Training for private sector development USAID contract with the Education Development Center for short term technical training in the US (August, 1989)

technical training to members of the financial, private, and university sectors. The evaluation covers the period 9/84-8/89. Training is exceptionally appropriate and targeted to the right people. Beneficiaries are highly satisfied and estimate that the costs of training are recovered in 3.7 months through increased firm sales or productivity. However, while the pace of activities is increasing, it is not expected that targets will be met by the contract end. After 60% of contract duration, only 33% of the overall participant number goal and 17% of the participant month goal have been achieved. Estimates are that by contract end 88% of the targeted participant numbers and 47% of the targeted participant months will be completed. As a consequence, $300,000-$400,000 of training program budget may be unspent. Four factors appear to account for these variances: (1) the compressing of what was designed as a 5-year project into 2 years with little reduction in output targets; (2) a planned average training duration (6 weeks) which was not practicable for employed trainees; (3) difficulties in developing training programs that are responsive to the expressed needs, changing environment, and preferences of the financial sector (no such programs have been completed and few are expected); and (4) longer than anticipated time for training implementation plan development, resulting from both the nature of the training delivered and contractor operations. Several lessons were learned. (1) Private sector training programs are often best managed by private organizations that are directly responsive to the business community. (2) Training programs aimed at the private sector must be responsive to the time constraints and expressed learning needs of practicing business people. (3) A carefully conceived, collaborative training strategy identifying overall purposes, appropriate participant targets, and desired training methods is essential for obtaining high impact.