Considerable investments have been made in the past three decades in developing and strengthening institutions and the necessary human capacity for analyzing and implementing development policies. However, the impact of such efforts in creating a sustainable core of policy analysts has been limited. This paper is an attempt--both methodological and operational--to assess the capacity strengthening needs in food, agriculture and natural resource planning and policy analysis in Malawi. The main objective of the needs assessment exercise was to identify the constraints affecting individual and institutional performance in policy analysis and policy-making in the decision making systems involved in food, agriculture and natural resources sectors of Malawi. The expected outputs of the needs assessment exercise included: improved understanding of the technical and managerial roles of policy analysts in the decision making systems; improved understanding of the policy analysis skills required for the jobs and the associated gaps in them; increased understanding of the organizational constraints in implementing the results of policy analysis; and suggestions for improving the roles of policy analysts through training.
A conceptual framework that guides the activities of needs assessment in capacity strengthening for policy analysis was developed in this paper. A needs assessment study was carried out to identify the capacity gaps for policy analysis and to target the training programs towards institutions and individuals who have immediate need for policy analysis training. Two types of questionnaires were used--institutional questionnaire and individual questionnaire--for determining the capacity strengthening needs. The purpose of this exercise was to identify the role of these institutions, in policy analysis and decision-making, the nature of policies that they are responsible for, the potential participants identified for policy analysis training based on their professional titles, and the coverage of these institutions in terms of their analysis and use of information.
Assessment of need for individual capacity included the nature of job, number of established posts and the number of posts filled, the grade of the post, and the role of this post in policy analysis and decision making. In general, the principal and senior economists are involved in policy analysis while the junior economists who are fresh from college with an undergraduate degree tend to undertake data collection and are also engaged in project preparation and monitoring and evaluation type of activities. Since most of the economists are members of the general economic pool, they are likely to be transferred to any ministry that deals with economic planning and policy making. While priority in choosing training courses for them should match the needs of the ministry in which they are currently employed, they will also benefit from other project-based and policy training courses offered at Bunda College.
Full Discussion Paper