CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT IN THE LAO PDR
AN ANALYSIS OF A POTENTIAL PARTNERSHIP
BETWEEN
THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE STUDIES OF POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
AND
THE WORLD BANK INSTITUTE
by
Peter Morgan
Soumaly Dengchampa
Bounlert Sayavong
with
Khamla Keoounkham
Kaysone Chansina
Inthavong Khodpangna
Soukhine Manosine
Moira Hart-Poliquin
Dec. 15, 2003
ACRONYMS
AFD- Agence Francaise De Development
CAS- Country Assistance Strategy
CPC- Central Planning Committee
GOL- Government of Laos
GTZ- German Technical Assistance Agency
NOSPA-National Organization for The Studies of Policy and Administration
NPEP- National Poverty Eradication Plan
NSAM-National School for Administration and Management
ODA- Official Development Assistance
PDR-Peoples’ Democratic Republic
SIDA- Swedish International Development Agency
TORs- Terms of Reference
UNDP-United Nations Development Programme
WBI- World Bank Institute
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A brief explanation of the authorship of this report. Morgan, Soumaly Dengchampa and Bounlert Sayavong are independent consultants to the World Bank Institute. Khamla Keoouunkham, Kaysone Chansina, Inthavong Khodpangna, Soukhine Manosine and Poliquin are permanent officials of NOSPA and the WBI. These latter officers contributed a great deal to this report but are listed separately from the authors to give them freedom of action and decision with regard to the recommendations.
Finally, Morgan and Poliquin would like to express their appreciation to Dr. Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune, the Vice President and his staff at NOSPA for their hospitality, good humour and insight.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. INTRODUCTION
Background
Purpose of the study
Methodology
B. CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT IN THE LAO PDR
Background
A strategic approach to capacity enhancement
C. OVERVIEW OF NOSPA (National Organization for the Study of Policy and Administration)
D. ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF NOSPA
History, evolution and future direction
Organizational structure, Systems and Mission
Role of the Party
Access to resources
Individual competencies
Organizational capabilities
E. POTENTIAL NOSPA-WBI PARTNERSHIP
General principles
Specific activities
F. STRATEGIES IN SUPPORT OF CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT
G. NEXT STEPS
A. INTRODUCTION
Background
To assist the authorities of the Government of the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic (Lao PDR)in implementing their development agenda, the World Bank will work with partner institutions in the Lao PDR that can participate in the design of the capacity enhancement framework, advise in the development of capacity enhancement activities in the World Bank’s portfolio and monitor implementation. The Bank is currently discussing the direction and content of its portfolio with the Lao PDR as part of the formulation of the Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) due to be completed in the Spring of 2004.
Two key themes in the CAS will thus be the following:
Support for the implementation of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP) of the Government of the Lao PDR.
Establishing partnerships with Lao public sector organizations in support of capacity enhancement issues.
The World Bank Institute (WBI) is taking the lead on the theme of capacity enhancement on behalf of the Lao Country Team within the Bank. The Government has chosen the National Organization for the Study of Policy and Administration (NOSPA) as the potential WBI partner.
Purpose of the Study
The terms of reference of this study can be found at Annex -- attached to this report. In essence, the purpose of this study is to analyze the potential of a proposed partnership between the WBI and the NOSPA. It looks at the general partnership ‘fit’ between NOSPA and the WBI and some general activities that such a partnership could support. A second round of discussions between NOSPA and the WBI early in 2004 will be necessary to scope out the nature, timing, management and financing of the specific interventions.
Methodology
The research for this study took place in the Lao PDR from November 17-28th, 2003. The list of people interviewed can be found at Annex --. The terms of reference (TORs) are at Annex ...The general methodology including a set of issues for discussion with NOSPA staff is at Annex ......A series of interviews were held with NOSPA teachers and instructors and the lists of questions in English (Annex --) are attached to this report. The research also included a review of some of the secondary literature on capacity enhancement in the Lao PDR. The bibliography is attached at Annex --. The team also conducted a brief visit to two schools at Khammouane and Bolikhamxay provinces. This report has been translated into Lao and has been reviewed by the NOSPA staff.
This report should be seen as an initial analysis of NOSPA. That organization is a complex structure with a national network of offices extending across all the Laotian provinces. NOSPA also has an intricate internal structure involving both the party and the regular formal hierarchy plus a complex set of relationships with a wide variety of other government stakeholders. This complexity together with the absence of any other report on NOSPA in English and the unavoidable difficulties of gaining insight through translation combine to make this report an early stage of building shared understandings between NOSPA and the WBI.
B. CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT IN THE LAO PDR
Background
Laos has undergone a slow but steady growth in its institutional and organizational landscape over the past decade. Market institutions such as regulations on business enterprises have been introduced as have those to do with the law and the judiciary. The National Assembly is slowly gaining legitimacy although its role remains limited compared to the executive and the party. The Governance and Public Administration Reform (GPAR) began in 1993. Laos, however, still lacks certain key parts of the landscape such as national non-governmental organizations, a range of media outlets and independent research organizations. Lao as a country appears to have its own approach to capacity enhancement and change. The Government takes dramatic steps forward to imbue the public consciousness with the need for change. It then takes a cautious step back to give space and time to people and organizations for adjust the process and learn incrementally.
By most accounts including those of the Bank, donor support of capacity enhancement has not been effective. Most have been conventional training and TA interventions which have a poor record of performance in virtually all low-income countries. The Government and some donors have tended to see capacity issues as a gap or constraint issue that can be addressed by providing restructuring, systems improvement and skills improvement at the level of individuals in support of programme and project implementation.[1] Most interventions have not been based on any systematic assessment of capacity issues. The Government also tries to have such activities supported through donor grants and for the most part, refuses to finance them through loan facilities.
Much of the donor analysis of capacity enhancement issues still contains heavy doses of technical and organizational rationality targeted on narrower functional issues. Little of this analysis or any of the plans of the Government suggest how Laos proposes to avoid the vicious cycles of capacity erosion that tend to build up in low-income countries such as Laos. Technical skills are in short supply everywhere and the capabilities to implement agreed plans are minimal. More important, the Government cannot afford to pay living wages to its employees who then seek better remuneration in salary-supplemented projects or in the private sector. Few capacity interventions achieve sustainability and are replaced by others that suffer the same fate. Programmes and projects proliferate with little effort at coordination.[2] Over time, the country gets ‘stuck’ in a circular pattern of capacity erosion and aid dependence from which it cannot easily escape.[3]
The pressures for more systematic attention to capacity enhancement are building. The prospect of joining the ASEAN free trade zone in 2008 and the appearance of complex interventions such as the NPEP are leading to the need for the development of more complex capabilities both within the country and within individual organizations such as NOSPA.[4]
As is the case in most countries, research on capacity enhancement issues in the Lao PDR can charitably be described as modest. Neither the Government nor the international donor community devote much resources to the subject despite its fashionability and both sides are in the early stages of coming up with a clear and coherent strategy through which to address capacity issues. The analysis of these issues in the current version of the NPEP, for example, is limited at best.
