HIDA hosts National Planning Authority (NPA) from Uganda
On Friday, 16th March 2007 at 7.30 a.m., HIDA, the Human Resources and Institutional Capacity Development Agency, hosted a delegation from the National Planning Authority (NPA) - Uganda. The delegation which was led by a Board Member of NPA, Ms. Sylvia Tereka was received by Mr. Charles Karake, the Director and management staff of HIDA.
NPA is a Ugandan government agency which is charged with among others the responsibility for national human resource planning and capacity building. To this effect, NPA together with other stakeholders have initiated plans to implement a national human resource survey for Uganda. The survey is planned to be conducted in 2007/8 financial year and will lead to the establishment of a national human resource data base. The databank established will provide for continuous update of data on the country’s human resource to facilitate coordination of its capacity development with national development priorities. NPA is now in the process of holding discussions with regional partners and stakeholders to promote and mobilise resources for this initiative.
The Government of Rwanda through Ministry of Public Service and Labour (MIFOTRA) and with the facilitation of HIDA is at the advanced stages of conducting a Nation-wide Skills Audit, which has similar features of the survey being initiated by NPA.
TIt is this regard that NPA visited HIDA to learn about experiences encountered during the skills audit and also to share other aspects of ongoing and planned capacity building activities being facilitated by HIDA, which include public financial management reforms, public procurement reforms, functional reviews, strengthening of local training institutions and ICT development.
At the end of the review exercise, a comprehensive Report will be presented to stakeholders for validation highlighting the situational analysis of considered institutions clearly indicating an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the reform of the public service with applicable recommendations to deal with the weaknesses and threats.
“I am really impressed with the capacity building activities being facilitated by HIDA and I think that there is a lot we can learn from each other,” said Ms. Tereka of NPA
The NPA delegation reported that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is planning to facilitate the East African Member States to conduct their national manpower surveys, with the following common objectives: to establish the stock, characteristics and distribution of various categories of manpower in the economy; to determine the number of vacant posts within the different sectors of the economy and estimates for the future demand due to attrition and arising from growth of the sectors or whole economy; to determine both current and future shortages and surpluses by occupation, skill levels and other associated attributes; to provide data on the capacity of local education and training institutions to supply persons who meet the immediate and future needs and to establish an accessible human resource database for development policy planning.
The delegation then encouraged HIDA to study details of this initiative and determine how the country could benefit since Rwanda is becoming an East African Community member state.
The half-day technical meeting between the NPA delegation and HIDA’s Management team centred on areas of cooperation and forging partnership in aspects of capacity building.
