Training and Team Building
Conceived as an effective tool to strengthen the ILD's capacity to deliver its Program beyond its limited staffing resources and in more countries simultaneously, the Training strategy soon evolved into a way to create local capacity for implementing the ILD Program in client countries that has the added benefit of giving the ILD trainees a sense of ownership of the reforms in their own countries which will help sustain them over time.
The ILD's original approach to training local personnel focused on ways of transferring the ILD know-how and experience to people responsible for specific tasks that would assist ILD researchers. In practice (operationally as well as politically), as we tested and adapted training procedures in actual ILD field projects, we quickly learned that eagerness alone is not sufficient for deploying a Program as unique and complex as the ILD's; the right conditions must also be present. One of these key conditions is the existence of a permanent local team fully empowered, adequately trained, and closely monitored by ILD staff that can lead, both technically and politically, the ILD Program from beginning to end with a comprehensive approach adapted to the needs of the client country.
On the basis of what the ILD has learned from its earliest training efforts, a comprehensive "Training and Knowledge Strategy" has been designed, developing the appropriate materials for teaching the ILD methodologies and other research techniques. This strategy consists of two specific programs: Selective Training to prepare teams of high-level professionals to research, design, implement, and nurture institutional reforms, and Extended Training, which seeks to spread in a structured way the ILD's conceptual framework through organized networks, such as universities, NGOs and cooperation agencies.
The bulk of this effort, however, is directed towards helping client countries identify, recruit, and set up teams of talented and politically savvy home-grown personnel to be trained in the ILD's methodologies, knowledge, and experience. This kind of Selective Training has a two-fold objective: to build local capacity to carry out the ILD Program, while assuring the kind of ownership of reform that is likely to sustain it over time. From the outset, these teams will be directly responsible for implementing the national transition process --but always with ILD support and monitoring. Selective Training consists of four modules:
The Strategic Module is designed to train a "Strategic Team" familiar with the strategy underpinning the ILD's unique Program along with what is necessary to implement it organizationally, technically, and financially, and provide its members with an overview of the tactical and operational aspects required to ensure the Program's success, such as the setup of an ad hoc organization to be in charge of the ILD Program.
The Executive Module is designed to train an "Executive Team" to conduct the ILD Program, from start to finish, making sure that everyone involved has developed a deep understanding of every aspect of it --the findings and results of the research done during the Diagnosis stage as well as the ILD experience regarding the design of institutional reforms. This team should be prepared to structure and manage all the organizational, institutional and technical aspects of the Program.
The Technical Module is designed to prepare a "Technical Team" to go into the field to execute the Diagnosis and Institutional Reform stages of the Program, and be able to organize and manage local working groups that could number from 40 to 200 people hired according to the needs of the project (consultants, sub-contractors, field coordinators, et al.). Technical Team members must be thoroughly familiar with the methodologies of an ILD-style Diagnosis of the extralegal sectors and equally expert in its results and analysis in order to be in a position to design proposals for the Institutional Reform stage. Once reforms are approved, the Technical Team will then prepare and structure the reforms for their implementation.
The Implementation Module is designed to prepare selected professionals from all three teams upon the completion of the Reform Design stage to take the Program's roll out under their control, making sure all the organizational, institutional and technical aspects are properly managed and consistent with the Program's overall objectives:
- Organizational aspects: the leadership strategy to be used for conducting the reform implementation, including the staffing, training, procurement of required infrastructure and supplies, and the design of internal control procedures.
- Institutional aspects: follow-up on the approval of the reform package (a single law or groups of laws if structured in sequential parts) and the subsequent legal change and setup of the required communications mechanisms to keep relevant stakeholders and citizens in tune with the Program.
- Technical aspects: the operational support required by the implemented legal changes: information technology, field operations (surveying), registry, logistics, etc., covering the definition of terms of reference, supplier selection, contracting and actual delivery.
In line with the ILD's Knowledge and Training Strategy, the entire training process is fully encircled by applied research work, either in the form of desk research or hands-on experiences in the ILD's on-going projects. The findings, breakthroughs, and lessons learned from those projects are, in turn, fed directly into the knowledge process, thus generating new inputs for both the training programs, Selective and Extended.