protection is a loss to the proper functioning of a criminal justice system. In this context it is generally accepted that creating a climate for witnesses to testify truthfully and without fear of reprisals is essential to fulfilling the goals of truth and justice. Accordingly, addressing the issues of witness protection and support is a central aspect of a well-functioning criminal justice system; one that contributes not only to the rule of law through more effective investigations and trials, but also ensures that witnesses are treated with the recognition and care they deserve for their contribution to finding the truth. The principle that victims in the criminal justice system must be treated with courtesy, compassion and respect for their personal dignity entails a responsibility on the part of national authorities to realise this basic principle through the development of appropriate mechanisms designed to provide assistance to the victims. However, building effective national victims/witness support and protection is challenging for any state, and especially so for small Commonwealth jurisdictions due to capacity and other constraints. The Commonwealth seeks to provide technical assistance and capacity building to support its members in promoting the rule of law and has developed and disseminated a best practice guide for the protection of victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system. This article seeks to highlight the valuable findings of the Commonwealth guide and to provide guidance to policy-makers, legislators, police, prosecutors and other stakeholders in criminal justice practice.

Role of Self Help Groups in Rural Employments of India: A Case Study of Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna

Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana is an employment programme designed to stimulate self- employment activities and ensure that every assisted Below Poverty Line (BPL) family - SWAROJGARI - is able to earn a minimum monthly income of 2000 within three years. It aims to achieve this objective by encouraging families to engage in income-generating activities and by providing assistance through a combination of wages, technical capacity building and a package of financial assistance that includes institutional credit and subsidy. In 1999, SGSY was formed from a merger and restructuring of the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and allied skills generation programmes, namely Training for Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM), Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWRCA), Supply of Toolkits in Rural Areas (SITRA), Ganga Kalyan Yojana (GKY) and Million Wells Scheme (MWS). Similar to the IRDP, the target group of SGSY consists of small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, rural artisans and others whose annual family income is less than the BPL income level. IRDP focused on credit provision to individual beneficiaries, while SGSY focuses on skills development of groups and clusters to improve the use of credit and asset acquisition. It promotes group activities that can increase forward and backward linkages and provide The group should be able to collect the minimum voluntary saving amount from all the members regularly in the group meetings. The savings so collected will be the group corpus fund. The group corpus fund should be used to advance loans to the members. The group should develop financial management norms covering the loans, sanction procedure, repayment schedule and interest rate. The group should operate a group account preferably in their service areas bank branch so as to deposit the balance amounts left with the group after bursting loans to its members. The group should maintain simple basic records such as minute's book,

The Baltic States and international development cooperation : how can they best share their transition experience with less advanced transition countries?

The Baltic States are in a transition from being recipient countries to becoming donor countries. The article argues that small states like the Baltic States can play an important role in economic development like, for example, the Nordic countries1, but in a different way. The Baltic States have recent and relevant transition experience to share that can be valuable for less advanced transition countries, but they are challenged by small development budgets. The article concludes that the Baltic States can increase their development impact by engaging in policy dialogue with their partner countries2 which should be supported with technical assistance projects and capacity building projects.

Factors Affecting Profitability of Fish Farming Under Economic Stimulus Programme in Tigania East District, Meru County, Kenya

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors affecting profitability of fish farming under Economic Stimulus Programme in Tigania East District of Meru County, Kenya. In 2010, Economic Stimulus Programme was initiated by the Government of Kenya with the aim of encouraging fish farming in the region. The government spent more than 8 millions in fish farming in the district. The study was set to determine the influence of marketing on profitability of fish farming in Tigania East, establish the importance of related extension services on fish farming; determine the host's community cultural practises that influence fish farming and explore ways in which pond management skills influences fish farming. Many people turned to fish farming as a source of food and income generating activity. However, where adopted as business there were little returns from fish farming. Descriptive research design was employed in the study. The study applied descriptive research design by involving 200 fish farmers within Tigania East district. Stratified random sampling was used to select fish farmers. The study established that respondents were positive about the sustainability and positive impact of fish farming on their lives. Despite the government support fish farmers faced challenges in terms of access to market, access to technical information, predators and inadequate extension services. The study concluded that the Government needs to provide technical capacity building, market accessibility to the practicing fish farmers in their localities.

