Project No. UNJP/SFS/002/UID
Revitalization of forest training centres in the SADC region for green employment – Phase I
Training needs assessment study report for the forestry, forest industry and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sectors in Zimbabwe
Lloyd Mubaiwa
Harare, Zimbabwe
September, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abreviations iv
1. executive summary 1
2. introduction 2
2.1 Background 2
2.2 Definition and Purpose of Training Needs Assessment 3
2.3 Objectives of the Training Needs Assessment (TNA) 3
2.4 TNA Methodology 5
2.4.1 Survey questionnaires 5
2.4.2 Interviews 6
3. analysis of zimbabwe forest sector and the job market 6
3.1 Legislative and Institutional Provisions 6
3.2 Opportunities in Woodland Management 8
3.3 Opportunities in Commercial Plantation Forests 9
3.3.1 Plantation forest resource base 10
3.4 Wood based MSMEs sector 12
4. FORESTRY AND WOOD TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN ZIMBABWE 13
4.1 Institutional analysis 13
4.1.1 Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education 13
4.1.2 Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate 13
4.1.3 Timber Producers Federation (TPF) as PPDP 14
4.2 History of Forestry Education and Training 14
4.3 Wood processing training 15
4.4 Vocational Training 16
5. tna study findings 16
5.1 ZCF/FITC training 16
5.1.1 ZCF/FITC lecturers 16
5.1.2 Forestry and wood technology curriculum 18
5.1.3 ZCF/FITC training facilities 18
5.1.4 Linkages with other institutions 18
5.2 Manicaland Plantation Timber Industry 19
5.2.1 Training needs of Forestry Companies 19
5.2.2 Training needs of MSMEs in plantation timber industry 20
5.3 Training needs of Government and Municipalities 20
5.4 Matebeleland Indigenous Hardwood Industry Training Needs 21
6. analysis of tna results 22
6.1 Gaps in ZCF/FITC curriculum implementation 22
6.1.1 Assessment of training facilities 22
6.1.2 Assessment of lecturer competences 23
6.1.3 Assessment of ZCF/FITC curriculum 24
6.2 Analysis of training needs of plantation timber industry 24
6.3 Analysis of training needs of MSMEs in Manicaland 25
6.4 Analysis of training needs in Matebeleland 25
7. recommendations and conclusion 25
7.1 Keep the training curricula in sync with forest sector changes 25
7.2 Improve competence of lecturers 26
7.3 Rehabilitate training facilities for effective education and training 27
7.4 Scale up short courses to raise ZCF/FITC training profile 28
7.5 Organize innovative financing for students training 28
7.6 Rebranding ZCF/FITC for effective institutional marketing 29
7.7 Conclusions 29
8. references 30
List of Annexes
Annex 1. Survey questionnaire to identify training needs in the forest sector in Zimbabwe 31
Annex 2: Estimate of Resources and Implementation Schedule 39
Annex 3: Logical framework matrix forestry education training in Zimbabwe 42
List of Tables
Table 1: Target respondents for the TNA questionnaires 5
Table 2: Outline of lecturers’ qualifications, experience and training needs 16
Table 3: Results of lecturers’ views on their work performance 17
List of Figures:
Figure 1: Plantation Area 1995 - 2014 10
Figure 2: Roundwood and sawn timber 11
Figure 3: Employment in the formal forest sector 12
Abreviations
B-Tech Bachelor of Technology (Zimbabwe)
BUSE Bindura University of Science Education
CAMPFIRE Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources
CD Curriculum document
CIFOR Centre for International Forestry Research
DGM R&T Deputy General Manager Research and Training (Forestry Commission)
EMA Environmental Management Agency (of Zimbabwe)
ESAP Economic Structural Adjustment Programme
FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation
FC Forest Commission
FC HQ Forestry Commission Head Quarters
FITC Forest Industries Training Centre
FLEGT Forest law compliance and governance
GoZ Government of Zimbabwe
GM General Manager (of Forestry Commission)
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
ILO International Labor Organisation
LSU Lupane State University
MHTE Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education (of Zimbabwe)
MPC Mutare Polytechnic College
MSME Micro, small and medium enterprises
MSU Midlands State University
MTC Mutare Teachers College
NAMACO The National Manpower Advisory Council
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NUST National University of Science and Technology
NWFP Non-wood forest product
PPDP Public Private Development Partnership
RDC Rural District Council (of Zimbabwe)
REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
SAA Sustainable Afforestation Association
SADC Southern African Development Community
SAFIRE Southern Alliance for Indigenous Resources
SAQA South African Qualification Authority
TNA Training needs assessment
TPF Timber Producers’ Federation (of Zimbabwe)
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organisation
VIDCO Village development committee
WARDCO Ward development committee
ZCF Zimbabwe College of Forestry
