BUILDING NATIONAL POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPACITIES:
IDENTIFYING MAJOR TRAINING ISSUES FOR INVESTIGATION
DECEMBER 1997
BUILDING NATIONAL POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT CAPACITIES:
IDENTIFYING MAJOR TRAINING ISSUES FOR INVESTIGATION
I am so pleased to be here and to share in the enthusiastic celebration of an
institution with
whose creation I was privileged to be associated practically from the outset. Rather than talk
to
you about what has been accomplished by DTRC, which others more knowledgeable have done
and doubtless still will do, I have elected to address a few professional concerns which may be
taken to be of potential interest to just about all of us here. That will be done in two parts: first,
by describing what I have been working on, and why; and second, by suggesting a possible
agenda
of issues for others in the future. I hope you will forgive the immodesty involved in discussing
my
own work, but it is arguably a necessary step towards providing the rationale for
recommendations that follow which address future needs.
The title of this address--- "Building National Population and Development
Capacities:
Identifying Major Training Issues For Investigation"--- is based on the following
contention:
while support in the area of population and development training has been provided to
developing
countries for decades, the very operational nature of that support has allowed for little reflection
about "issues". Instead, in this region as in others, needs were identified; the institutional loci
for
necessary training were located and local personnel were trained while UN or other experts from
abroad held down the fort; and, when these newly-trained individuals ultimately returned and
took
over, UN or other outside support was phased out.
Until a 1988 meeting in Addis Ababa, which was convened with UNFPA support
by the
(then) UN Population Branch to examine certain common institutionalized training problems and
the prospects for their solution in Sub-Saharan Africa, few opportunities were found or taken
to
look at the issues surrounding and often impeding this process.
As a consequence, after becoming TSS Specialist for Training in Population and
Development in January, 1995, one of my first tasks was to consult all the CSTs with relevant
preliminary ideas. Then came an up-dating and expansion of major issues identified in Addis.
The
resultant TSS study and publication entitled "Population and Development Training/Research
Programmes in Africa: Problems and Prospects", grouped the training issues found most relevant
into the following categories:
Institutional, including Locational and
Managerial, Financial and Political;
Attracting and retaining local staff;
Doing relevant Research;
Making Training relevant; and
Providing useful and timely Advisory Services.
In addition, building on our 1988 Addis discussion of the importance of
institutional
networking, particularly within and between developing country training centres like
DTRC, it
seemed useful to put together an Internet/POPIN-accessible data base containing, wherever
possible, both summary and/or detailed information on all the known institutions in our field in
both the more and less developed world. The result, which remains an on-going project,
contained
some 550 entries at last count: about 350 in the developing world, with 79 from Africa and some
150 having provided full details of their training programmes to date.
During a series of visits to the CSTs in 1995 and 1996, it emerged that there
was also a
call to address what we might term the "Institutional" questions about population and
development
training. So, for one major portion of the work to follow, concentration in this general area
seemed
most appropriate. Accordingly, first produced was the Africa paper already mentioned, the idea
for which came from discussions with the Addis CST and subsequently with their counterparts
in
Harare.
In addition, resulting from meetings held with colleagues on the Santiago CST,
an analysis
entitled "Population and Development Training: Global Issues and Challenges" was undertaken.
This was intended as a short guide to the training field in this area for professionals---especially
CST advisers---who go to developing countries to work in some portion of the general
population
area, but not necessarily population and development training. It alerted them to particular
population and development training issues that might warrant a further look, such
as: What is this
training; How Much of it is required, and at What Levels;
Where should it take place; Who should
be trained; What is the special role of short-term training; how can Training
Sustainability be
ensured; and what should the Content of this training be?
With respect to the Management of training institutions, a very short
study entitled
"Thoughts on the Teaching of Demography and Population Studies" concerned itself primarily
with that subject. Finally, as a result of having reflected on my own experiences during some
thirty-two years of working in overseas development or "technical co-operation", a review of
certain problems in this process also identified as generic, together with suggestions for their
solution, was just completed as a paper entitled "When Development Fails---Helping It to
Work",
and submitted for publication. It too will become available as a TSS paper in the near
future.