A Strategic Approach to Capacity Enhancement
The Bank has undertaken to give particular attention to capacity enhancement during the formulation of the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). At an aggregate level, an international funding agency such as the Bank faces a series of choices as it crafts its strategy for capacity enhancement.
It could work on the ‘demand’ side of capacity issues. Much of this would entail working on changes to governance and institutional aspects of the Laotian public sector.[5] We have already seen in this report the shifts in NOSPA’s direction in response to changes on the demand side.
The Bank could intervene to support work in broad cross-cutting capacity issues such as public sector pay, public expenditure management, monitoring and evaluation, decentralization or privatization.
It could intervene to support capacity enhancement in specific programmes and projects. Annex -- sets out some of the advantages and downside risks of this aspect of capacity enhancement.
It could support additional research on capacity issues either directly or through organizations such as NOSPA.
The Bank could work with the Government to help build the organizational and technical support systems required to support capacity enhancement.
The task for NOSPA and the WBI will be to decide, amongst other issues, how many of these priorities they wish to address through their partnership. The greatest risk would appear to be lie in being overly ambitious, i.e., having NOSPA try to address too many capacity issues too quickly both internally and within the Government without adequate resources or without enhancing its own capabilities to play such a support role. We are assuming in this report that the WBI and the Government of the Lao PDR will be discussing the Bank’s role in capacity enhancement and in the implementation of the NPEP.[6] Part of those discussions may involve the larger support role of NOSPA and the ways in which its capabilities would have to be developed to play that role.
C. OVERVIEW OF NOSPA
NOSPA is a public sector institution established in 1995 to promote training and research. It is relatively advanced in many respects compared to comparable training organizations in many low-income countries. It has reasonable physical facilities, an established set of systems and procedures and progressive leadership. It has two main campuses, one in downtown Vientiane to maintain contact with Government ministries and the international community and one in Thangone Village in Saythany District about twenty-four (24) kilometers from downtown where the main academic and teaching facilities are located including the new residence completed in early 2003. It also has eighteen associated schools throughout Laos. Its training mandate is to design and deliver courses for high and middle level public officials in both the government and the party to enable them to contribute to the development of Laos. NOSPA has an intake of roughly 350 long-term students annually plus over 1000 short-term participants.
In support of this mandate, NOSPA (see Table 1 below) offers the following range of short and long-term courses, some of which are being changed or redesigned.
Table 1 - NOSPA courses
Present courses and degrees Proposed redesigns and additions
short term (not more than two weeks)[7]
training course on policy (45 days) [8] training course on politics and administration (4-6 months)
high-level diploma course in public administration (about 2 years)
To be replaced by a a three year in 2008
a Bachelor Degree course on politics and administration over four years
A Master’s Degree course on politics and administration over two years
To be started in 2004-2005
A Master’s in Business Administration over two years
Replaced the pre-masters of business administration to be started in 2010
a Ph.d course on Politics and Public Administration over four years
To be started in 2010
The central unit of NOSPA has a total of 162 staff covering teaching, research and management of which 50 are contract staff.[9] Of this total, 63 are permanent teachers (see Annex --- attached) excluding the President and two Vice-Presidents. Of this total, twelve (12) are women. The majority of these permanent teachers are over 46 years of age, a percentage which a good deal higher than the Lao average.[10] NOSPA also has 60 visiting lecturers from other Government departments.[11]
At the level of the provincial schools, NOSPA has a total of 82 permenent staffs and 202 visiting lectureres including from the central NOSPA.
D. ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF NOSPA
History, evolution and future direction
A sense of NOSPA’s history and evolution is helpful to understand its current situation. The ‘political’ or ideological side of NOSPA can be traced back to its roots in the Samakhixay School of Solidarity established in 1964 in Huaphan Province in Northern Laos. After 1975, this school was moved to the Vientiane Municipality and renamed the High Level Party School. Its main function continued to be the training of members of the party and the core cadre of the country. The ‘management’ side of NOSPA came from the National School of Administration and Management (NSAM) founded in 1990. Both these schools were merged in 1995 to form NOSPA which became a ministry-equivalent agency of the Government with the mandate to train middle and high-ranking officials in public policy and administration.[12] Annex -- sets out the 1995 Decree # 9 of the by the Lao Revolutionary Central Party Politburo which jointly authorized the merger with the Office of the Prime Minister. Annex --- sets out the Prime Minister’s Decree.
We can detect in this brief history at least three influences that shape the direction and activities of the current NOSPA.
The organization has emerged out of a complex blend of historical experiences including the Marxist revolutionary struggle, Buddhist perspectives on learning, a European - mainly French - conception of a state training organization and finally, the institutions of modern management and development cooperation including action plans and strategies, monitoring and evaluation and human resource management. Not surprisingly, NOSPA the organization is, in many way, a reflection of Laos the country in the way that it has added rather than replaced cultures and mindsets as it has evolved.
NOSPA as a distinct organization is relatively new having been established in 1995. Such a merger between two quite different organizations would be problematic in any country and making it into a more coherent organization is clearly still a work in progress. New demands coming from its restructured relationship to the provincial schools will continue that challenge.
NOSPA has been conducting its own capacity enhancement process since 1995. It has, for example, expanded rapidly from four (4) departments in 1995 to ten (10) today. Teachers are still being added to the overall staff complement at the rate of about five to six (5-6) per year.
The impact of NOSPA’s relationships with its many diverse stakeholders is difficult to trace. NOSPA deals with a wide variety of Laotian governmental stakeholders including provincial governments and central ministries and departments.[13] NOSPA graduates can be found all throughout the government which gives it a powerful informal network of support. It has a number of external relationships mostly with management training institutes, mainly in the region. These include the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy and the National Institute of Public Administration in Vietnam, the Central Party School in Chinaand the International Institute of Public Administration in France. It appears, however,
to have limited links with the international donor community and with those domestic groups involved in public sector reform and policy change.[14] NOSPA has good potential for interacting with a wide variety of stakeholders in the public sector in the Lao PDR but more would need to be done to build its capabilities for using these contacts in support of NPEP implementation.
A different set of behaviors within NOSPA’s are emerging in response to the changing ‘demand-side’ of the training market in the Lao PDR. In the past, NOSPA has been a monopolistic supplier with a steady demand for its services especially from the provincial governments. Much of this pattern of demand still remains in place and high and middle level officials apparently remain anxious to attend NOSPA courses given their potential beneficial effect on their promotional possibilities. But a variety of incremental changes are changing this basic pattern.