ZCF/FITC Zimbabwe College of Forestry and Forest Industries Training Centre
Zim Asset Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation
ZIMDEF Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund
iv
Zimbabwe TNA Report Sep 2015
1. executive summary
Zimbabwe has experienced an economic downturn characterised by unprecedented recession and hyperinflation, which has seen the scaling down of operations, closure of some wood processing plants and massive unemployment in the formal forest sector and a surge in related micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). These changes have also affected the quality of forestry education and training and enrolment numbers at Zimbabwe College of Forestry and Forest Industries Training Centre (ZCF/FITC). The vision for forestry education and training is that provision of trained personnel is catalytic to the future development of the forest sector in Zimbabwe. To facilitate this development process, it is imperative that a review of the ZCF/FITC curriculum is undertaken as a matter of urgency to embrace the emerging issues, including MSMEs and in-service training programmes demanded by the forest sector.
This Training Needs Assessment Study proposes that training capacity should be built through improvements on facilities and lecturers’ competences during the next 5 years, to enable the college to implement the new curriculum. The Public Private Development Partnership between the ZCF/FITC and Timber Producers Federation (TPF) need to be strengthened in order to get a win-win situation for the forest sector in Zimbabwe. It is also recommended that the college lecturers organize and run short courses jointly with experienced field staff and forestry equipment suppliers, to help them acquire relevant skills that will enhance the profile of forestry education and training in the country.
2. introduction
2.1 Background
The Zimbabwe economy has gone through some dramatic changes during the past two decades characterised by recession, hyperinflation, collapse of the formal sector and emergence of the informal sector. This was triggered by the land reform programme, which sought to economically empower the majority indigenous populace through land redistribution and the imposition of sanctions by the international community. The growth of the informal sector is known to be synonymous with the government’s adoption and implementation of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) of 1990-95, which was characterised by downsizing of economic structures and massive retrenchments. Prior to this period the formal sector was booming to the extent that the informal sector was almost non-existent. The dramatic economic changes during the past two decades has driven the country from a highly productive formal economy to almost informal, to the extent that government itself provided windows for the promotion of informal sector. Humankind is apt to devising survival coping strategies when it faces excruciating pain and unbearable pressure. In 1998, the economy drifted into its worst crisis characterised by hyperinflation, under-employment and rising poverty. According to the government’s Central Statistics Office, inflation shot from 32% in 1998 to about 11,200,000% in August 2008, resulting in the introduction of 10 trillion dollar notes, which did not even last for a month before the Central Bank switched over to use of a basket of currencies that included mainly the United States dollar, South African rand and Botswana pula. In the last days of 2009, the central bank printed a lot of local currency notes for sale on the informal market in an effort to survive. Such were extremes of the formal institution employing informal means to breathe a new lease of life into the national economy. It is estimated that formal employment shrunk by about 80% during this period, forcing many to join the informal employment industry.
However, in order to catalyse the economy, Government of Zimbabwe (2014) recently developed a five year turn-around plan code named “Zim Asset” (Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation). The plan is meant to be results based and aims to guide national development through implementation of targets set in four identified clusters, namely, food and nutrition security; social services and poverty eradication; infrastructure and utilities; and value addition and beneficiation. One of the identified key strength for this development process is the skilled human and natural resource capital. For the forest sector to effectively play its role, it is imperative that training institutions continue to produce adequately trained manpower to sustainably manage and utilize forest resources. An assessment of the training requirements of forestry and forest industry sectors and the capacity of training institutions to provide the service should thus provide a good basis for strengthening forestry education and training in Zimbabwe.
