Strong and weak elements in effectiveness

During the interviews various elements have been mentioned that either enhance or hinder the effectiveness of the NPT projects.

The importance of commitment

The success of a project to a large extent depends on the quality and commitment of the project coordinator(s), also requiring a driven mentality to make things work. It was mentioned a few times that a lack of commitment among training staff sometimes

seriously hinders the effectiveness of projects. This however, was not found to be the case in the projects that were investigated in-depth by the evaluator.

Also, commitment of staff in NPT projects is frequently hindered by constraints due to heavy work load, sometimes caused by a shortage of staff.

In some cases it was mentioned that the absence of financial compensation/incentives for staff being involved in the project, caused a lack of commitment.

Therefore, it is also important that the project is being backed up by supervisors and top management in the organisation. Often, the involvement and commitment of the management is a gradual process.

Reservations to organisational changes

Curriculum developments in NPT projects seem to be enthusiastically supported by students/participants, but are often received with reservations by teaching staff. Overloaded courses

The number of planned activities in NPT should be scrutinised against the available staff capacity in the southern institutes. Due to constraints in time and capacity sometimes not all activities can be performed as planned. An example of this is the NPT project

Capacity building of the national council for Higher Education (UGA/033) which has set itself a range of ambitious goals, such as development of research capacity (tracer study among graduates of higher education in Uganda), management capacity development (training of staff), introduction of a quality assurance framework for higher education, introduction of a credit transfer system. Although the National Council for Higher

Education in Uganda is assisted by a leading Dutch research institute in the field of higher education, it is concluded by the Ugandan partner that the amount of work and the

required budget is underestimated in the project. According to the project manager in Uganda it is inevitably that not all planned activities can be performed, although most activities already has been undertaken and the institute also invested some own resources. Also short courses in NFP sometimes are clearly overloaded with subjects, possibly limiting an effective absorption and processing of knowledge by participants. To a certain degree this is caused by an inclination of course providers to offer as much as possible ‘value for money’. This could be one of the disadvantages of a competition between providers in which ‘value for money’ is only superficially assessed as the number of lessons that is given or the number of subjects that is being taught. It goes without saying that a well balanced study load (optimum) is more effective than a maximum of course supply. It could be argued that the Tender Evaluation Committee (TEC) should have more an eye for this kind of unintended effects.

Evaluation NPT/NFP - The case of Uganda – Field visit report 40

Effective training methods

NPT and NFP are more effective when daily work experience is extensively used in the course, e.g sandwich courses, practical assignments, working groups, follow up/feed back, refresher courses. Close interaction with Dutch partners on this is recommended. Short courses in NFP are lacking this opportunity.

Power shortages

Effectiveness of investments in facilities for which electricity or fuel is needed are frequently jeopardized by (power) shortages in the short run and budget constraints in the long run. This

Balanced gender participation

Equal participation of men and women is sometimes hindered by under-representation of woman in the workforce of the organisations involved. A balanced participation of men and women can only be realized by positive discrimination of women.

Dissemination of good practices

Effectiveness of NFP and NPT can be enhanced by disseminating good practices and if possible promoting more interaction between the institutions and organisations in addition to the NPT workshops that Nuffic has held and in which links were established and experiences shared.

NFP port folio

The academic courses in NFP (masters and PhD) are expensive, whereas their impacts are difficult to measure. It is advocated by various interviewees by increasing the number of trainees by making more use tailor made training, and consequently reducing the number of master courses. So far, the number of PhD courses under the MYA have been very modest, also indicating perhaps hesitations on their impacts in relation to the costs. Striving for sustainability

Creating sustainable changes and structures closely relate to the ownership of the projects, as it was discussed in paragraph 4.3. The more a project is ‘owned’ by the beneficiary, the more it is likely that sustainable impacts might evolve. Besides high commitment to and close involvement in the process of demand articulation and tender process, it is also important that the southern institutes are highly involved in the implementation. This is not always a fact from the very start. Quite often the Dutch institute is in the lead at the beginning of the cooperation. To create full ownership during the process of implementation it seems not enough to have a shared job for the

coordinators, one being Dutch, the other being Ugandan. To avoid a lean back attitude by the southern partners, in some projects a transitional phase is intentionally built in, in which the main coordination tasks are gradually being transferred to the Uganda partner. For instance in the project Strengthening capacity of prisons and police training

institutions, it was agreed that the Dutch partner would be the central project coordinator in the first 2,5 years, leaving 1,5 years for the Uganda partner having the final