Development of a Framework for HIV/AIDS Prevention Programs in African American Churches

Churches and other faith-based organizations (FBOs) are a vital resource for HIV prevention and education efforts in African American communities. Few models describe how churches and FBOs have implemented such efforts within their congregations or communities, the challenges they faced, or the changes that resulted from such efforts. This article presents a framework for implementing HIV/AIDS prevention programs in African American churches based upon a qualitative investigation of Project FAITH (Fostering AIDS Initiatives that Heal), an HIV education and stigma reduction demonstration project conducted in South Carolina. Between 2007-2008 in-depth interviews were conducted with 8 pastors, 4 technical assistance providers, and 2 project champions; 22 care team members also participated in focus groups to identify domains associated with project implementation. Data analysis was conducted using a grounded theory approach and inputs, enablers, inhibitors, mediators, and outputs associated with HIV/AIDS prevention programs conducted as part of Project FAITH were identified. Furthermore, the framework includes the influences of public policy and stigma on the faith-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs in this study. The framework calls for the identification of individuals (members of the congregation and church leadership) who are passionate about and devoted to addressing HIV/AIDS, and provides specific mechanisms (i.e., health ministries) through which these individuals can organize, strategies for HIV/AIDS implementation, and areas of technical assistance and capacity building to maximize effectiveness of such efforts.

Constraints to healthcare waste treatment in low-income countries – a case study from Somaliland

In low-income countries, healthcare waste is mixed with the municipal waste stream and rarely receives special attention. This paper presents the lessons learned from a pilot project targeted to improve healthcare waste management in Hargeisa (Somaliland). The interventions were carried out in three of the main hospitals in the city. Consideration was also given to improve the overall situation regarding the management of healthcare waste. Three De Montfort incinerators were built and training was provided to operators, waste workers and healthcare personnel. Although the incinerators were constructed in accordance with the required standards, major constraints were identified in the operational phase: irregular de-ashing procedures, misuse of safety equipment, and ineffective separation of healthcare waste were seen in this phase. The paper concludes that in other small hospitals in the developing world, such as those in Hargeisa, on-site incineration by use of low-cost, small-scale incinerators could be successfully applied as an interim solution, provided that an agreed and acceptable plan of operation and maintenance is in place and responsibilities for the management of the facility are clearly identified. Moreover, when replicating this experience in other settings even greater importance should be given to the technical capacity building of operators and pressure should be exercised on local administrations in order to control and supervise the whole management system.

Benefiting the Resource Rich: How Can International Development Policy Help Tame the Resource Curse?

SummaryWhile natural resource revenues ought to enable development, past experiences with the ‘Paradox of Plenty’ have shown that mineral and oil wealth often represents a curse rather than a blessing, inducing slower growth and higher levels of poverty. Many resource rich countries have high poverty rates and are among recipients of international aid. This paper looks at how lessons from successful resource rich countries can provide lessons for resource management. It also considers how international donors can act to facilitate such processes.Norway and Chile are small open economies with high concentration in petroleum and copper, respectively. Yet the interaction between good institutions and fiscal policy, facilitated by the use of resource funds, has allowed both countries to largely escape the resource curse. Both countries have prioritised institutional development before engaging in heavy resource extraction. Maintaining a broad tax base, developing linkages to the rest of the economy, investing in human capital, and engaging in political consensus‐building have helped retain incentives that limit rent‐seeking.Many countries facing high inflows of natural resource rents also have weak institutions. For these countries, strengthening institutions through developing the skill and efficiency of civil servants and committing to transparency and accountability can help change the pay‐offs from engaging in corrupt practices or rent‐seeking. Yet in many cases, large‐scale institution building might be beyond these countries' immediate capacity, leaving an important opportunity for international donors. Aid, in the traditional sense, is not the solution to the resource curse. Once the natural resource revenues have started flowing, resource rich countries are not primarily in need of further financial inflows. Fostering long‐term development here is rather a question of technical support and capacity building, support for international anti‐corruption mechanisms and imposing transparency and legal requirements on national companies operating in these countries.

Effectiveness of the technical guideline for Strategic Environmental Assessment within the context of China

Since the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of People's Republic of China was enforced in 2002, there has been a rapid development of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for plans and programs (hereafter as “PEIA”) in China. Six years after the implementation of Technical Guidelines for PEIA (HJ/T130-2003), the promulgation of the Chinese PEIA Regulation (2009) provides opportunities and challenges for the implementation of PEIA. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the guideline effectiveness for future improvements. The research began with conceptual presentation to define and analyze SEA guideline system, based on which a criterion framework was put forward to evaluate the effectiveness from both systematic and specific perspectives. The framework was applied to the evaluation of China's technical guideline system from five aspects (i.e., purposes to develop the guidelines, roles of the guidelines, strategies to develop the guidelines, structures of the system and context in which the system operates). Additionally, performance evaluation of the HJ/T130-2003 was also demonstrated in this paper based on questionnaire survey results from 42 EIA professionals. It was indicated that the guideline serves mainly as a quality control measure for PEIA products, and only a small proportion of experts considered it effective due to its inconsistency with the newly released PEIA Regulation (2009) and poor practicability. We concluded by proposing recommendations on improvement of SEA guideline, including more specific wording of the purposes; top design of the guideline system; transformation to collaborative strategies and revision of detail contents, and advices on development of other forms of technical capacity building, including expanding coverage of methodological research, strengthening environmental education and EIA training system and building EA information system.

