Dialogue in Pursuit of Development - Are you looking for one of ...

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Sailing in unknown waters: issues of concern and
lessons to be learned
The products and outcomes of the Rockefeller funding to Makerere can be
seen in terms of capacity building for Uganda; especially in improved relevance
of training and education in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
The importance of this is easily understood when observing Uganda’s population
growing from over 6 million in 1962 to over 22 million in 2002. The
quality of education at Makerere will be especially significant to meet the
demands of decentralization, but also in the fields of research and policy
development.
Additionally, an equally important result is the synchronization of training
with the changing needs of society, notably the policy on decentralization,
which will stimulate innovation and changes impacting other unrelated
educational programmes. For the first time, Makerere is establishing
identifiable steps, which will improve management, provide an opportunity
for funding to curriculum revision and the development of new courses.
Establishment of a decision making based on internal competition for funding
is not only an empowerment boost to Makerere, it provides a basis for
rapid appraisal and evaluation of the performance of Makerere units.
Finally, an important outcome of the Rockefeller grant to Makerere is the
strengthening of future generations of young Ugandans, who hold the key
to the future. Needless to say, the success of the Rockefeller funding remains
to be evaluated and seen in the quality of the capacity development
of the University and of the individual departments, institutes and faculties
as well as the districts and Government of Uganda. As someone who has
been involved in the partnership from the beginning, my perspective is one
of confidence, hope and optimism.
Nonetheless, some questions still persist and these have to do with
sustainability and institutionalization of the processes. First, while consultants
have not been employed in this process, the use of an outsider international
facilitator with a unique set of attributes and who serves as a cohesive
force in the process, raises the question of what would happen if that person
was not available? Second, when main persons in the I@Mak.Com leave,
how do we secure that successors are willing to continue such unusual arrangements,
unorthodox meeting formats and quite innovative decision
making processes that are so different from what Makerere has known as
‘normal’? Third, how will the World Bank’s involvement, meeting nearly
half of the funds tied to specific activities managed by the secretariat and
only monitored by the I@Mak.Com, affect relationships and procedures?
Fourth, the committee itself comes up for review in September 2002 as the
initial two-year term of the members expires. How do we appoint new
members who will grasp the meaning of the enterprise without the benefit
of experiencing the process of developing the concepts? Currently only