NOSPA is slowly encountering some competition for prospective students. A number of private training institutions have been established in Vientiane which can offer a range of short-term courses in management and administration. The new Faculty of Economics and Management is now moving into course areas such as graduate MBA programmes which NOSPA itself is covering. Some Government ministries are reportedly considering setting up their own specialized training programmes. And a greater Laotian involvement with certain bilateral and multilateral funding agencies is expanding the range of training options outside Laos.
Government officials themselves are becoming more demanding in terms of course material and are no longer content with traditional teacher-dominated styles of learning. These officials are interested in more updated and operational course material. The pattern of needs is also shifting with decentralization requiring officials with more skills at the district and village levels. This same challenge of course and pedagogical upgrading will face NOSPA if it is to attract private sector participants to its MBA course.
NOSPA is finding it harder to attract skilled university graduates into its teaching ranks given the low salaries and the growth of opportunities in the emerging private sector in Vientiane. The location of the main campus at Thangone Village also complicates the efforts of staff to hold second and third jobs.
NOSPA plans and projections up to 2020 give an indication of its responses to these changing patterns. Most revolve around NOSPA becoming a larger, more professional and specialized type of training institution with a greater focus on specific issues of Laotian development. These plans also see NOSPA achieving a regional presence and reputation. To do this, NOSPA’s plans call for the following:
Upgrading and improving both the range and content of its course offerings as per Table 1.
Putting a greater emphasis on the quality of instruction as opposed to the quantity. The name of NOSPA may be changed to that of an institute or an academy.
Adding new departments including Provincial Politics and Administration School Management Department (2004-2005), Staff Capacity Building Management Department (2004-2005), Economic Management Faculty (2004-2005), State and Law Faculty (2006-2010) and International Relations and Cooperation (2010-2015). These changes reflect the need for NOSPA
to upgrade its curriculum from an emphasis on administration and procedures to one more focused on organizational and management strategies.
Table 2 below sets out projections of projected growth.
Description
2003 2004 2005 2010 2015 2020
Departments or equivalents
10 13 14 15 15 15
Division or equivalent
25 33 42 45 45 45
Total number of staff
112 130 160 200 250 296
Teachers and researchers
64 80 100 130 170 216
Technical/admin
48 50 60 70 80 80
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Box 1 - Finacial School Dongkhamxang, Ministry of Finance
This school, beginning with five teachers, was established in 1985 by the Vientiane Municipality and then later was transferred to the control of the Ministry of Finance in Vientiane. It now has sixty-six (66) teachers to service the approximately one thousand (1000) students who pass through the school very three year. It offers three-year courses to government officials and private sectors covering a variety of courses concentrating mainly on accounting, financial management and administration. The school also offers outreach to the province, district and village levels including a course in village financial management. It has worked with NOSPA in the past. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizational structure and systems
The formal organizational structure of the central unit of NOSPA can be found at Annex ---. The President of NOSPA reports to the Prime Minister’s Office and President of the Party Committee. A Cabinet of senior managers sets NOSPA’s operational direction in line with party directives and policy. The organization itself is divided into the Cabinet, the Organizational and Personnel Department, Department of Academic Affairs, the Information center and the Department of Research Management. NOSPA has five (5) academic faculties including the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Social Science, the Faculty of Political Science, the Faculty of Economics and Economic Management and the Faculty of Public Administration. Each of these departments and faculties have divisions and sections within them.
The central units of NOSPA are connected to seventeen other training schools at the provincial level plus one special district. These schools are not conventional ‘branch’ schools of NOSPA. They are funded and staffed under the authority of the provincial governor. Officers seeking admission apply to
the provincial government. NOSPA is, however, consulted on staffing issues and as of July 2003, is responsible for the design of the course curriculum at the provincial level.[15] The five-year plans calls for greater integration between these provincial schools and NOSPA.
Readers should note that his brief overview of the formal structure of NOSPA says little about the informal patterns of power and authority in the organization. Laos as a country seems characterized by different layers of organizational behavior and NOSPA is presumably not an exception. Effective approaches to capacity enhancement will need to take into account more than the formal structure and systems.
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Box 2 - NOSPA Provincial School at Thakhek, Khammouane Province
This provincial school, one of the more advanced in the NOSPA system, is housed in an old catholic school in the provincial capital at Thakhek about 370 kilometers from Vientiane. It was established in 1960 and currently has 108 students of which 14 are women. Of the 13 full-time teachers, 6 are female. Seven of these thirteen teachers have a university degree at the bachelor’s level. The school offers a twelve-month course for middle and senior level provincial staff including subjects such as philosophy, social economics, social science, administration and law and organizational studies. Students seeking admission do so by applying to the Personnel Office of the Province. The school itself is funded by the province and reports to the provincial Governor.
For the senior teaching staff, the main areas of concern have to do with access to resources. The school has no computers and few recent books. Operating costs are extremely limited. The school needs at least five more teachers to deliver a quality education. The courses themselves are increasingly out of date as the teachers themselves realize. In particular, courses that address operational issues of development management at the field level are needed. To help it improve course content, the school is looking to provincial educational authorities and the NOSPA experts in Vientiane. The staff remains interested in doing more research and policy advice but finds it difficult to engage in these activities due to lack of staff and operating resources.
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Role of the party
We are not in a position to put forward in this report a detailed analysis of the influence of the party on the policies and behavior of NOSPA. The most that can be offered is a general summary of the relationship plus an estimate of its current and potential influence on issues such as curriculum design and policy research.
The main outlines of the relationship between the party and NOSPA are the following:
The Politburo of the party helped to establish NOSPA in 1995. NOSPA retains the status of a party organization as well as a ministry within the formal structure of the Government. In practice, the party has a complete set of parallel components within NOSPA including the state (i.e. the regular formal structure), party (i.e. various party committees and groupings within NOSPA) and mass (i.e. units connected with Lao Youth, Lao Women and Lao Trade Unions). NOSPA is thus
part of the dual state-party interlinked structure that is characteristic of Lao governance.[16] The President of NOSPA, for example, reports both to the Chairman of the party committee and the Prime Minister. In other words, it carries out its tasks based on the principles of “centralized democracy, committees consensus, individual task responsibility and one-chief execution system”.
Most of the senior managers within NOSPA both in the central unit and the provinces are party members plus many officers who work on the financial and administrative side of the organization.[17]. Some NOSPA staff described the main function of the party within NOSPA as one of quality control and monitoring. Party members have their own meetings within NOSPA, some of which approve promotions and budgetary allocations.
Control over curriculum selection and design at the provincial schools remained with the Propaganda and Training Committee of the party until July 2003 when it passed to the central unit of NOSPA in Vientiane.
The influence of the party, real or imagined, on the workings of NOSPA has created a sense of unease among some outside observers, particularly those in the international donor community.[18] But this unease may be overstated based on emerging trends both within the Lao PDR and NOSPA itself.
The party functions as a legitimizing force within the Laotian governance system as in the case of its approval of the policies of decentralization and the NPEP itself. Any training organization such as NOSPA that can reach both staff within the Government and the party has a potential advantage in terms of disseminating certain messages and techniques. This is particularly the case at the provincial level where party influence would appear to be stronger.