Health insurance systems in five Sub-Saharan African countries: Medicine benefits and data for decision making

Medicine benefits through health insurance programs have the potential to improve access to and promote more effective use of affordable, high quality medicines. Information is lacking about medicine benefits provided by health insurance programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. We describe the structure of medicine benefits and data routinely available for decision-making in 33 health insurance programs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. Most programs surveyed were private, for profit schemes covering voluntary enrollees, mostly in urban areas. Almost all provide both inpatient and outpatient medicine benefits, with members sharing the cost of medicines in all programs. Some programs use strategies that are common in high-income countries to manage the medicine benefits, such as formularies, generics policies, reimbursement limits, or price negotiation. Basic data to monitor performance in delivering medicine benefits are available in most programs, but key data elements and the resources needed to generate useful management information from the available data are typically missing. Many questions remain unanswered about the design, implementation, and effects of specific medicines policies in the emerging and expanding health insurance programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. These include questions about the most effective medicines policy choices, given different corporate and organizational structures and resources; impacts of specific benefit designs on quality and affordability of care and health outcomes; and ways to facilitate use of routine data for monitoring. Technical capacity building, strong government commitment, and international donor support will be needed to realize the benefits of medicines coverage in emerging and expanding health insurance programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Role of Choice in the Development of an M-Government Strategy in Turkey

Enhanced data services through mobile phones are expected to be soon fully transactional, interactive and embedded with other mobile consumption practices. While private services will continue to take the lead in the mobile data revolution, others such as government and NGOs are becoming more prominent m-players. This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach interpreting micro-level municipality officers’ mobility concept, ICT histories and choice practices for m-government services in Turkey. The findings highlight that in-situs ICT choice strategies are non-homogenous, sometimes conflicting with each other, and that current strategies have not yet justified the necessity for municipality officers to engage and fully commit to m-government efforts. Furthermore, beyond m-government initiatives’ success or failure, the mechanisms related to public administration mobile technical capacity building and knowledge transfer are identified to be directly related to m-government engagement likelihood.

Intervention Models of Non-formal Education for the Reintegration of Abused Children in South-Western, Nigeria

This study examined application of models in the design of non-formal education programmes for capacity building among abused children for societal reintegration. It is observed that various strategies for enhancing capacity building for abused children, most of whom are victims of the maladjustment and inadequacies of the formal educational system, have suffered neglect and unsustainable. The study adopted the survey research design. Using a sample size of 898 participants selected purposively from trainees, instructors and organizers of technical capacity building programmes for abused children, a 4-point rating scale validate questionnaire tagged: “Non- Formal Education Reintegration Scale (NERS), (0.56) was used for data collection complemented with focus Group Discussion (FGD). The test of the two null hypotheses raised with t-test and chi-square (x2) at 0.05 alpha level shows that: Non-formal education intervention models were effective strategies for capacitating and reintegrating abused children into the society (x2 = 534.5; p social and economic re-integration of abused children for their selfactualization.

Do under-performing water utilities need to adapt to climate change? Experience from Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Climate change raises particular challenges for under-performing water and sewerage utilities. A recent review for the World Bank explored some of the likely impacts of climate change on utilities in the Eastern Europe and Central Asian region. Climate change is likely to have serious implications for the region's water resources particularly because of the increasing incidence of severe precipitation events (floods and droughts). However the review found that the investment requirements needed simply to sustain service levels and reach remaining unserved customers may be a more pressing challenge. This finding is likely to be equally relevant in many other regions. The review concluded that: future investments should focus on systems which are as flexible and decentralized as possible; ongoing efforts to strengthen utility operations should not be abandoned; and greater investment should be made in technical training and capacity building to meet the challenges of the future

