Activities in January-June, 2011

The Regional State of Oromia is the largest region both in terms of population and geographical size. Like any other region in Ethiopia, the regional state is faced with a growing demand for qualified district and regional planners with requisite skills in project planning and management as well as techniques of data collection and analysis. The technical assistance of the UNCRD Africa Office in Ethiopia is designed to fill this gap and provide the planners of the Regional State of Oromia with requisite knowledge and technical know-how to design, implement, and manage effective regional development projects and programmes. The training course is also designed to provide the planners and development managers of the Regional State of Oromia with appropriate and effective data collection and analysis techniques. Towards this goal, the UNCRD Africa Office, in collaboration with Oromia Bureau of Finance and Economic Development (OBFED) and UNICEF, Ethiopia, has so far conducted a number of successful in-country training courses and managed to train a substantial number of professional planners and development managers in project planning and management; and data collection and information management. Encouraged and satisfied by the success of the previous training courses, the Regional Government of Ethiopia has again requested the UNCRD Africa Office to support further training. In this regard, the UNCRD Africa Office, in collaboration with the Regional Government of Oromia and UNICEF, Ethiopia will organize the next training course from 9 May to 4 June 2011 in Adama (Nazareth). The training workshop will focus on: (a) project planning and management; and (b) data collection and analysis, which includes participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods.

The UNCRD Africa Office, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), organized training courses on “Urban and Regional Development Planning and Management” in 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively. The principal objective of these training courses is to strengthen the national capacity of African countries for urban and regional development management. The training courses are implemented within the context of South-South cooperation towards enhanced development cooperation between Asian and African countries, through the exchange of experiences in urban and regional development planning. More importantly, the courses are designed and implemented to support African planners and urban managers to learn and draw relevant lessons from Singapore’s successful experiences in urban and regional development planning and management. Through these training courses, a number of regional planners and urban managers from several African countries have been trained. The previous three training courses were well-received by the participants, as indicated in the evaluation of the course and the feedback UNCRD has received from the course participants, which was later published in the UNCRD Alumni Newsletter. Satisfied with the impact and outcome of the previous training courses, UNCRD, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, Government of Singapore, and JICA will jointly organize the fourth phase of the training course from 4 to 15 April 2011 at the Civil Service College of Singapore.

Since 2004, the UNCRD Africa Office has been providing technical assistance to the Ewaso Ng’iro North Development Authority (ENNDA) of Kenya to build its capacity in regional development planning and plan preparation. ENNDA is a statutory board, which falls under the Ministry of Regional Development Authorities. The Authority is in charge of planning and implementing regional development policies and programmes in the Ewaso Ng’iro River Basin. The UNCRD Africa Office, in collaboration with its partners, has so far conducted several training workshops, seminars, and field study analyses to upscale the knowledge and skills of the planners of ENNDA and other stakeholders in techniques of data collection and analysis as well as in regional plan preparation. The integrated regional development plan for ENNDA has now been prepared and is ready for publication. However, prior to publishing the regional plan, the UNCRD Africa Office and ENNDA will organize a stakeholders’ workshop to solicit final comments and ensure ownership of the plan by the local community. This participatory process will also ensure the effective implementation of the regional plan in the future.

The UNCRD Africa Office and University of Denver, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, have been conducting a research-cum-training project in northern Kenya. Within the overall context of human security, this project aims to reduce vulnerability and increase human security of communities affected by conflict in Northern Kenya by building the capacity of the community and empowering vulnerable groups affected by conflict through identification and promotion of sustainable livelihood and conflict management strategies. The rationale for capacity building and conflict management is to empower people through exchange of information, promotion of knowledge, and building of skills for improved livelihoods and to enable the local community to deal with conflicts in a sustainable manner. Through identification and promotion of both sustainable livelihood and conflict management strategies, the project attempts to address the two aspects of human security: freedom from fear (conflict) and freedom from want (creation of sustainable livelihoods). The research phase of this project was completed and the findings of the research will be published as a book titled “Human Security and Conflict in Africa: Kenya in Perspective,” to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in June 2011. The capacity-building phase of the project commenced last year and to-date two training workshops were conducted for the Garissa and Laikipia districts of Kenya. As part of this capacity-building programme, the UNCRD Africa Office and University of Denver, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, will conduct a training workshop for community leaders, planners, representatives of NGOs, CBOs, etc. from the Marsabit district.

TARDA is the oldest of the six regional development authorities that the Government of Kenya created in 1974 for effective management of natural resources and the environment, and preparation of regional development plans to enhance social and economic development in the region. In this regard, TARDA has requested the UNCRD Africa Office for technical assistance for preparation of an integrated and long-term regional development plan. This process involves sensitization and consultative workshops to facilitate the plan preparation process. Towards this objective, the UNCRD Africa Office and TARDA, in partnership with the University of Nairobi, will organize a consultative and sensitization workshop for planners, development managers, policymakers, community leaders, representatives of NGOs and CBOs, local members of parliament, and others.

Following the outcomes of the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010, as well as taking into consideration the priorities addressed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), UNCRD will hold a public event entitled “Biodiversity and Regional Development”. The purpose of this event is to raise the awareness of the general public on issues pertaining to biodiversity and sustainable regional development in developing countries. The programme includes presentations and discussion by experts, NGOs, and the private sector, with a focus on relevant topics such as biodiversity-friendly coffee production, fair trade, and ecotourism.

Admission is free-of-charge.

The International Symposium and expert meeting will be organized in order to:

1. Share the importance and potentiality for community-based disaster management (CBDM) for climate change adaptation (CCA);
2. Develop regional discourse on recently emerging climate change-related risks and CBDM’s effectiveness in building the capacities of communities for adaptation measures;
3. Share good practices and challenges from the project countries, and create an international network for applying good practices around Asia and the Pacific region; and
4. Discuss methodologies and strategies on CBDM for CCA to develop a user’s guide.