A number of courses offered both at the central level of NOSPA and in the provinces are based on Marxist-Leninist teachings. NOSPA staff saw no contradiction between this pattern and the shift of Government policy toward encouraging the growth of markets. Most of the upgrading efforts seem to be targeted at the latter subjects.
Virtually all indications within NOSPA point to its steady evolution towards a set of objectives and a work programme based on technical quality and professional excellence. The research programme, for example, is increasingly focused on market economics in line with the general direction of government policy.
Almost all the external trends impacting on NOSPA would appear to be pushing it toward greater professionalism. These include competitive economic market pressures within ASEAN, the changing demands of its own students, the domestic competitive pressures within the training industry in Vientiane and the changing needs of the Government.
In short, the party plays an important role both inside and outside NOSPA. But it appears to provide as many advantages as disadvantages for an external partner such as the WBI. Certainly, a good deal of operational and intellectual space exists within NOSPA to allow for debate, discussion and professional research. From our perspective, the WBI will be given every opportunity to reinforce these activities within NOSPA.
Access to resources
As is the case with most organizations, NOSPA sees itself as having severe resource shortages in terms of numbers of teachers and researchers, skill levels of these individuals, access to operating funds and so forth. The sense within NOSPA is that it is an organization without much ‘slack’ capacity that can be quickly focused on new tasks, an issue that will shape its attitude toward NPEP implementation. This gap stems in part from the wider inability of the Government to adequately fund its development programmes especially in health and education.
In the NOSPA case, the symptoms of these financial constraints are easy to find:
There are little, if any, discretionary funds for items such as field trips, professional books, teaching equipment, case studies, library software, printer ink and so forth.[19] In its current relationships with international donors such as GTZ, NOSPA provides only light, office space and water. All other operating costs are absorbed by the NOSPA partner.
NOSPA has not been able to pay for short training courses for its professional staff in subject areas such as English and computer skills.[20]
The central unit at NOSPA has a total of 30 computers. Internet access is slow and subject to rain delays.[21] About 20% of the NOSPA staff have regular access to the Internet. Efforts have been made to set up a website but work still remains to be done before it can be made operational.
The two libraries in the downtown Vientiane Capital and Thangone Village campuses are well organized and professionally run. The intent remains to try and make them into a major resource in the Lao PDR for professional researchers. Yet both currently rely on old collections of writings from the former Soviet Union, Vietnam and China. Donations of modern books on public policy and management are occasionally received but do not add up to anything approaching a serious collection. No budget is now available to procure new books from outside the country including from Thailand whose language is accessible to Lao students.
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Box 3 - Other donor assistance to NOSPA
A variety of international funding agencies have supported NOSPA over the last decade including the UNDP. The two most involved have been GTZ and the AFD, both of whom have worked on curriculum design, research, seminars and workshops. GTZ focused on economics and public policy on market economy. The French concentrated on public administration and management at the provincial and local levels. A list of the five-day training courses sponsored by the French .... is listed at Annex--. Both donors point to a variety of critical success factors including the level of staff motivation and the support of knowledgeable supervisors.
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Individual competencies
NOSPA is set up as a knowledge organization and depends critically on the competencies, motivation and utilization of its individual staff. We cannot make definitive judgments about the competencies of
the NOSPA teaching and research staff based on our limited fieldwork.[22] The majority, probably 60-70%, have some sort of university training mainly from the former Soviet Union, Vietnam. Ten (10) have Ph.d’s and thirteen have Master’s degrees almost all from the same countries. A number estimated to be about 20% have attended short training courses mainly in other countries such as France, Germany, China, Thailand and The Philippines. According to internal discussions held in connection with this report, the main gaps in competencies lie in pedagogical techniques and the use of English. Individual competencies tend to be lower in the provincial schools (see Box ...).
Staff motivation appears to be good considering some of the constraints under which NOSPA staff work. In practice, NOSPA is a complex mixture of age sets, ideological and geographical groupings and technical backgrounds.[23] From anecdotal evidence, what does appear to motivate most of the teaching staff are the regular opportunities to impart their learning to the high and middle level officials that make up the student body. Being part of such a process of learning and teaching appears to convey genuine respect in the Laotian context. Staff also appear to be genuinely motivated to improve both their own individual competencies as well as the collective capabilities of the organization.[24] In the interviews conducted for this study, NOSPA staff talked a good deal about the need for constant improvement and for achieving greater quality of both teaching and research.
Two factors tend to lower morale and individual commitment within NOSPA. The first is the lack of operating resources which prevents staff from doing normal professional tasks such as field research or keeping up to date with recent developments in their particular professional field. The second is the astonishingly low level of salaries, a situation which compels a majority of the staff to take second jobs in order to survive financially.[25] Staff turnover, despite these derisory salary levels, appears to be low averaging only 1-2 people per year. NOSPA staff explained this turnover rate by reference to the motivating nature of the work and the lack of other similar job opportunities in the Vientiane area for senior staff. On balance, this low level of staff turnover is a positive trend within NOSPA and provides the organization with some stability and an opportunity to break out of the vicious cycle of capacity erosion mentioned earlier in this report.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Box 4 - The Faculty of Economics and Management at the National University of Laos
This faculty represents the modernizing face of Laos. It began modestly in 1996 and then received extensive assistance from JICA in the late 1990s in the form of a $11.0 million grant for a new set of buildings and access to graduate training in Japan. It now has 30 teachers offering a range of courses at the bachelor’s level in economics and management (see Annex --). The main focus is on business and private sector management. The faculty and JICA are currently studying the feasibility of adding graduate training to the curriculum. It normally has an intake of about 160 students (50/50 men and women) per year plus over 200 attending night school and short courses making it about the same size in terms of student intake as NOSPA. The student numbers are rising rapidly as demand increases. Policy research is a priority and some collaboration has already taken place with the NPEP authorities. Faculty staff are aware of NOSPA and try to position its course offerings in a different niche compared to that of NOSPA. No collaboration has yet taken place between the two organizations. _________________________________________________________________________________
Organizational capabilities
We need to at least supplement the usual focus on deficits, gaps and weaknesses with some attention to strengths and opportunities. In the NOSPA case, the organization has some genuine capabilities in teaching and research. In comparison with equivalent training organizations in most other low-income countries, NOSPA would rate highly. The challenge for NOSPA and the WBI is to enhance NOSPA’s core capabilities in order to help it make its unique developmental contribution.
Three capabilities, in particular, seem to need attention - curriculum design and pedagogical upgrading, policy research and the provision of advice to outside organizations such as the NPEP.