In addition, given its special importance, work on the issue of training itself---that
crucial
element on the supply side of what we are all trying to do to satisfy market---and
thus student---demand, seemed of high priority, especially if concentrated on the
content of what is being
provided to students in the post-ICPD world. The result was four papers, including one just
presented at an IUSSP session on training last month in Beijing, which our colleague Mr.
Markos
also attended. These are:
First, eventuating in a 1996 PAA session, paper and TSS product on the subject
entitled
"Curriculum Needs: Perspectives from Developing Countries", was a qualitative
assessment of
what is going on in population and development training world-wide, in all the developing
regions,
from the viewpoint of a number of experts--31---working in the field, including the
authors.
Following this, a comparative quantitative analysis was undertaken of
actualselected
curricula provided by and from some 50 leading training institutions throughout the
world. The
study completed and circulated in october, 1996, was entitled "Population and Development
Curricula: A Selective Developing Country Review".
The third, IUSSP paper contrasted and compared the objective
"comparative curriculum"
study, based on actual hard data, with the more subjective expert-based study that
resulted in the
earlier PAA paper and its TSS revision, and is entitled "Population and Development Curricular
Needs in the Developing World: A Synthesis of Qualitative and Quantitative Findings".
The conclusions of all three comparative curricula studies were clear: region by
region and
country by country---allowing for the usual variations---present-day population and development
training curricula are, largely, behind the times. Accordingly, and most recently, to help
confirm
and make this conclusion specific at the individual country level, a full-fledged analysis of the
earlier-mentioned so-called "Uganda Approach" was completed. This was and is an effective
and
demonstrated methodology for assessing country-specific current training needs on a
comprehensive, one-time basis. It outlines a generic one-year, start to finish, comprehensive
review of in-country needs for population and development training---including
policy-oriented
research. The paper aims to synthesize a clear and concise methodology from this that
can be
replicated in other countries, and the resultant TSS publication entitled "The Uganda
Approach
Made Easy: A Universal Guide to Assessing Current Population and Development Training
Needs"
has also been widely circulated. The Sudan is currently undertaking its own version of this
exercise, based directly on the Uganda approach, with assistance provided from the same UN
consultant who was involved in the Uganda exercise.
With further regard to the actual content of this training, this is an
issue needing to be
addressed at the individual country level, as for instance here in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, the
possible application in developing country training institutions of the relatively new field of
"applied" or "business" demography has also been explored, since it appears most relevant there.
Instilling elements of the approach in all of our teaching, in a generic fashion, concentrating
more
on an approach than actual new content, would seem a necessity to virtually all
developing
countries.
Very briefly, this is because these countries have unwittingly inherited the
primarily "return
to academia" academic training focus of western institutions where so many leading
LDC scholars
have received their own graduate training---precisely at a time their societies are crying out
everywhere for 1) more applied, 2) policy-relevant analyses and 3) students who can help them
solve real-world problems. Thus, teachers all-too-often find themselves teaching with an
unconscious or even conscious academic bias, when what most of their students want and need
is
more examples of the practical applications of what they are learning.
Accordingly, the possibility was explored of organizing, initially, a short-term
intensive
course in this area at one or two of the formerly UN/UNFPA-supported regional or interregional
training centres---like CDC in Cairo, and/or IIPS in Bombay. If the staff at such centres
respond
favourably to this training, selected faculty from country training institutions in the region might
thereafter be brought in themselves for short-term, intensive training in this practical approach,
perhaps during a vacation period. Thus they could become more familiar with the practice of
adding, for example, "practical" inputs/examples/case studies to their normal instruction---or
other
more "practical" ways of teaching traditional population and development subjects---to current
curricular offerings.
The directors of both CDC and IIPS are in fact enthusiastic about cooperating in
this
experiment. A relevant proposal has accordingly been prepared, collaboratively with a couple
of
the leaders in this new area in the USA, both professors at Bowling Green University, which
has
been favourably reviewed in draft form by a major funding agency well known to you all. This
proposal would train IIPS faculty themselves, as an initial step, sometime in mid-1998. I am
hopeful that this initiative will not be affected by the TSS staffing changes currently
underway.
