Africa Capacity Development : Local and Regional Planning Management
Project / Program Summary

1. Objectives
   The objective of the project is to develop the capacity of African planning institutions engaged in local and regional planning and management in pursuit of the Government policy for poverty alleviation, decentralization, community development, etc., through sharing experiences and extensive exchange of personnel between African and Asian practitioners and researchers.
2. Activities / contents
   A core group of African planners specialized in local/regional development and management issues will conduct training of trainers (TOT) courses for the benefit of local and regional planning and management practitioners.
   These practitioners will participate in the 6 weeks training course to become trainers. The course is designed following a modular approach and deals with aspects related to concepts, regional framework, sectoral issues, development administration, institutional and social capacities, African/Asian experiences, project identification and designing, including feasibility studies, cost-benefit analysis, project monitoring and evaluation, etc.
   Trainers also receive training kits to enable in-country training in their respective countries. The core group of planners will also provide trainers with technical advice for organizing in-country training courses.
   An integral part of this program is the Asian and African exchange of researchers and planners to share mutual experiences that will help in developing teaching materials, particularly case materials.
   The core group of planners will also provide technical assistance in regional projects implemented by African countries.
3. Expected outcomes / impacts
   (1) Training curriculum and materials will be developed in modular format.
   (2) 20 African experienced practitioners each year will be trained as trainers for total of 60 over 3 years period.
   (3) 200 African practitioners will be trained annually in the in-country training courses planned over 3 years period, which are to be conducted by 60 trainers. (a total of 600 to be trained)
   (4) 8 Asian and African researchers and planners each year will deepen their knowledge, share the mutual experience, and jointly develop training materials over 3 years period.(a total of 24 researchers and planners)
   (5) Governments' projects will be improved through the assistance of the Core group of planners including Asian resource persons.
   (6) Cooperation network between African regional planning institutions will be established and institutionalized.
4. Features
   In this regard, the trainers will expand African capacities to carry out project analysis,, designing, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Local and regional development planning will be focused on such priority areas as poverty alleviation, decentralization, rural development, regional development and management. The project will, therefore, contribute to the Agenda for Action objective related to capacity building and ownership of development strategies of Africa.

Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries,
(SU/TCDC), UNDP
304 East 45th Street, New York, N.Y. 10017
Tel.(212)906-5609
Fax.(212)906-6352