A general consensus in NOSPA seems to have developed around the need to update the curriculum. At issue here is a package of reforms including course revision, the production of new teaching manuals and the upgrading of individual instruction techniques.[26] Over the next 2-5 years, this curriculum will cover the range of courses from the customized and the short-term to the academic and the long-term. The key aspects are the following: individual skills and motivations, organizational resources, responsiveness to demand and incentives, managerial support have to be combined to form a collective organizational capability and second, NOSPA has to enhance its capability to constantly reshape is courses.
A focus on research has been part of the NOSPA mandate since its establishment. Article Two of the Prime Minister’s Decree of 1995, for example, mentions the word ‘research’ six times. NOSPA has made progress in building its research capability despite the lack of financial and organizational resources. The GTZ project has substantially improved NOSPA’s research capability in economics. Annexes -- and -- set out some recent work of this project. NOSPA publishes a magazine four times per year summarizing its latest research. A science or research council has been formed to coordinate the activities of the 15-20 professional staff within NOSPA who carry out the research along with their regular teaching load. A five-year plan has been agreed (see Box ...) which should further improve its capabilities in economics research. NOSPA’s research capabilities in contemporary issues in public sector management are less developed than those to do with economic issues but are improving as both the Government and NOSPA focus more on service delivery and programme implementation.
NOSPA already provides advice to a range of government agencies but on a limited basis. Two practices are still to be developed in the Lao PDR: that of the Government making widespread use of outside research organizations for the provision of policy advice and second, a practice within organizations such as NOSPA of building up a capability to provide advice and to contract out its services for hire.
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Box 5 - NOSPA’s list of research topics 2003-2007
NOSPA has selected a group of topics for staff research over the next five years which will result in the publication - mainly in Lao - of a series of books and articles. These topics are the following:
Expanding the rule of law in the Lao PDR.
State Management of the Economy under the market economy.
Economic development relating to social and environmental development.
State development enterprises (small and medium size).
The use of the province as a strategy unit, district as the planning and village as the implementation.
Impact on Laos of being a member of the World Trade Organization.
Strengthening the family economy.
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E. POTENTIAL NOSPA-WBI PARTNERSHIP
The idea of a partnership between NOSPA and the WBI makes good sense. NOSPA has capabilities, real and potential, in teaching, research and consultancy. It also has a geographic reach through its provincial schools and a national reach through its network of graduates. WBI can provide the technical support through a partnership arrangement and the international reach that can help get NOSPA up to the next level of performance. WBI also has a mandate within the overall Bank system for promoting capacity enhancement amongst the Bank’s clients and partner countries.
General principles
NOSPA and WBI may wish to review the following general principles that could be used to underpin their potential partnership. These principles represent the views of the authors of this report and have not been discussed in detail with either staff of NOSPA or the WBI.
Most of NOSPA’s previous relationships with international funding agencies appear to have been based on more traditional approaches to development cooperation. NOSPA received packages of technical assistance and financial assistance but had no knowledge of the overall project budget or the costs of particular components. NOSPA wishes to move to a more equal partnership in its future relationships with international funders. Both NOSPA and WBI are better placed to fashion such a partnership based on more transparent access to information and collaborative decision-making. That approach should guide project design and implementation.
NOSPA and the WBI need to strike a balance between enhancing NOSPA’s capabilities as a means of supporting NPEP implementation - the direct or instrumentalist view that predominates in the Bank’s CAS analysis - and enhancing selected NOSPA capabilities as a way of enhancing its overall
performance - the indirect or broader approach. We need to keep in mind that providing assistance to implement the NPEP is only one, albeit an important one, of NOSPA’s many tasks. The NPEP as a specific time-based programme may also be folded into the general development plans of the Government as policy fashions change. The need for NOSPA as a longer-term Lao reservoir of capacity, however, will remain.
Both partners also need to think about the short, medium and long term. WBI’s immediate financial resources provide only for a short-term (i.e. 2-3 years) intervention. But the partnership could be designed to help generate a longer flow of resources to NOSPA if that option is felt to be appropriate. NOSPA could continue a knowledge exchange relationship with the WBI after the termination of WBI support. Both partners could make an effort to engage other international funders to support NOSPA’s programme of capacity enhancement. Or they could persuade the Government of the Lao PDR to give NOSPA access to Bank loan facilities. The WBI intervention thus needs to be crafted with a view to position NOSPA to play a much longer-term role in capacity enhancement in the Lao PDR, e.g. as a crucial support organization that can help other public sector organizations in Lao to build their own capabilities. One possible long-term option is the idea of organizations such as NOSPA, the Faculty of Economics and Management and the Ministry of Finance Training School forming a formal or informal consortium to support NPEP implementation.
Both NOSPA and the WBI will need to come to more of a shared understanding or perspective on capacity enhancement issues. General discussions about CE normally disguise quite different views about objectives, change strategies, approaches to M&E, timing, resources and many others. This seems to be particularly the case in the Lao PDR which appears to have a quite different view of ‘capacity enhancement’ than the rational, technocratic perspective espoused by the Bank. The Bank’s future research on governance and the political economy of capacity enhancement will be helpful in this regard. The need to take into account the intangible dimensions of capacity enhancement in the Lao PDR will be critical, a theme noted in the Bank’s Discussion Note on Capacity Enhancement framework.
NOSPA and WBI will need to make early efforts to bring in other international funding agencies. WBI funds are limited and are not likely to be sufficient to cover the range of activities mentioned in this report. GTZ, JICA, France may be suitable participants.
Specific activities
The list of activities set out below makes up a package of potential interventions that NOSPA and the WBI could consider to support as part of their partnership. Details of the scale of the WBI support and its specific focus will be determined early in 2004. The timing would likely be 2-3 years from the date of the signature of any agreement.
Curriculum design
The need to revise and update a number of its courses, particularly on the management side, is a constant theme in NOSPA discussions and plans. Demand for these revisions already exists at the central unit and will soon increase at the provincial as the responsibility for curriculum design switches from the party to NOSPA. No consolidated list of specific courses to be upgraded exists as yet. The challenge here will be for NOSPA and WBI to both redesign some of the NOSPA courses and more important, to build the capability within NOSPA for on-going curriculum redesign. Some of the existing courses may be revised to focus more directly on NPEP issues, a possibility suggested by the CPC in Vientiane. No decision has yet been made on the best method of revision. WBI could supply some technical assistance or NOSPA could use WBI support to partner with another training institute in the region.
The upgrading of teaching techniques
NOSPA needs to upgrade the teaching techniques of its staff as well as the content of its curriculum. According to some NOSPA staff, too many of its courses lack student participation and hands-on involvement. They relay on traditional lecture methods and student memorization. Teachers need exposure to more contemporary teaching techniques such as the case method, group work, self-study and outcomes-based instruction. Teaching manuals need to be rewritten to reflect these new techniques. And a core of NOSPA trainers needs to be selected who can focus on curriculum and teaching improvement at the provincial level. Training of trainers in 3-4 subjects areas will be key.