Twinning: lessons for a South—North climate policy context

Twinning is an innovative tool utilized in the EU enlargement process. It is designed to strengthen the institutional capacities of the candidate countries to implement the acquis communautaire. Twinning involves the long-term secondment of a Member State public servant to the domestic counterpart institution and thereby provides hands-on public sector experience. Arguably, the twinning concept is also applicable in South—North climate policy cooperation, and its potential is explored. Twinning serves as a valuable supplement to ongoing capacity-building efforts by assisting the actual implementation of policies. Its basic design addresses some of the frequently cited problems of developmental assistance. Policy relevance: Capacity building and technical assistance are often quoted as components of international technology cooperation, but frameworks to further enhance their contribution to international cooperation on climate policy are rarely discussed. The twinning experience offers an example of formal frameworks to enhance South—North and South—South cooperation on programme design and implementation via the exchange of experts within administrations. Twinning also offers broader insights. Cooperation for technical assistance and capacity building needs to be demand-driven and integrated within existing institutional structures in order to ensure effectiveness. The main challenge is to encourage experts to spend one to two years in recipient countries to ensure an effective understanding of local circumstances. This also reduces the need to send experts in the other direction and thus reduces the risk of a brain-drain, where experts do not return.

Development Agenda in World Intellectual Property Organizations (WIPO)

In an increasingly technology-driven world, the standard of protection provided by intellectual property (IP) rules is affecting development policies and human rights issues more than ever. Strict IP rules have had an adverse impact on the ability of many governments to fulfill their human rights obligations, of which obligations to ensure access to affordable medicines, education and adequate food. This trend towards higher IP protection has been stimulated by the adoption of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and the harmonization initiatives at the WIPO. A proposal for a development agenda for WIPO was first launched at the 2004 WIPO General Assembly. At that time, member states agreed to hold a series of inter-sessional intergovernmental meetings (IIMs) to examine proposals originally submitted by Brazil and Argentina as well as additional proposals of other member states. The 45 recommendations adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 are divided into six clusters, namely: Cluster A: Technical Assistance and Capacity Building; Cluster B: Norm-setting, Flexibilities, Public Policy and Public Domain; Cluster C: Technology Transfer, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Access to Knowledge; Cluster D: Assessments, Evaluation and Impact Studies; Cluster E: Institutional Matters Including Mandate and Governance; and Cluster F: Others. These include 19 recommendations for immediate implementation by WIPO and 26 for which the CDIP is required to develop a work program.

An Empirical Evaluation of Long Term Advisors and Short Term Interventions in Technical Assistance and Capacity Building

Technical assistance to improve the capacity of regulatory agencies around the world remains a key priority for international aid efforts. Technical assistance is critical to younger antitrust agencies because more effective agencies can protect consumers against anti-competitive conduct. Beginning in the 1990s, the rapid adoption of antitrust laws and development of agencies to interpret and enforce these laws has transformed the competitive landscape in many countries. Indeed, more than half of the countries with an antitrust legal framework enacted antitrust laws in the past 15 years. Many of the newer antitrust agencies are not as effective as they need to be to improve the well being of consumers and protect against anti-competitive conduct. Consequently, donors have assigned a significant amount of time and financial resources to technical assistance to raise the capacity and effectiveness of these younger agencies. However, quantitative analysis of the impact of this technical assistance remains limited at best. In a previous paper, we undertook a general analysis of antitrust technical assistance. In this paper we focus on what appears to be a particularly important part of technical assistance and capacity building - the use of long term advisors (LTA) and short term interventions (STI). In 2005, the International Competition Network conducted a survey of antitrust agencies that received LTA and STI services from a wide array of donor agencies. We first perform a descriptive assessment of the survey data. We find LTAs to be more effective than STIs in preparing the agency for tackling work they could not have undertaken previously and in confronting cartels. Most LTA and STI services arrived directly from developed world antitrust agencies and lawyers were superior to economists for STI work while economists tend to perform best as LTAs. In a more general empirical framework, we model the effectiveness of LTA and STI interventions using key survey questions about the initial preparation phase, the ability of the interventions to improve internal tactical qualities of the agency, and the ability of the interventions to improve the agency in its strategic mission. We estimate a three equation seemingly unrelated regression system designed to tease out the factors that led to a successful preparation of tactical and strategic technical assistance. The most important findings are related to two structural features of recipient antitrust agencies. Our most prominent finding is that recipient agencies absorb LTA and STI services best when the agency head has a rank of minister or higher and/or when agencies had prosecutorial discretion. At the heart of these agency features is the relative power position of the agency in the domestic political and economic structure. Those agencies with a strong power base seem well positioned to receive the current formatted technical assistance involving LTAs and STIs. Donors should focus on modifying the technical assistance to agencies with less power and should push for stronger agency autonomy and authority. A second prominent finding was that bilateral donor relationships did remarkably better in helping the agencies with their strategic mission. Perhaps bilateral LTA and STI perform better because of a better understanding of the political and economic realities these agencies face or because these donors provide aid through developed world competition agencies. Our suggestion is that multilateral donor agencies work hard to overcome deficiencies that their organizational structure presents to recipient agencies. Overall, our analysis of technical assistance efforts in one field of complex regulation (antitrust) may prove relevant to policies of how to make assistance more effective across regulatory fields.

