Development support training project

The evaluation (unattached) covered the period 1983-11/2/85 and was based on document review, surveys of returned participants and their supervisors, and interviews with project personnel, participants, and Pakistani English as a Second Language (ESL) experts. USAID/P views the project as a successful and efficient way to serve other Mission in-country and out-of-country training and participant placement/support activities without giving up substantive control over these resources. Over 400 persons have been involved in the participant training program, most of them through an "add on" arrangement with other Mission activities, and the project"s ESL activities will enable many more Pakistanis to participate. The project has helped 3 training organizations - NIPA/Karachi, PIM, and the Training Wing of the Pakistan Audit Department - develop strategic plans, and thus increase their ability to upgrade management training; 15 of the 34 planned management training courses, seminars, and workshops have been completed, with positive results overall. More effort is needed, however, to meet project goals and evolving opportunities. Institutional development, management training, and ESL are currently understaffed, a problem likely to become more acute. Other constraints to the most effective use of project (and other-donor) training include: procedural bottlenecks within the Government of Pakistan (GOP) and serious policy differences regarding jurisdictional responsibility; the GOP"s lack of a comprehensive plan linking training needs and opportunities to individual career growth and organizational development (especially at the provincial level); and, finally, a lack of focus in the goals of the Mission in general and the project"s private sector component in particular. Overall recommendations are to: (1) allocate a greater share of the expected increase in project funds for institutional strengthening, in-country training, and ESL; and (2) extend the project until at least FY90 in order to develop support for strategic plans for institutional strengthening.