2006 December, Vinod Thomas / The World Bank
Donors have addressed human resource problems mainly by financing training of individuals. These efforts almost always achieve their target numbers of people to be trained. But training is only part of the solution to building human capacity. For example, low salaries and poor working conditions often contribute to high outflow of trained staff. More important, the record is mixed when it comes to the effectiveness of organizations where the trained people work.
The Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG’s) evaluation of the Bank’s support for capacity building in Africa (World Bank 2005) found that individuals are too often trained for specific tasks before the organizational framework has been reformed to allow them to use the training effectively. The more successful efforts are demand driven and integrated within a coherent capacity-building effort.
The goals of training, furthermore, are usually not defined in terms of the desired outcomes for an organization’s effectiveness. Many of the measurement tools currently in use measure the reaction of the individual participant, which is not necessarily a good predictor of how much the training improved his or her organization’s performance. So it is indeed difficult to draw links between training and organizational capacity. In IEG’s evaluation of the Bank’s support for capacity building in Africa, IEG recommended that the Bank reassess what role training could play in its capacity-building support, how training could be provided, and what the respective roles of a central training unit and regional programs could be in any future support in this area.
