Monitoring Update #1

LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT FACILITY (LKDF)

The Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) is a platform that promotes industrial skills development among young people in emerging economies. Working with the private sector through Public Private Development Partnerships (PPDPs), the LKDF supports the establishment and upgrading of local industrial training academies to help meet the labour market’s increasing demand for skilled employees, ultimately contributing to inclusive and sustainable industrial development.

The long-term success of local industrial academies that partner with the LKDF is ensured through constant monitoring of economic, environmental and social impact. UNIDO manages the facility, on behalf of SIDA, as the major project donor, and private sector partners.

SADC FOREST: INSIGHTS FROM A PUBLIC-PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP (PPDP)

KEY MESSAGES

• More than 70% of the beneficiaries reported a better job situation, indicating that the trainings contributed to increased employa-bility. • A direct impact of the training on income was observed, since over 40% of the beneficiaries said that they earn more than before the training. • All 6 PPDP partners interviewed reported an increase in techni-cal staff capacity and innovation as a result of the partnership, and 5 of 6 mentioned increased staff motivation.

THE PROJECT

Forestry-related industries are subject to rapid technological develop-ments and continuous change. This makes it difficult for enterprises and individuals to commit to developing particular competencies, skills sets or knowledge areas. In order to succeed, managers and employees need to respond quickly to the fast changing forestry industry requirements. To be able to do so, they need to develop adequate competencies and skills.

UNIDO is currently implementing a training project, SADC Forest, with funding from the Government of Finland, to design and carry out indus-try-relevant training packages in partnership with forest industry compa-nies. Training programmes are piloted in South Africa with the aim to replicate them in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. This project has been conducted by UNIDO in the form of a Public Private Development Partner-ship (PPDP) and brought together small and medium-sized enterprises from the forestry sector from South Africa and Finland. The partners involved were Naledi3d, I.C.E. Forestry Consulting & Training, Cedara College of Agriculture, SANParks, Aikagroup, and Kallion Konepaja Oy.

The ultimate goal is to improve regional collaboration on forestry and wood industry education and training in the SADC region that will lead to the creation of green employment and sustainable forest management and utilization.

For more information, please visit: https://www.lkdfacility.orgImpact stories from the project can be found here: https://www.lkdfacility.org/perspectives

FOR MORE INFORMATION,PLEASE CONTACTbusinesspartnerships@unido.org

lkd-facility@unido.org

HERE’S WHAT WE DID

The LDKF is keen to provide quantifiable and qualifiable insights into the effectiveness of all PPDPs under its umbrella. For this purpose, a harmo-nized Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) framework has been developed, which is captured via an IT solution called goProve for the SADC Forest project. In order to measure the development outcome for the beneficiar-ies, the LKDF team collected 220 baseline questionnaires and 146 endline questionnaires in goProve during an M&E outreach in June 2017.

In order to measure the partnership outcome, interviews were conducted with six of the PPDP project partners for the purpose of recording the partners’ views on the effectiveness of the partnership as the chosen vehicle for developing and implementing the project. The survey was designed to capture the partners’ perspectives of the costs and benefits of this approach as compared to a classical technical assistance project, which relies on procurement of needed product and services. For UNIDO, the objective was to distill lessons learned on how to set up successful business partnerships.

HERE’S WHAT WE FOUND

Over 70% of the respondents rate their current job situation as being better than before the training. 71% of the beneficiaries said that their situation was better, while it was the same for 28% of them and worse for only 1%.

Over 40 % of the students report that they earn more than before the training. In terms of their income, 43% of the students now earn more than before, while 54% earn the same and 3% make less. This indicates that while not all students who reported a better job situation have higher incomes, the training might have had some positive non-monetary effects for the beneficiaries, e.g. more leverage on working conditions.

All but one partner viewed the partnership objective as either essential or as very important to their business or mission. In addition, all part-ners indicated that they either agreed or strongly agreed with the devel-opment objective as defined in the project document as the overarching shared aim of the partnership, thus showing a high degree of alignment among partners.

All partners noted changes in their own business or organization as a consequence of the partnership. Most notably, all of them observed an increase in technical staff capacity and innovation. Five out of six also describe an increase in staff motivation.

We would like to thank our colleagues at the SADC Forest project in South Africa and all involved partners for their time and commitment to support us in conducting this study.