TEACHING AND TRAINING

Wherever CIET is active, capacity building is part of the process.

BACKGROUND

Wherever CIET is active, capacity building is part of the process. In fact, CIET does not normally agree to single surveys with little likelihood of follow-up because they do not provide either the time or the structures for local capacity building. CIET Research Fellows customarily work with a team of national, regional or local counterparts from government, local NGOs, universities or communities themselves. Survey cycles, repeated at one, two or three-year intervals allow step-by-step transfer of knowledge and skills.

In every country where CIET has worked, it conducts short training seminars to share assessment and analysis skills. Hands-on training continues throughout the first cycle and those that follow. After four cycles, local counterparts should be able to carry on largely unaided. CIET remains available to respond to problems and guide interpretation of the data.

Additional means used by CIET for building institutional capacity include, where appropriate: longer training courses, production of training materials and, in some cases, the creation of national NGOs that bear the CIET name to carry out the work begun internationally. The latter measure makes skills available to governments and other development agencies at very short notice and at costs scaled to the national economy. CIET has offices in Botswana, Mexico, Nicaragua and South Africa as well as in Canada, Europe and the United States.

Short courses carried out by CIET internationally include:

  • Annual eight-week intensive residential courses at UAGro in Mexico from 1987 to 1993. Over 600 planners and researchers from 58 countries attended the Mexico course.
  • Eight-week courses in Portuguese (Mozambique or Angola) in 1991 through 1993.
  • Two week courses for UNICEF staff and government counterparts in Mexico in 1990, East Africa (Uganda) in 1995 and South Asia (Nepal) in 1996.
  • A course in Evidence-based Planning with Health Canada and the University of Ottawa in 1999. The twenty-two participants were mainly Health Canada staff from the Atlantic Provinces and Ottawa.
  • In Pakistan, an eight-week course on evidence-based planning for local governance at the University of Peshawar in 2005.
  • An 8-week intensive training on AIDS prevention trials, health research and planning in 2007 for 27 participants from government, universities and NGOs in 14 southern African countries. Part of CIET’s African Development of AIDS Prevention Trial (ADAPT) programme to build local health capacity to plan, conduct, analyse and use the evidence from large scale, multi-centred AIDS prevention trials in southern Africa.
  • A follow up two-week course in 2011 for the original ADAPT course participants.
  • Two three-week intensive training courses, in April 2015 and August 2016, each for 20 participants nominated by their national AIDS authorities, in Gaborone, Botswana. Funded by the SADC Secretariat.
  • Four two-week training courses in for government and civil society personnel in Cross River and Bauchi as part of CIET’s project under the Nigeria Evidence-Based Health Systems Initiative (NEHSI) from 2009 to 2015.
  • Two three-week intensive training courses in October 2016, in French and Portuguese, each for 12 participants nominated by their national AIDS authorities in Francophone and Lusophone SADC countries, in Gaborone, Botswana. Funded by the SADC Secretariat.

CIET, through its centre at the University of Guerrero in Mexico, offers a Masters degree in Epidemiology whose purpose is to develop a group of professionals who can support communities throughout the world to gain voice in the planning process. The programme emphasises the acquisition of the skills to conduct and train others in each of the methods of evidence-based planning. A combination of supervised academic work, intensive field experience and training of others is required, along with a thesis based on original field work or a scientific article published in a peer-reviewed, indexed journal.

CIET’s doctoral programme aims to qualify a smaller number of professionals who can serve as project team leaders having, in addition to the skills required for the Master’s degree, the ability to design and negotiate entire projects and programmes and take responsibility for bringing these to successful completion. Candidates must complete advanced course work under both CIET and non-CIET supervision, pass a doctoral examination, have several years of field experience, be fluent in English and another working language, and produce either an original thesis of internationally recognized doctoral quality or three articles published in indexed, peer-reviewed scientific journals.