Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis
Population Division
THOUGHTS ON THE TEACHING OF DEMOGRAPHY AND POPULATION
STUDIES
A TECHNICAL SUPPORT SERVICES REPORT
APRIL 1995
INTRODUCTION
There is a critical need for population training that is not confined to the formal,
institutionalized teaching of demography and/or population studies. It extends throughout
technical
cooperation work in the population area to technical cooperation generally, indeed to the very
essence of the unwritten contract on technical cooperation between developing countries and
outside
agencies: to give and receive help in evolving viable institutions that assist
countries' development
in a variety of fields.
THE NEED FOR BETTER MANAGEMENT
A sine qua non of this help is to provide better advisory services on
actually managing the institutions we are helping to create. Too often the advice
provided and activities accomplished are limited to the substantive expertise of both
advisor and local counterpart(s), with the result that expectations are disappointed by the failure
of institutions to flourish fully when the advice provided from outside is withdrawn.
The underlying theory of institution-building in population, whether in university
centres
of
training/advisory services/research, or government centres of data analysis, or other government
institutions specializing in incorporating the population variable into national policies and/or
development plans, is basically this: provide an "Expert" who advises on initial structure and
plans,
then takes on much of the initial work---teaching, advising, performing actual research, or
helping
to structure and implement short-term training---while local "counterpart(s)" are trained
elsewhere
to the level of necessary competence. Such persons having returned, the "Expert" is withdrawn,
after
a minimal period of overlap, and the new institution, with its brand-new, freshly-trained staff,
is left
to its own devices.
There are many problems with this approach. For one, it often leaves relatively
young
and
inexperienced---although usually highly trained and having bright professional futures as
population
scholars---persons simultaneously having to accomplish two main tasks: learn "on-the-job" how
to
teach and do research effectively, and actually run a Population Centre,
Department, or Programme.
A second problem is that Experts are usually recruited on the basis of substantive
credentials
and experience alone, without consideration of their prior achievements inproject/institutional
development or management. Because of the cost as well as the urgency in fielding these
people,
new "Experts" do not always receive adequate pre-assignment briefing or orientation to the
rudiments of project management. Yet project management in a developing country is not an
easy
task whose essentials may be learned more or less as a function of time spent on the job.
Following
are a few proposals to help deal with the problem.
SPECIFIC NEEDS
Building esprit. This is one of the most important, if quantitatively
elusive,
managerial tasks
required to firmly cement a new programme/institution. (Please see in this regard
"Technical
Cooperation: Process, Problems and Prospects", C. Stephen Baldwin; World
Affairs, Volume
150, Number 4, Spring 1988; pp. 239-250). Building esprit is
"...accomplished by developing a
pride in mutual professionalism. This comes from a number of things, including working earlier
and
for longer hours, and from sharing responsibility for major decisions affecting the team's
professional life. Frequent meetings of the entire group, support staff and professionals alike,
can
encourage this sense of team identity, specialness, and team work". (ibid, p. 248).
Thérèse Locoh,
the French demographer, in 1985 prepared a 25-page Plan de la Lettre à
L'URD for a highly-successful population research unit in Togo. It was compiled from
her own experience and that of
her colleagues there, and used as a kind of daily reference work by them, especially after her
departure from the URD. It contains detailed insights into practical ways to accomplish this
delicate
but essential task.
Building/Maintaining External Relations. This has many aspects,
divided
into two main
components, internal and external, as follows:
a. Internal. This refers to those functions that local staff, assisted by
(an)
outsider(s)
initially, but only too soon thereafter by themselves, must perform in-country if their
population efforts are to succeed in the country where they work. Basically, it is a form of
substantive lobbying: "...a consistent and systematic process of ensuring that government
persons at the right level of authority and decision making are kept apprised of a (population)
project and its contributions, actual and potential". (ibid, p. 247).
Networking along lines of professional affinity is an important part of this.