This leaves much to be addressed in the future. For instance, with further
reference to the
content and relevance of training, many have long felt that an African "case study
book" on
population and development, for use in training, could be feasible, exciting, and potentially very
useful. Perhaps each training programme or Centre from the region could contribute a chapter
to
such an undertaking, with possible CST/Regional Commission expert participation, if desired.
It
would seem most appropriate for a seasoned Centre like DTRC to take the lead in such an
undertaking.
Another training issue to explore could attempt to prioritize the
short-term training needs
of the African region, especially for trainers themselves. One of the enormous problems which
the
previously-described "Uganda Approach" raises, but never fully resolves, is
who is to provide
training in the new priority areas? And, assuming the overburdened staff at centres like DTRC
are
asked to do this and somehow find the time for it, who will help bring
them up-to-date in such key
areas as population and reproductive health; gender, population, and development; and the like?
Funders clearly have a role and even a responsibility here, in my view, but so do institutions
with
a high-leverage regional or sub-regional mandate, as for instance, in Africa, RIPS, IFORD, and
CDC. A corresponding workshop might also help to formulate guidelines for
"model" curricula
at all levels, including the sub-regional and/or individual country.
Regarding research---particularly research which can plow back its
findings into more
relevant teaching---this is another key and virtually unmined area for investigation.
What research
is actually being done by developing country professionals in their own countries? How is this
research being made relevant to training? And what are the major
obstacles facing professionals
who wish to undertake it?
A systematic inquiry into this question was actually at the top of my own
workplan for
implementation earlier this year, before the decision was taken to alter the present TSS
headquarters structure. Accordingly, relevant questionnaires and cover letters have already been
prepared for mailing, and could still be useful. I am hopeful that someone in the region will
even
more appropriately develop this investigation so that we can at last arrive at a better and more
complete understanding of what research is actually being produced, at least in one important
developing region of the world, and what are the major impediments to research
and the application
of its products to policy formation and, above all, the effective training of students themselves.
In addition, another complementary workshop might review African research
already
done in greater depth, in order to consolidate their substantive findings and reveal major
research
gaps---thus helping to determine priority research agendas in the future. This could be
undertaken
at the country, subregional, and/or regional level; again, a leading role here for an institution
such
as DTRC seems both obvious and natural.
Other workshops could address a few of the many institutional issues
remaining by bringing
population project managers together, as in Addis in 1988, to share notes and, perhaps at the
same
time, receive intensive short-term training on:
a. Obtaining and managing funds
b. Managing and motivating staff; and
c. Bridging the gap to policy-makers.
Wouldn't it be marvellous to see DTRC itself take a lead in following-up,
refining, and
adding to this agenda?
I have thrown a lot of information and ideas at you in a short time, and I
apologize for my
temerity in addressing issues which are often considered more appropriate for professionals
working in your own country contexts. Nevertheless, the ambition has never been grander than
to
outline areas of legitimate concern; suggestions for elaborating
strategies to deal with any problems
which are confirmed, invariably involve---as in the "Uganda approach" mentioned
earlier----solutions to be manufactured at the individual country level.
And, believe it or not, there is still much more of this kind to be tackled,
including the
crucial issues of attracting and retaining students (although an appropriate and
employment-responsive curriculum should do much to address this); or the delicate but vital
matter of how to
build solid and consistent advisory relations in institutions like DTRC, with needy
public and
private sector professionals of many kinds.
In the event, thank you for listening to me; now I need your comments, questions,
and
general discussion.
----------------------
*This paper was prepared by C. Stephen Baldwin, TSS Specialist for Training in
Population and Development,
Population Division, DESA, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, USA (Tel. No.
212-963-8394; Fax No. 212-963-2147; e-mail Baldwins@UN.org). The views expressed are
those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those
of the United Nations. The paper was originally presented at the 10th Anniversary Workshop
of the Addis Ababa
University Demographic Training and Research Center, on 22 November, 1997.