Mekong River Commission Integrated Training Strategy and Programme

The objective of this project is to develop a long-term Integrated MRC Training Programme based upon an MRC Integrated Training Strategy in order to develop a critical mass of human resources at MRCS (Mekong River Commission Secretariat), NMCs (National Mekong Commission) and National Line Agencies that ensures effective and sustainable development of the water and environmental resources in the Lower Mekong region according to the shared concepts of Integrated Water Resources Management.

The target group consists of professional staff of MRCS and NMCs, and professional staff at National Line Agencies insofar involved in MRC activities.

Within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Mekong River Commission and the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, signed 19 November 2001 in Phnom Penh, MRC has requested UNESCO-IHE to develop an Integrated Training Strategy and Programme.

The aim of the Integrated Training Strategy and Programme is to bring the various training needs of MRC under one umbrella and to address these needs through one comprehensive and coherent training programme.

In the assessment of MRC training needs, particular emphasis is to be paid to the Water Utilisation Programme (WUP), because within most other MRC programmes there have been earlier training needs assessments.

A comparison of the training needs under WUP with those identified for BDP, EP and other MRC programmes will be the basis for establishing a strategy for an integrated MRC training programme, which will avoid overlap or duplication and therefore be able to integrate all MRC training activities. Obviously, current training initiatives have to be taken into account in formulating the Integrated Training Programme.

Since the past two years MRC is in the process of moving from a "project" to a "programme" approach. Before the year 2000 MRC activities were shaped in the form of many, relatively small, projects that generally reflected member country national interests or donor development preferences.

Since then, however, MRC has developed a comprehensive series of programmes, the collective purpose of which is to achieve MRC's goals and reach towards its vision.

To support the move towards an MRC "programme" approach MRC's training and capacity building activities need to make the same move. Still training activities are scattered, formulated independently within different core and sector programmes, and not sufficiently co-ordinated.

This inevitably leads to overlaps between the various training activities, a certain degree of "workshop tiredness" among staff and consequently inefficiency in the overall training expenditure. In addition, gaps in training and capacity building occur as a result of a lacking overall vision on training needs.

Particularly integrating knowledge and skills do not get due attention as long as training needs are formulated in isolation within the programmes, while it is the interaction between the programmes which will give added value to basin planning and management.

The rapid development of MRC, its high ambition of becoming a world class international river basin organisation, the associated large and diverse need for training, and the inefficiency of the current scattered approach to training ask for a more structured and programmatic training approach.

In such an approach the overall training programme should be underpinned by a coherent training strategy that directly relates to the mission of MRC and the human resources needed.

The advantage of this integrated approach is that training of people can be put in the context of a human resources development plan. Another advantage is that it will be easier to implement one MRC-broad system of training quality assurance.

In the development of a comprehensive Integrated Training Programme for MRC we distinguish the following five steps:

1. Assessment of the required human capacity within MRCS, NMCs and National Line Agencies to fulfil MRC' mission;
2. Assessment of the available human capacity within above mentioned institutions;
3. Analysis of capacity gaps and identification of training needs;
4. Development of an MRC Integrated Training Strategy;
5. Development of an MRC Integrated Training Programme.

Steps 1, 2 and 3 together form the Training Needs Assessment (TNA), which is the main preparatory activity to arrive at the Integrated Training Strategy and Programme.

In developing the Integrated Training Strategy and Programme, two phases are distinguished. Phase I is largely devoted to identifying the training needs under WUP and the other MRC programmes. Phase II is focused on the actual development of the Integrated Training Strategy and the elaboration of the strategy into an Integrated Training Programme.