Case studies
NOSPA lacks professional case studies based on the Lao context in the Lao language. Such cases could be used in updated courses at both the central and provincial levels. Again, the emphasis would be on building a NOSPA capability for case writing as much as on producing the cases themselves. NPEP issues including service delivery, implementation issues at the provincial, district and village levels and inter-ministerial coordination would be appropriate candidates for case analysis.
NOSPA staff training
The current NOSPA five-year plan calls for a variety of long and short-term training opportunities for NOSPA staff as part of the effort to improve the quantity and quality of NOSPA teaching. Study tours for NOSPA staff may also be appropriate within language limitations and additional funding for these activities may have to be sought from other donors.
Enhancing NOSPA’s research capability
As discussed earlier in this report, NOSPA has had a research capability since its establishment. But it needs upgrading and strengthening, objectives that are well within the competence of the present NOSPA staff to achieve. Interventions that would help this process might include greater access to professional research and learning, more ‘demand’ from Government and international funders, more access to operating costs, greater contact with other research organizations around the world and some skills upgrading in specialized areas such as data base management and poverty analysis. A research partnership between NOSPA and the Bank covering these and other topics could be a planned outcome of the WBI support.
Equipment, technical and learning infrastructure
NOSPA is critically deficient in teaching equipment (e.g. overhead projects, white boards, computers, audio and video equipment). Part of the WBI support or that from other donors might be used to build up that aspect of NOSPA’s teaching capability. Also key will be the upgrading of NOSPA’s library facilities including an electronic library, global e-learning capabilities. The issue of language will be key here given the very limited number of peopled in Lao who speak serviceable English. Thai material especially written material and translations is valuable given the proximity of that language to Lao.
Enhancing NOSPA’s support capability
The WBI could assist NOSPA in enhancing its capability to help other public sector organizations enhance their own capabilities. This could include collaborating with NOSPA on the development of tools and frameworks that could be used to facilitate NOSPA’s involvement in consultations, assessments, and planning for CE strategies, programmes and activities jointly with selected line agencies. Three tools or frameworks that might be developed would be a method of assessing the existing capacity of public sector organizations in Lao, cost effective ways of monitoring and evaluation progress on CE issues and finally, ways to develop CE strategies. This activity should build on the interventions that NOSPA has already made over the past 2-3 years.
Partnership for learning
WBI may be able to provide NOSPA with an exposure to national, regional and global knowledge through its various learning gateways. NOSPA could, for example, gain access through the WBI to global experience on the implementation of PRSP-type programmes and second, working with the WBI could test out the feasibility of setting up ‘communities of practice’ in the Lao PDR itself whose combined resources could be put to the service of NPEP capacity enhancement and implementation. WBI’s Development Knowledge Partnership may be useful in this area as would the possible establishment of a Global Distance learning Facility in Vientiane.
Table 3 below sets out an indicative breakdown of each activity into a NOSPA focus and a NPEP focus. The subsequent discussions between NOSPA and WBI will alter this chart.
Activity General NOSPA focus Specific NPEP focus Curriculum design Redesigning courses including
longer-term ones at the bachelor and master’s level
Focusing on shorter-term workshops and seminars targeted on NPEP issues and available to national, provincial and district staff
Upgrading of teaching techniques Introduction of new teaching techniques at all levels
Case studies crafting of case studies to support longer-term courses
Crafting of case studies to support shorter-term courses described above
Staff training In support of general NOSPA training needs
In support of NPEP implementation
Enhancing NOSPA’s research capability
assistance to NOSPA’s research capability particularly in the area of capacity enhancement
support for research on NPEP implementation issues
Equipment, technical and learning infrastructure
provision of additional equipment and technical support
enhancing NOSPA’s support capability
Enhancing NOSPA’s capability to support NPEP implementation
partnership for learning General learning partnership with WBI
specific focus on learning in support of NPEP implementation
F. STRATEGIES IN SUPPORT OF CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT
From one perspective, NOSPA’s capability to absorb WBI support and implement various changes is promising. NOSPA managers and senior staff appear intent on learning and constant improvement. Commitment and ownership already exist in the form of a genuine internal demand for improvements at both the central and provincial levels. Almost all the recommended improvements discussed in this report are in line with NOSPA thinking and will not require dramatic changes to the way NOSPA carries out its core tasks. We are talking here about enhancing NOSPA’s capabilities and not replacing or rearranging them. Wider institutional changes in the wider Laotian society and in the ASEAN region , i.e., the shift to a market economy, are also pushing NOSPA in this same direction. The timing of the WBI intervention and its possible connection to the beginning of NPEP implementation is also fortuitous.
That said, WBI still needs to be cautious about optimistic projections to do with the pace of change within NOSPA. The ‘blood transfusion’ image of capacity enhancement, i.e. the quick and effortless injection of improvement-oriented techniques into NOSPA’s organizational veins is likely to have little relevance in the Laotian context. Rapid mainstreaming in bureaucratic settings is difficult to accomplish under most circumstances and NOSPA will not be an exception. The GTZ programme, for example, spent almost a decade assisting NOSPA and brought to the table a great deal more money than the WBI is proposing. Overall results appear to have been steady but modest. NOSPA staff are not clear - understandably - about the unfolding organizational dynamics within NOSPA including the possible level of resistance of older staff in the political stream or the impact of the changing pattern of
relationships between the NOSPA central units and the various provincial offices. Nor is much known about the potential level of enthusiasm within NOSPA for getting involved in NPEP implementation in a major way or within the wider Government for a greater NOSPA involvement.
WBI also needs to appreciate that its expectations are likely ahead of those of NOSPA when it comes to NPEP implementation. The WBI needs to exercise some patience as it builds its relationship with NOSPA. NOSPA itself was selected by the Government as ‘focal point’ of CE activities mainly due to its connection to training. Gearing itself up to provide a broader range of services to a variety of public sector organizations may not be possible for NOSPA in the short-term. The WBI could help this process of change within NOSPA by facilitating more connections between the NPEP implementation authorities with the objective of creating more governmental demand for NOSPA’s services. And it could bring NOSPA’s capabilities to the attention of the international donor community in an effort to build up its research and consulting services.
The GTZ and the AFD have accumulated between them over two decades of experience in working with NOSPA. And both will continue to work within NOSPA on curriculum and teaching issues. The WBI support should obviously be coordinated with their ongoing work and crafted using insight that have come out of their experience. This report did not find staff in Vientiane from these two agencies and additional efforts will need to be made to learn more about the outcomes of their work.
NOSPA and WBI will have to pay attention to the balance between short-term, medium-term and long-term results. In the short-term, the partnership between NOSPA and WBI might be energized at the outset by a rapid-results pilot focusing on an activity of mutual interest. Leadership training as a possible topic was discussed at the July 2003 workshop but others could be considered. Improving the library resources of NOSPA might be included in this phase. But efforts also need to be made to put in place a phased approach which defers attention to some activities until the medium term, i.e. the second or third years of the NOSPA-WBI partnership. Finally, the two organizations will need to think about positioning NOSPA for a long-term (i.e. 10-15 years) support role in capacity enhancement. This will clearly need the involvement of other international funding agencies.
