The Training Component

A substantial part of the EPP budget is set aside for training of government personnel. In the planning of this activity it is important to keep in mind that there is a high degree of mobility of government officers with frequent transfers and promotions. The sustainable impact of the project will therefore not alone be the trained personnel itself, but also the development of the training packages, that can be duplicated for new staff and guidelines and procedures to institutionalise the environmental issues in planning and project design, and that one or more institutions within government are bestowed with the responsibility of maintaining the training programmes and ensuring that they are offered to new officers entering the relevant posts.

Department of Local Government Service has already agreed to reserve a part of the budget for future training of officers at the district level, and Ministry of Finance & Development Planning has agreed to set aside funds for training of Planning Officers at MFDP and in the planning units of the line ministries.

NCSA will be responsible for providing guidance to these institutions, and ensuring that environmental issues are properly incorporated in training schemes and that courses are updated.

An survey of training needs, based on questionnaires for planners and environmental officers at both central and local level, has been conducted and reported in Technical report No. 2: Training Plan. The survey showed that training needs are very diverse ranging from general introductions to environmental issues to more technical skills as the use of GIS.

Based on the survey the following courses have been identified for development:

• Environmental Awareness and EIA – An Introduction

• Communication Skills (5 days)

• Project Cycle Management, EIA and EIA Process Management

• Strategic Environmental Assessment (3 days)

• Urban Environmental Management

• Environmental Economics – an Introduction(3 days)

• GIS Familiarisation (3 days)

• Pollution Control Awareness (3 days)

• Environmental and EIA Legislation (3 days)

• Enforcement Skills (3 days)

• Land Use Planning (for non-physical planners)

• Environmental Awareness – the Way Forward (1/2 day)

More than 200 officers from central and local government have participated in one or more courses.

Target groups for training 

Ministry of Finance & Development Planning

The target group for training of officers within MFDP is:

• MFDP management

• Principal Planning Officers (PPO’s)

• Planning Officers (PO’s) acting as liaison officers or seconded to line ministries

A large group of persons, including the management, will need a general introduction to environmental problems and policy-options, including the application of economic instruments in environmental. Their need will be to know what is in the toolbox, but not the skill to actually use the tools.

Officers directly involved in project assessment will also need general introductions but supplemented with more detailed knowledge of the principles of EIA’s in order to assess EIA’s presented by line ministries. The persons in the macro-economic section will particularly need skills related to the establishment of National Green Accounting and theories and tools for taking environmental externalities into account in economic modeling.

The MFDP seconded planners in the line ministries are more directly involved in project evaluation and design. They will not be the persons actually performing EIA’s but will have crucial role as “gate-keepers” ensuring that financial allocation is only approved when proper environmental assessment has been performed. To perform this task, they will need a reasonable detailed knowledge of EIA methodology including the skills needed for screening, scooping and evaluation of EIA’s.

As planners are however often transferred between line-ministries and from line-ministries to MFDP headquarters, it is recommended that all planners are offered the same range of courses.

Other ministries

Ideally all personnel involved in project development in the ministries should be trained in basic environmental issues and EIA-procedures. This will however involve a very large number of persons and is initially outside the scope of the present programme. Some of the courses developed should however be offered to personnel of the line ministries at a later stage if funding can be made available.

In relation to the sustainability of the project and to focus the initial training programme, there is further a need for clarifying where future responsibility for environmental issues should be placed within line ministries. The concept of Environmental Liaison Officers (ELO’s) was launched by GoB in 1990, but it seems that only few ministries have established such posts and allocation of further resources is unlikely. There is thus a need for alternative solutions to the need for environmental experts in line-ministries and for strengthened links between NCSA and line-ministries. 

NCSA

In general the personnel of NCSA will not need basic training in general environmental issues. The role of EPP will rather be to provide advice and on the job training of officers in connection to concrete tasks performed by the NCSA relating to the elements of the EPP. The main issue will be support in implementing the pending legislation on EIA.

Closer analysis of the training needs in NCSA may however reveal need for establishing more specialized skills to support the future development of NCSA as coordinating and supporting the work in the line ministries and in local government. This may be specialized skills in Green Accounting in Enterprises, GIS-tools etc.

Training of Officers at Local Level

With the present organization of local government, a large number of persons perform tasks of relevance to environmental planning. Local Authorities are involved both as conceivers of concrete projects and as authorities responsible for planning, allocation of land, issuing of permits and inspection of activities.

The skills needed at local government level are much more concrete and goal-oriented than at the ministry level. Some of the necessary skills may be acquired through formal training but there will also be a strong element of “learning by doing”. The main target group  is the DLUPU members and their staff.

Planning and project cycle |Improvement of linkages| Environmental Impact Assessment| Management of Environmental Data | General advisory activities