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China’s training aid for African forestry: progress, problems and prospects
Chen Jie
Center for International Forest Product Trade, State Forestry Administration
Pemba 25th Oct. 2017
Where will HRD programs move forward?
03
How is China training aid for African forestry going01
What are the disparities in expectation between China and Africa?02Outlines
China’s human resources development programs in forestry sector China's foreign aid dates back to 1950, and capacity building is an important
component. Human resources development (HRD) programs has been implemented, including technical training, official-centered training, academic education and other exchange programmes.
Foreign-aid HRD programs are under the leadership of MOFCOM, involving the efforts from government, international organizations, business, research organizations and other stakeholders
Since 1950, more than 120,000 civil servants and technicians from 173 developing countries have received training in China.
In 1993, the SFA began to design and implement the forestry foreign-aid HRD programs. By the end of 2015, 149 HRD programs have been delivered to 4109 people from 106 countries.
The HRD programs for forestry has sclaled up with improving impacts
Africa is the most targeted?
• Many African countries are the long-standing friend of China
• Africa abounds with bountiful forest resources, which play a critical role in providing food, medicine, energy and timber.
• Many African countries are now asking how they can achieve the sustainable use of forest resources, and has posed increasing demand for capacity building.
• There is little understanding of the status, impact, problems and solutions surrounding China' s HRD programs for African forestry.
• We attempted to reveal strengths and gaps in the current training, and suggest how the latter can be bridged.
Questionnaire survey
Conducted among Chinese forestry training organisations qualified for foreign aid training for training achievements, problems and challenges, priority training courses, and format of training courses
Semi-structured interview
Conducted among senior forestry officials from Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Madagascar and Mozambique, to understand their capacity building needs, their perceptions of priority areas and preferred forms and mechanisms.
Seminar
Talk with forestry training organisations and competent authorities for human resource development for training organisations’ capacity to provide courses, the challenges they face and ways to overcome them.
Methodologies for the research
• Centered on the forest ecosystem, wetland, desertification and biodiversity
• Strengths of Chinese forestry sector
• SAFA
• BFU
• National Bamboo Research Center under CAF
• ICBR
• Senior officials
• Ordinary officals at the centeral and provincial government
• Technicians
How is China training aid for African forestry going?
African trainees are the largest recipient group. The courses specifically designed for Africa account for roughly 30%.
01
03
02Helped recipient countries for
better forestry governance and
resources utilization, thus
contributing to local livelihood
improvement
Contributed to international
forestry cooperation by
sharing the attitudes and
actions on sustainable
forestry
Enhanced the mutual
understanding and
collaboration between China
and African partners in
forestry sector
What achievement ever made?What achievement ever made?
African needs
• High-value-addedproducts processing• Development of lesser used tree species
China's Strengths
• Bamboo processing• Wildlife protection• Forest governance• Wetland protection and wise use• Desertification control
• SFM• NTFP
utilization and processing
• forest plantation
Gap 1: Priority fields of forestry training
What are the disparities in expectation between China and Africa?
Gap 2: Targeted trainees of forestry training
China
• More focused on public sector experts
• Officials and professionals from forestry-related sectors and NGOs’ representatives,
• Local people (in consideration)
Africa
• Local communities for plantations, NTFP use and sustainable forest development
• Grassroots technicians to promote the wise use of timber and NTFPs
• Local entrepreneurs and workers for advanced processing learning
Gap 3: Types of training
China
• short-term training
• training to local people should be combined with practical projects
Africa
• short-term training• long-term academic
education• on-site grassroot training
Gap 4: The way to give training
China
• Lecturing
• Field trips
Africa
• More discussion based on lecturing
• Field trip and internship integrated
Both Chinese and African respondents agree that：
there is a need for better post-training monitoring and evaluation in order to strengthen the design of courses and curricula as well as to gain a better understanding of the impact. while distance learning offered potential, it would need to be combined with opportunities for practical training and might be limited by poor infrastructure.
The analysis reveals a strong technical training model, which however needs to be
strengthened.
Though technical training clearly has a vital role to play, other types of capacity
building are needed too. China needs to make more exploration in this aspects
Work is needed to assess what more is needed beyond training individuals in order
to understand how those individuals operate in the context of their organisations
While this still represents an agenda for ‘human resource development’, it demands
more of a focus on human resource development within organisations, and implies
more and longer-term support for people in their institutional settings.
Conclusions and suggestions
Ways forward......
Develop joint needs assessments01
Scale up HRD programmes in Africa， with the emphasis and focus varied by regions
02
Improve the quality of human resource development programmes in Africa
03
Enhance the monitoring and help trainees to apply what they have learned in their work
04
Deepen international cooperation in HRD program05
The research results have been incorporated into the 13th Five-year Plan for Forestry Foreign-aid Human Resources Development.
More bilateral HRD programs for Africa
More focus put on the practices
Higher attention on the need evaluation
Increased consideration and practices on the on-site training
Changes of forestry HRD programs
Africa needs to consider what you would like
to get from China foreign-aid HRD programs
for forestry sector
Initiatives or plans available for scaling up training
Forum of China and
African Cooperation
(FOCAC)
One Belt and one
Road Initiative
13rd Five-year
planfor Forestry
Foreign-aid
Human Resources
D
development