An approach to technical assistance (TA) may need to be agreed as part of the change strategy. For example, advisers with experience in upgrading course content, teaching skills, methodologies and equipment would be available from the WBI itself, from the region (e.g. Thailand, Vietnam, The Philippines or Australia) or from the home country of a funding agency. Consideration might be given to building on the close relationship between NOSPA and the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy and using the same TA people to assist both organizations.
NOSPA already carries our regular monitoring of its work and it does not need WBI to encourage it to do this. What would be useful is for both partners to think through and agree on a monitoring strategy as part of the overall partnership. These discussions should focus on more than the usual laundry list of indicators and should include some attention to the change strategy, the scope of the WBI intervention, the short versus long term balance and the differences between increases in capacity and increases in performance. Over time, NOSPA may be able to assist other public sector organizations within the Government with monitoring and evaluation issues.
The WBI support needs to be integrated into NOSPA’s operations across a range of activities. Curriculum design and pedagogical upgrading are linked. NOSPA also hopes to have its increased
capability for policy research feed into its process of curriculum design and into its approach to the provision of policy advice. Put another way, efforts to upgrade NOSPA’s individual capabilities needs to be designed and managed in such a way as to improve the overall capacity and performance of the organization. Isolated injections of technical information are not likely to have the impact desired. This need for coordination will have implications for WBI’s contribution to the partnership including a close collaboration amongst WBI task managers, the Vientiane Office staff, NOSPA and other participating funding agencies.
Both partners need to explicitly address the issue of improving NOSPA’s access to operating costs. We see little point, for example, in trying to build some of NOSPA’s key capabilities such as policy research without improving its access to greater operating costs covering field transportation, the Internet, contemporary professional journals and books, publication and so forth.[27] The education and health sectors in the Lao PDR appear to be particularly short of operating costs. We are aware of the various debates on the subject of the provision of operating costs both within the international funding community in Vientiane and within the Bank itself. We do not suggest any particular solution in this report other than to urge that the issue be addressed directly in any memorandum of understanding that is signed between the WBI and NOSPA.
G. NEXT STEPS
To move toward agreement on the NOSPA-WBI partnership, the two organizations need to move to the next stage of defining the nature and specific activities of the partnership. Reaching a shared understanding on these issues could be accomplished during subsequent discussions on this report to be held in early in 2004.
Agree on the basic purposes and principles underlying the partnership. In particular, NOSPA and the WBI will need to be clear about the objectives of the partnership in terms of the balance between strengthening NOSPA as an end in itself and strengthening NOSPA as a means to supporting NPEP implementation.
NOSPA management and staff need to come up with a list of specific activities which could serve as a programme for the NOSPA-WBI partnership. Such a list would refer to particular courses to be revised, specific equipment to be supplied, new research topics to be selected (see Box 5 ) below. Some effort to divide these activities up into the short, medium and longer-term would be helpful.
The two organizations can begin to address the issue of NOSPA’s role in NPEP implementation during the proposed WBI/UNDP NPEP workshop in Vientiane scheduled to take place in February 2004.
At some point, NOSPA representatives may wish to visit WBI to get a better sense of the role and resources of the WBI. Such a visit could be an opportunity to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NOSPA and the WBI.
WBI, mainly through the Vientiane Country Office and NOSPA should begin to seek out support from other donors soon after the signing of the MOU.
Annex - Capacity enhancement at the programme and project level
General approach
Capacity enhancement is seen as having to do with the implementation of specific programmes and projects.
The focus tends to be on enhancing functions and technical capabilities, i.e. improving the ability of Laotian actors to perform certain technical functions such as expenditure management, policy analysis or some form of service delivery.
There is usually an emphasis on addressing capacity gaps, weaknesses, deficits, dysfunctions and constraints to do with these technical functions rather than strengths and opportunities.
Advantages
These interventions respond more directly to governmental request.
They are usually easier to design, monitor and evaluate
Downside risks
The emphasis on dealing with gaps and deficits leads in many cases to the need for conventional technical assistance and training, interventions that have a decidedly mixed history of achievement in development cooperation.
Participants, especially external TA, are usually rewarded for task accomplishment rather than capacity enhancement. Project implementation units are frequently established to get around constraints.
Such interventions tend to focus on correcting the symptoms of a poor capacity enhancement context. They ignore the deeper issues that shape the pace of capacity enhancement.
Most tend to be characterized by relentless technical rationality. Most are also apolitical, a historical and a cultural in design.
Most tend to follow a common pattern of analysis including a list of current deficiencies, a package of inputs and a description, usually using indicators, of the end state to be achieved. But they usually lack a well-conceived strategy of organizational or institutional change.
They tend to be short-term in nature (3-5 years) given the design of most programmes and projects.
They have the usual well-known disadvantages of project interventions.
