16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the ... - Development

Administrative Issues 51
170. Ms. Colinet underlined that the “in-touch project” was at the very beginning of the
planning process. The goals of the project were to strengthen relations between fellows
and their institutions at home and abroad through a forum which would facilitate
exchange and networking. IAEA also planned to keep former fellows informed on TC
activities and future training opportunities. The project should allow continuous monitoring
of quality, impact and possible improvements in the fellowships programme
and training courses by tracking the career development of former fellows by means of
periodic surveys. It would also offer the possibility to update the TC database continuously.
Success stories of training programmes should be highlighted. Alumni profiles
should be collected systematically in order to set up a pool of experts who could be
selected by field or by region for recruitment. Closely linked to the “in-touch” project
was the establishment of an institutional roster which would respond to the request of
member states to make greater use of their institutional capacities. A roster would enhance
capabilities of technical institutions in member states. It would allow sharing information
between and within member states and strengthen TCDC. The initial focus
of the roster would be on institutions in developing countries. The users of such a roster
would include, with different rights of access, the IAEA Secretariat and members states
of the TC extranet as well as other users from member states. The next concrete steps
in the IAEA projects were: a) cleaning the TC databases; b) listing target institutions,
including contacts and statistics by component, and c) establishing the IT platform for
storing data as well as gathering and structuring existing information on the capacities
available at the regional centres established under regional agreements.
171. Participants voiced the importance of tracer studies and commended IAEA for the
great work accomplished. Of general interest was the monetary value of the survey and
the human resources involved in the process. IAEA spent about 1,000 Euros for the
software ‘Websurveyor’ 21 which was user-friendly and easy to handle. The survey was
conducted by Ms. Colinet and another staff member. As for the upcoming launching
of an institutional roster there would be an inter-regional project on strengthening the
institutional capacity in developing countries starting in 2007. Hired consultants or
experts from the field would update the status of the institutions.
P. Presentation on Fellowships Programme Survey, by Ms. Chisato
Aoki, International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)
172 Ms. Aoki began her presentation with an overview of the composition and mandate of
her organization. She pointed out that ITTO was an intergovernmental organization
established in 1986 by the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) which
was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD). Headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, the Organization was
operational since 1986 and had just celebrated its 20th anniversary. It counted 35 staff
members representing 17 countries with one regional officer in Africa and one in Latin
21 www.websurveyor.com