Partnering in Education and Training for Developing Countries Stella Aura, MBS Principal, IMTR/WMO-RTC

1.0 Introduction Education and training is offered to NMHS to assist them to develop and deliver weather, climate and water-related services. Only about half of the NHMS have the requisite educational infrastructure that can address some of the initial and ongoing specialised education and training needs of the services. It is a constant challenge to increase the capacity of the WMO education and training community to meet initial educational needs as well as the need for ongoing continuous professional development (CPD). To be able to offer Education and Training as well as CPD opportunities to personnel working in the NMHS, countries will be required to explore more innovative approaches in resource mobilization initiatives and partnerships amongst themselves and with potential funding/donor agencies.

1.0 Introduction…… Cont’d Education and training constitutes a small, but pertinent component, of what an NMHS needs to effectively deliver its mandate. A survey conducted by WMO and the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET) established that most NMHSs in Africa have a stagnant pool of human and financial resources, and obsolete technologies, thus limiting their capabilities to produce the best services needed by policy makers and other decision-makers. Such challenges may not be effectively addressed by training as there may be meteorological personnel to train and even if there were, the challenges of finances and technological obsolescence would be a hindrance to service delivery. The challenges of service delivery in most other developing countries may not be very different from those facing WMO Regional Association I (Report of the 2nd session of the AU Conference of Ministers on Meteorology (AMCOMET), Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, 15-19 October 2012).

2.0 Partnership between IMTR and Development Partners From 2013 to 2017, IMTR has partnered with WMO, EUMETSAT, UKMOC and Particip and managed to train over 780 participants in addition to the Institute’s regular programmes. This underscores the importance of partnerships and resource mobilization for effective capacity building by RTCs. The IMTR-MOC Collaboration achieved the following; Trained 6 Instructors on Blended learning, Developed blended plans, lesson plans and course content for proposed Regional Initial Forecasting Course prepared, 19 participants from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania Uganda trained in Introduction to Climatology Course, Trained 24 County Directors of Meteorology (Kenya).

3.0 Importance of Partnerships Human and financial resources are critical for effective implementation of NMHSs visions, mandates, projects and programs. Over the past several years there has been growing demand of funding for various high priority Government projects which has resulted to a gradual decline in funds allocated to NMHS. There is a growing recognition that opportunities for resource mobilization exist at global, regional, national and institutional levels and institutions are strategically positioning themselves to exploit them. NMHSs need to also take advantage of these opportunities. NMHS should establish structures and frameworks that focus on strengthening relations, enhancing visibility, resources scouting, investments and leadership to effectively mobilize and utilize resources to meet their strategic demands.

3.1 Key Strategies to Strengthen Fundraising at NMHS NMHSs need to develop Resource Mobilisation Strategies. The first step is to undertake an analysis of NMHs internal structures and operations to find out: The extent to which resource mobilization is mainstreamed in the Strategic Plans; Status of ongoing fundraising efforts, types and manner in which they are coordinated; How the NMHS manages its internal revenue generation processes and identification of opportunities to strengthen it further; Extent to which the NMHS participates in high-level grant negotiations involving key development partners at national, regional and global levels; If there exists a clear organization-wide system of identifying, engaging, recording and reporting development partners’ support.

3.2 Resource Mobilization and Development Partnerships Resource Mobilization and Development Partnerships coordinate efforts to identify investment mechanisms and partnership opportunities for development of meteorological services across the member states. It seeks to secure development assistance for NMHS with particular emphasis on the developing countries, least developed countries and small island developing states.   This assistance can be in the form of; Direct financing by donor agencies, civil society and NGOs to finance education and training, Transfer of technology and expertise, Leveraging strategic partnerships with major development partners e.g. international development banks, aid agencies, and NMHS in developed countries.

4.0 Recommendations To enhance resource mobilization, it is recommend that: NMHS should develop strategic plans for mobilizing resources through a scoping exercise and review of multiple ways of funding and potential sources available e.g. Donors; RTCs should design and develop specialised training /educational courses that address the key needs of users of climate information related to climate change and variability in the region. This may attract investment in those courses for capacity building of policy makers, users of climate information and other beneficiaries; Development of several research concepts that improve training and outreach to attract funding from local and international sources;

Recommendations …cont’d Establishment of new partnerships and networks and strengthening existing institutional support to further or improve current education and outreach programmes; Identification and collaboration with individuals and institutions /organisations with common interests and who can support capacity building, knowledge transfer and other benefits in our programmes. Targeting community based institutions that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change can be a good idea; Cost recovery plans with training courses and climate products and services can also be used as a means to mobilize resources; Where possible, the training institution can venture into income generating activities; Fundraising events can be organised to mobilize finances and other resources required to support education and outreach programmes;

Recommendations …cont’d Undertaking of consultancy work for other institutions to raise required resources. The training institutions need to advertise/market the expertise, tools and knowledge available that can be tapped by organisations that need consultancy services in the areas of interest; The use of best practices and success stories on resource mobilization and building partnerships that have been in use by different organisations; RTCs should train their personnel on Project Proposal writing to enable them to present their concepts to potential donors; Identification of probable funding Agencies in line with particular interests of those funding agencies in furtherance of their areas of focus ( DFID, USAID, AUSAID etc);

Recommendations …cont’d Consolidation of core areas of competency and related sciences and marketing these courses to Government and other departments, guaranteeing constant flow of resources; Developing a few more popular courses (computer related, marketing, etc) which attract paying students (need for institutional review led by WMO to incorporate these courses in RTCs programmes); Positioning the RTCs as centres of excellence in climate change related capacity enhancement (adaptation, mitigation, technology development, climate finance) and making deliberate initiatives to access Global Climate Funds;

Recommendations …cont’d 16. It is of essence to develop NMHSs human capacity to embrace Resource Mobilization skills and practices as an integral component of operations for greater impacts.

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