ANNEX -- OFFICIALS INTERVIEWED
Lao PDR
Mrs. Singkham Khongsavanh
Deputy Director General
Department of General Planning
Committee for Planning and Cooperation
Phosy Thithdavanh
Faculty of Economics and Management
National University of Laos
World Bank
Zafar Ahmed
Country Manager for Laos
Enrique Crousillat
Country Manager for Laos PDR
Vientiane
NOSPA headquarters
Dr. Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune
Vice President
Bounpone Phomma
Department of Administrative Science
Division of Public Management
Thonglay Sisoutham
Director General
Documentation Center
Phim Inkhamseng
Department of Technical Affairs
Head of Training Division
NOSPA provincial schools
Viengkham Phengsavanh
Director
Khammouane Provincial School
Bounchanh Seokham
First Deputy Director
Vanhly Pholavong
Second Deputy Director
Seng-One Choumlivong
Deputy Director
Bolikhamxay Provincial School
Xomsy Vilayphone
Deputy Director
Maisouk
Vongphayboune
Head of Cabinet Office
Finacial School Dongkhamxang, Ministry of Finance
No Mingchalean
Director
Seng-one Olueangxaysy
Deputy Director
Keola Souvannakham
Deputy Director
Somphone Sihavong
Deputy Director
Phoukhaothong
Technical Teacher
International funding agencies
Bikash Ranjan Dash
Programme Analyst
United Nations Development Programme
Vientiane
Ana Gaby Guerrero
Programme Analyst
Human Development
United Nations Development Programme
Caroline Heider
Principal Evaluation Specialist
Operations Evaluation Department
Asian Development Bank
Manila, The Philippines
Finn Reske-Nielsen
Resident Coordinator
United Nations
Vientiane, Laos
Marianne Tegman
Counsellor
SIDA Embassy of Sweden
Setsuko Yamazaki
Deputy Resident Representative
United Nations Development Programme
Vientiane, Laos
ANNEX ---BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lao PDR
Public Service Reform, People’s Participation, Rule of Law and Sound Financial Management, A Policy Paper of the Government of Lao PDR on Governance Issues, Roundtable Process. Vientiane March 2003
“ , Lao PDR, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP), Background Document, September 2003
“ , National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP), Eighth Roundtable meeting, Vientiane, September 4-5, 2003
NOSPA
Summary of Evaluation on Development Plan Operation for 2002-2003 and the Work Plan for 2003-2004 of the NOSPA
President’s Decree on the Internal Regulations of the National Organization for The Studies of Policy and Administration
Development Plan of National Organization for study on politic and administration, (2001-2005)
World Bank
Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Credit in the Amount of SDR 6.8 million to the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic for a Financial Management Capacity Building Credit, June 4, 2003
“ , Enhancing Capacity to Prepare and Implement Poverty Reduction Strategies: Progress, Issues and Challenges, International Symposium on Capacity Development, Manila, January 14-16, 2003
“ , Lao PDR Economic Monitor, The World Bank Vientiane Office, April 2003
“ , Lao PDR Client Survey 2003, Report of Findings, August 2003
“ , Lao Country Team Retreat, Retrospective Review, 1999-2003, February 3-4, 2003
“ , Country Analysis - Lao PDR, Final Draft updated 2003-06-19
“ , Result Analysis, Final Draft updated 2003-05-13
Ives, D., Thang, N., World Bank Mission to Ho Chi Minh National Political Economy, Final report, July 1-5, 2002
Sarris, M., A strategic approach to capacity enhancement in Africa
Vietnam Pilot: Supporting Capacity Enhancement in Ho Chi Minh Political Academy (HNPA), Draft Concept Note
Other international funding agencies
Changnon, J., Van Gansberghe, D., Vongphasouk, B., Rumpf, R., Looking Back to See Forward: Consultations about Good Governance and Participatory Development in the Lao PDR, prepared for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, December 2002
Pinz, Capacity Building in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Training Needs Analysis for Development in the GMS, vol. 1, Main Report, Report for GMS Government Review funded by NZAID, MI and ADB
General capacity enhancement literature
Godfrey, M., Sophal, C., Kato, T., Piseth, L.V., Dorina, P., Saravy, T., Savora, T., Sovannarith, S., “Technical Assistance and Capacity Development in an Aid-Dependent Economy: The Experience of Cambodia” World Development, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 355-373, 2002
Endnotes
[1] The Government has issued a decree on ODA Management and Utilization (#208/PM/October 30, 2002) which states that all ODA programmes and projects must contain capacity building elements to ensure successful implementation.[2] The Lao PDR has over 1000 bilateral aid projects. [3] For an analysis of this pattern in Cambodia, see Godfrey et all, “Technical Assistance and Capacity Development in an Aid-Dependent Economy: The Experience of Cambodia” World Development, Vol. 30, # 3, 2002 [4] The NPEP was approved by the 6th party congress. [5] See, for example, Public Service Reform, People’s Participation, Rule of Law and Sound Financial Management, A Policy Paper of the Government of Lao PDR on Governance Issues, Vientiane 2003 [6] The NPEP Implementation Task Force is still to be formally constituted. [7] The Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) and NOSPA collaborated on a workshop entitled “State Management and Development” See Annex ... for a list of these seminars and workshops at the provincial level.[8] NOSPA has, for example, collaborated with other central ministries and provincial authorities to put on 45-day training modules for government staff. [9] By way of comparison, the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy in Vietnam has 900 full-time staff in Hanoi and about 8000 students at the central academy. [10] 19 staff or 30% are 25-35 years of age. 16 or 25.3% are in the 36-45 age group. 25 or 60% are in the 46-55 years of age group. 3 people or 4.7% are over 55 years of age. [11] NOSPA has a total of 50 contract staff at present. [12] Vietnam and China separated the teaching schools that dealt with politics and management. The Lao decision to merge them was based on two factors: first, the much smaller size of Laos as a country, its weak educational system and the need to effect savings, and second, the conviction that party members, given their importance for development management, must be exposed to more than ideological teachings. Political actors had to be able to do both politics and management. They had to be able to manage projects and programmes.[13] Staff mentioned the Forestry Department, Public Health, Industry and Handicrafts, Communication, Post and Construction, Commerce, National Tourism, Irrigation, Trade, Education and Foreign Affairs. NOSPA also provided advisory support to four provinces in 2003-2004. [14] There are differences of view on this subject. NOSPA officials see the organization as having been involved in the GPAR from its beginnings in 1993. Other observers, mainly in the donor community, see it as desirable for NOSPA to be more closely connected into governmental reform efforts particularly the GPAR and the NPEP. [15] That function used to be housed in the Propaganda and Training Board Committee of the party. [16] One of the few analyses of the role of the party can be found in Looking Back to See Forward: Consultations about Good Governance and Participatory Development in the Lao PDR, a report prepared for SIDA, December 2002. [17] The party itself is estimated to have about 65,000 members across Laos or about 7% of all salaried public officials. Many are retirees, military and policy, veterans, senior managers and leaders in mass organizations. One estimate is that about 50% of all NOSPA staff are either full-time or reserve party members. Ten (10) new members were added in 2002-2003 with another twelve (12) recruited as reserve party members. [18] The workings of the party and its influence on governmental activities are not well understood within the international funding community. see SIDA Report, Looking Back to See Forward, p. 8 [19] A single ink cartridge for an office printer costs the same a two months salary of a NOSPA teacher. [20] Most short-course training for NOSPA staff has taken place at the management school in Vietnam where a total of 50 staff studied in 2003-2004. [21] To date, GTZ and the French projects have covered the $400.00 monthly charge for Internet access. [22] NOSPA itself rated its faculty and students as good (229 persons), fair (73 persons) and poor (1 person).
[23] 82% of the Lao PDR public service is under 40 years of age. Over 80% are ministerial staff working in the provinces and the districts. 11% work in central ministries. 7% are party-appointed staff with central party organizations including mass organizations. SIDA Report, p. 47 [24] NOSPA held a competition amongst teachers in 2003 under the slogan “Learn to become the good teachers and well learn and strict on the rules”. [25] Not surprisingly, staff have developed a variety of survival strategies including growing their own food, finding overtime within NOSPA, taking second jobs and spreading financial risk within individual families. Salaries were raised 15% in January 2003 and may increase by another 13% in 2004. [26] The NOSPA Summary of Evaluation of Development Plan Operation 2002-2003 states that “the staff improvement on the politics and administration is concentrated on quantity but not quality because the demand for study is higher than the supply, the teaching instrument is not enough. The number of teachers is not enough and they are not qualified. The don’t have the information, new modern methodology of teaching and the self-evaluation of the teachers for giving the score to the students is not appropriate”. [27] Both GTZ and the AFD absorbed all operating costs of their projects with NOSPA except water, light and office space.
