Engineering a Better World

The Contribution of the Engineer to Humanitarian Assistance and International

Development

The Institution of Civil Engineers, 10-11 March 2010

Engineering Partner

Engineering Partner

Building Capacity to Deliver Effective Transport Infrastructure: Lessons from

experience

Gary Taylor

Managing Director

I.T.Transport Limited (ITT)

www.ittransport.co.uk

Reducing Poverty by Enabling Access

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What is capacity building?

• A coordinated process of interventions to – (i) upgrade skills – (ii) improve procedures, and – (iii) strengthen organizations.

• Investment in people, institutions and practices • Capacity is built effectively when such activities

contribute to the achievement of national goals while donor aid dependence decreases.

World Bank PovertyNet website

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What it is not!

• A large, elaborate and expensive training programme with no discernible immediate practical application

Nor is it:• A subcomponent of a large programme that the

Consultant would rather not have to do but carries out to fulfil the Terms of Reference

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Why is capacity building so important?

Dead Aid? • Critics of development assistance claim much is either a

waste of time or detrimental to development• Are not many of the failures in past assistance due to

inattention to building capacity?• For example – no point in building a road without

capacity to maintain it – otherwise needs rebuilding in 10-20 years time.

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What can be learnt from experience?

• What does not work? – always more obvious than the opposite

• What works? – sometimes results take a long time

• What Examples – personal views

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Training – what was the point?

• Case Study – the training of small scale (labour-based) contractors in Tanzania– A group of contractors trained in Kilimanjaro Region

about 10 years ago: now have no work– Training replicated in Arusha and then Mwanza: same

result, they do not have work• Lack of market research, wrong environment or wrong

strategy?

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What works better?

• Understanding the contractors’ priorities:

1. Good workload

2. Payment on time

3. Training/skill development (short)– Example; Zambia Chipata contractors

• Training more, very small scale contractors (petty contractors or labour-only contractors) – example Rufiji local contractors

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Footnote to the above

• Case Study: Local Government staff in Ghana– Wish to decentralise management of local roads but

problem over lack of capacity– Found that LG staff had received lots of training but

had no resources to put the training into effect

Engineering PartnerImproving Processes & Procedures - Computerisation

• Case Study: computerisation of MIS in Kenya– Took four years– Never delivered what it should have done– Interim spreadsheet solution provided more benefits

• Not properly thought through? Too much “black box”?• .....There are even worse examples!

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What works better?

• Proper research of the needs –– Example: Kenya AIE program

• Keep computerisation as simple as possible (don’t be overambitious)

• Break work into modules that can be separately tested and implemented (allows checking of computer specialist’s work if not all delivered at the end)

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Training the right target group?

• Selection process for trainees is often either:– Too restrictive in terms of qualifications (end result is

small group already with training)

Or– Seen as a burden so that only those staff that can be

easily spared are sent for training (courses too long and not seen as immediately useful)

• Result = limited impact

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What works better?

• Short simple training for a large number of people to achieve impact – Example: Tanzania Village level foremen/gang

leaders

• Training grass roots groups that are the immediate beneficiaries– Example: Nicaragua Transport committees to look

after roads

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Lessons Learnt

• Do not train people unless you are sure that they can put the training into effect;

• Where appropriate, focus training on lower levels and direct beneficiaries

• Keep training focused (on customer needs) and short;• Don’t be over ambitious in computerisation and keep it

modular;

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Memo: Capacity Building is....

• Central to the development of infrastructure• The way to sustainability of transport infrastructure• The route by which the need for development assistance

will eventually be eliminated

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END

Thank you