Research and Development Division

Training and Capacity-Building Section

Settlement Management Training

This programme activity concentrates on improving effectiveness and efficiency of local government management and organization, of the quality of services provided to populations, and of its impact on local development. The tool is individual and organizational capacity-building. The activity was initiated in 1989 following the initial series of policy seminars and training courses on Urban Management and Urban Finance held in Africa and Asia between 1984 and 1989. The design was based on the conclusions of need-assessment and partnership-building missions conducted during 1987, and of the Training Strategy Development Workshop held in 1988 with partners in the regions and collaborating ESAs. The principal activities include development of training materials, manuals and handbooks and their testing and dissemination, and of the regional and sub-regional Training of Trainers programmes specifically focused on local development management training.

This programme activity is being implemented in the most complete way in Anglophone Africa, mainly with Dutch funding. After initial TOTs from 1990-1992 and the intermediate assignments for participatory trainers, the Advanced Training of Trainers for top graduates of the TOTs was conducted. It was followed by two sub-regional TOTs fully conducted by the graduates of the ATOT. Subsequently, some of these graduates took part at the HRD Course at IHS in Rotterdam, and are currently involved in both new regional training programmes of UNCHS and other agencies and in the national training activities in their countries.

The manuals were adapted, translated and published by our partners in Spanish (in Latin America) and in Russian and Polish (in Eastern Europe). The initial TOT Courses were also carried out in Central Europe (in English) and Eastern Europe (in Russian), as well as in Latin America (in Spanish within the SACDEL Programme). Numerous requests are being received for the expansion of this programme activity in regions already covered as well as in other regions, especially Asia. The current stage of this activity is focused on Total Quality Maintenance (TQMn) in Local Government Operation. TQMn was tested in pilot programmes in Romania by the FLDPS (a Romanian NGO), and recently published as a series of five handbooks in English, Russian, Romanian and Slovak. A new series of manuals on local government financial management is currently under preparation.

For further information and inquiries, please contact Tomasz Sudra (Tomasz.Sudra@unchs.org).

UNCHS (Habitat) - Internet Information Exchange

[ Training and Capacity Building Section]

This web page is maintained by UNCHS (Habitat), Settlement Planning and Policies Section, and was last updated by Philip Nota on 17 November 1997. Please forward comments, corrections or requests for more information to:
(Philip.Nota@unchs.org)