Most important of all---and least easy to teach---is the process of "extension" of the new
programme/institution's services and product to its potential clients. Thus, a
University-based population training programme cannot sit back and expect Government offices
that theoretically need its short-term training services to come to it; some discussions have to
come first, even some 'selling', and the population staff must take the lead. The same is even
more true of advisory services to busy Government offices. Even potential students often
have to be sold on the merits of a new programme like demographic training---especially in
terms of the potential job market for future graduates!
b. External. Oddly enough, maintaining good external (ex-country)
relations may be a more
immediately obvious task to a counterpart staff person recently returned from training
outside the country. But the task is much more than simply maintaining contacts with
previous professors and colleagues. It includes bridge-building---with other similar
institutions within and outside the region, and with professional, especially funding, agencies
in the population field. "Defensive grantsmanship", a subject at the very centre of the
successful approach followed by the Unité de Recherche Démographique
in Lomé, Togo,
with which Mme. Locoh was associated, entails forging a strong and self-confident
knowledge of what is, and is not, in the particular country and institution's
own priority
research interests---and then sticking to this, regardless, in negotiating and ultimately
accepting any outside contracts to perform specific analyses.
Nitty-gritty. Less intriguing, but equally important for holding a new
venture together during
its critical early years, are the more mundane managerial functions that top managers must
perform
if things are to work well. Examples are: overseeing the details of staff
recruitment, day-to-day
supervision, and career growth; handling, or seeing to it that they are handled efficiently,
financial
and substantive reporting obligations, both internal (as for a University) and external (as for a
funding agency); and preparing, or at least exercising final effective supervision over the
preparation
of research proposals, training workshops, seminars, and other like activities that are proposed
for
Government or external agency funding.
Long-range. Few institutions anywhere are managed in a way that seeks
to anticipate future developments; but all should be. Creative, strategic planning for the future
is the sine qua non of
institutional survival and success in any area, particularly a field like population, where changes
in mandate and substantive orientation are substantial. Given this, it is striking how few
institutions'
substantive managers do it.
ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
The most obvious way to deal with these issues is, first, to ensure that any and all
"expert"
advisers, particularly of the long-term, resident kind, are at the very least briefed
on the need to
consider these areas within their over-all technical cooperation mandate and functions. The most
effective experts already perform many of the tasks involved instinctively; the main problem is
that
they do not see that it is part of their job---a big part---to pass on these skills to
counterparts as well
as how to teach courses, run workshops and seminars, and perform and supervise good research.
An important caveat to the above exists: there are always real
limitations,
especially as
regards independent action, to what counterparts can do, within their own societies, as opposed
to
outsiders who are temporarily vested with all sorts of powers, special privileges, and abilities
that
stem precisely from their status and mandate as outsiders. The ideal complement is for experts
to
recognize these advantages for what they are, and help their counterparts to approximate them
as best
as possible once the "Expert" has departed. While he/she is there, it must also be recognized
that
the counterparts have so much more to contribute than any Expert in terms of an instinctive
understanding of complicated local cultures, rules, personal interactions, and customs. The
opportunities for each to learn from the other, and thus to maximize returns to the system, are
enormous.
Resources permitting, it may also be possible to consider organizing periodic
short-term
training courses---perhaps at the UN's Milan centre, or elsewhere---for experts
and/or counterpart
personnel, to concentrate on fundamental principles for improving the managerial aspects of
highly
substantive population projects, especially complicated University-based training, research and
advisory combines. Such courses might ideally be held at the regional/sub-regional level, with
CST
and TSS Specialist support.
Finally, a significant start can always be made at the individual programme or project
level
simply by ensuring that managers are aware of the problem and try to take their own steps
towards
overcoming it.
*/For more information and to submit comments, please write to C.
Stephen Baldwin, TSS
Specialist in Teaching of Demography and Population Training, Population Division/DESIPA,
United Nations Secretariat, 2 United Nations Plaza (Rm. DC2-2070), New York, NY 10017,
USA (telephone No. (212) 963-8394, fax No. (212) 963-2147 or 963-2638).