World Health Organization/HIVResNet Drug Resistance Laboratory Strategy

With rapidly increasing access to antiretroviral drugs globally, HIV drug resistance (HIVDR) has become a significant public health issue. This requires a coordinated and collaborative response from country level to international level to assess the extent of HIVDR and the establishment of efficient and evidence-based strategies to minimize its appearance and onward transmission. In parallel with the rollout of universal access to HIV treatment, countries are developing protocols based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) to measure, at a population level, both transmitted HIVDR and HIVDR emerging during treatment. The WHO in collaboration with international experts (HIVResNet Laboratory Working Group), has developed a laboratory strategy, which has the overall goal of delivering quality-assured HIV genotypic results on specimens derived from the HIVDR surveys. The results will be used to help control the emergence and spread of drug resistance and to guide decision makers on antiretroviral therapy policy at national, regional and global level. The HIVDR Laboratory Strategy developed by the WHO includes several key aspects: the formation of a global network of national, regional and specialized laboratories accredited to perform HIVDR testing using a common set of WHO standard and performance indicators; recommendations of acceptable methods for collection, handling, shipment and storage of specimens in field conditions; and the provision of laboratory technical support, capacity building and quality assurance for network laboratories. The WHO/HIVResNet HIVDR Laboratory Network has been developed along the lines of other successful laboratory networks coordinated by the WHO. As of August 2007, assessment for accreditation has been conducted in 30 laboratories, covering the WHO‘s African, South-East Asia, Western Pacific, and the Caribbean Regions.

Technical Challenges to Sustainable Forest Management in Concessions on Public Lands in the Brazilian Amazon

Brazil's new Public Forests law authorizes concessions-based industrial forest management in Amazonian national public forests covering 13 million hectares within the next decade, expanding eventually to 50 million hectares or an area, the size of Spain. Both logging and conservation industries have promoted concessions management as a solution to chaotic land tenure and widespread illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon. Here we evaluate technical aspects of actually managing concession forests at the proposed spatial scale and time-frame. The current best-practices logging system in Amazonia, reduced-impact logging (RIL), is not widely employed by the logging industry and does not ensure sustained-yield timber production in the absence of silvicultural practices promoting growth and regeneration in logged stands. Current legislated logging standards—for example, maximum per unit area harvest intensity, minimum diameter felling limit, seed tree retention rate, and 25- to 35-year cutting cycles—guarantee commercial depletion or extirpation of many high-value timber species over multiple cutting cycles. An estimated 10,450 field technicians will need to be trained in best-practices forest management within the next decade in order to adequately staff the proposed Brazilian Forest Service whose mandate it will be to oversee this vast undertaking, to expand field staff of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and of state environmental agencies whose responsibility it is to regulate forest management, and to provide trained workers for the logging industry operating within concessions. What “sustainable forest management” means to various audiences must be clarified, and common ground identified among these audiences specifically addressing demands that will be made on national forests. Forest management systems integrating both operational and silvicultural practices must then be developed according to regional and local forest conditions. This will require renewed investment in technical research and capacity building, serving both the logging industry and government agencies charged with ensuring industry adherence to national forest legislation.

A Review of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Initiatives for Trade Facilitation

Trade facilitation can have a significant impact on economic development and poverty reduction. Studies by the OECD Trade Committee show that the benefits of trade facilitation reforms are multiple and occur on different fronts and for different stakeholders (i.e. government, private sector and consumers). More efficient international trade procedures and customs operations can significantly reduce trade transaction costs, which results in increased volumes of trade and welfare gains, particularly for developing countries. They can also increase competitiveness and the attractiveness for foreign investors, enhance revenue collection and help prevent corruption and smuggling. Hence, committing resources to support such reforms is a sound and cost-effective investment that can have multiplier effects for development.This Review of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Initiatives for Trade Facilitation aims to contribute to current WTO negotiations on trade facilitation, which recognise that the adoption of multilateral rules on trade facilitation and implementation of some reforms requires technical assistance and capacity building. The review provides an overview of past technical assistance and capacity building for trade facilitation and highlights ways to enhance aid effectiveness based on past experiences.

A Review of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Initiatives for Trade Facilitation

A Review of Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Initiatives for Trade Facilitation