PSCBS Executive Secretary Stella Ford Mugabo (C) talking to some development partners on the sidelines of the workshop

The final draft Annual State of Capacity Building Report 2010-2011 financial year was presented by PSCBS to stakeholders on Friday 10th February 2012. This report indicates that civil servants have gained skills and organizations have been strengthened despite existing constraints.

The pilot exercise to develop the first ever State of Capacity Building Report has been conducted in five service delivery sectors – Education, Agriculture, Health, Infrastructure and Decentralization with technical support from the the Oxford Policy Management (OPM), an International firm from the United Kingdom .

The Executive Secretary of the Public Sector Capacity Building (PSCBS), Stella Ford Mugabo, mentioned that in spite of enhancement of capacity building programmes, the issue of retention was still a hindrance.

“We are on the right track of increasing capacity building in our country, but the challenge we still face is that of local experts who are moving to the regional and international level,” she acknowledged.

She observed that after university, many graduates leave the country in search of greener pastures; leaving behind the problem of inadequate skilled human resources.

The Executive Secretary of PSCBS further noted that the infrastructure sector is the most heavily-affected sector noting that more investments were needed to improve the performance of the ministry.

“Infrastructural sector is where we face challenges. We don’t have enough local experts, and when we hire international experts, we normally lack local experts to understudy them. That’s why we still need to invest more in the sector,” she explained.

The Principal Consultant at OPM, Andrew Wyatt, disclosed that unless the country focuses on provision of incentives to workers, the problem of capacity retention will have a negative impact on the country’s development.

“More incentives and motivation is needed in the public sector. However, unless the government embarks on that, more local experts will continue to leave the country and in the long run, it will affect the country’s development,” he stated in an interview.

Other challenges identified were training of individuals instead of focusing on the organizational level.

The general feeling among participants was this assignment was a good experience to capture key challenges and seek strategies to prepare for a better second report. There are plans to start preparing the second State of Capacity Building Report in July 2012 and be completed by December 2012.