Sector wide issues
In Uganda, where water sector reform is underway, a Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) to planning is applied and budget support mechanisms are under development and where the water sector’s Strategic Investment Plan 2004 to 2015 has been presented. The sector under its various sub-sectors (rural water, urban water, water resources, water for production and sanitation) constitutes part of the effort to achieve the Government of Uganda’s intentions under the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) and the Millennium Development Goals.
The changing workforce in the sector
Increases in activity in the sector and the development of stringent pro-poor performance measurement criteria, together with an expansion of the range of institutions involved has resulted in a sector workforce from diverse organisations and a wider professional background.
Value for money
In Uganda an estimated 17% of the water and sanitation sector’s budget for the fiscal year 2003/2004 was earmarked for ‘capacity building’; an amount greater than that for water for production and water resources management combined. Yet goals for this investment were not set. The value of any investment in professional development is difficult to quantify and therefore justify. Information does not feed back to inform future resource allocation or operational activities. Just as with investments in physical infrastructure, money spent on staff training should be planned, designed, implemented and evaluated. This should be standard practice and not subject to one-off initiatives.
Raising the position of the training function
In many public sectors, including water and sanitation, training or capacity development has often been seen as something of an administrative function. Training officers mainly come from other non-training related disciplines for example engineering or administration. Capacity development is generally not seen as a valid profession in its own right. The people who hold managerial positions in this field rarely have any formal education or training in it. This means that the skills needed to address the complex demands of ensuring a consistently competent workforce are not given adequate recognition as a managerial function in the institutional hierarchy. In the water and sanitation sector this situation fails to make sound business sense given the sheer amount of money that is being poured into capacity building and training.
The call for coherence and strategy
In Uganda there is a lack of planning and strategic direction in capacity development and Human Resource Development (HRD), with predominance of “fire-fighting” and supply led, short-term interventions. Educational organisations will not be able to provide support unless there is a clear direction from the sector. A study of SWAp roles in sector reform and decentralisation in Africa concluded that development partners should formulate a comprehensive capacity development strategy that responds to the question ‘capacity for what and for whom?’ It should avoid the current patchwork of initiatives driven by different agendas and funders. Capacity development strategy needs to link up with or feed into emerging sector reform strategies. This is currently true of the water and sanitation sector in Uganda.
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