The forestry and forest industry sectors have equally been affected, resulting in massive deforestation, forest degradation, biodiversity loss, and reduction of the productive forest resource base, closure of many manufacturing plants and loss of jobs, which has changed the landscape of forestry in Zimbabwe as people turned to the forests for employment and safety nets. This shift from formal to predominantly informal forest enterprises has demanded new coping strategies and competencies for the forest sector organisations, employees and communities whose livelihoods are highly dependent on forests and trees.
More than ever before, forestry is now expected to play a pivotal role in environmental protection, socio-economic development, poverty reduction and generally improving community livelihoods. FAO (2002) estimates the rate of deforestation in the country at an average of 1.48% per annum during the period 1990-2010. The major drivers of deforestation include agricultural and settlements expansion, infrastructure development and indiscriminate felling of trees for domestic fuelwood, brick burning and tobacco curing. Thus, forestry is expected to contribute more towards creating “green jobs”, which are defined as any job that genuinely contributes to a sustainable world (http://www.goodwork). Jobs are green when they help to reduce negative environmental impacts and result in improved well-being of communities. Terms such as “green”, “environmentally sustainable”, “ecologically compatible”, etc. are often used interchangeably to describe processes that are friendly to the environment. Forest education and training marks the beginning of this green chain whereby trained personnel in the forest sector are expected to play their role in sustainable forest management. This entails among other things, addressing deforestation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, illegal logging and associated trade, biodiversity conservation, landscape enhancement and increasing the range of forest products for improved food security. In addition, the rapid technological changes in the forest sector in response to demands for sustainable forest management, more efficient utilisation of forest resources, higher quality standards and increased value addition, have in turn demanded additional skills from forestry and wood technology graduates. These emerging issues demand a new breed of foresters and wood scientists.
In coping with the challenges facing the forest sector, forestry companies who used to fund a number of candidates for training at Zimbabwe College of Forestry and Forest Industries Training Centre (ZCF/FITC) have scaled down or stopped the funding altogether. Consequently, the enrolment numbers for forestry and wood technology training have declined sharply resulting in failure by the college to run some programmes especially the certificate studies. ZCF/FITC used to enjoy a significant percentage of students from the region but the numbers have also dwindled. It is therefore important that a training needs assessment is carried out for the forest sector in order to establish the basis for the college’s response to its challenges.
2.2 Definition and Purpose of Training Needs Assessment
Training needs assessment (TNA) is an important activity of the training and development cycle. To be effective and efficient, all training programmes should be preceded by a TNA. It also forms the benchmark for assessment of training effectiveness and helps organisations to achieve their production goals. Brown (1996) defines training needs assessment as “the process of identifying training needs in an organisation for the purpose of improving employee job performance”. It is the process to identify gaps between employee knowledge, skills, behaviour and abilities and those required by the job or the sector. Training, as a performance improvement tool is needed when employees are not performing up to a certain standard or expected level of performance. The difference between the actual level of job performance and the expected level of job performance thus indicates a need for training.
Training needs assessment is therefore the process one engages in to discover the training and development needs of people so that they carry out their job effectively and efficiently. It is like detective work; one follows up on every lead, checks every piece of information and examines every alternative decision before drawing conclusions on why, what, who, when, where and how training should be done. As indicated above, the pace and nature of changes in the economy, changes in laws and regulations, changes in technology and changes in employment patterns over the past two decades, necessitated the need for conducting a training needs survey in Zimbabwe. In addition, the proposed SADC regional project aimed at strengthening forestry and wood technology institutions, has a component which required a detailed training needs assessment on Zimbabwe.
2.3 Objectives of the Training Needs Assessment (TNA)
A Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional programme on Strengthening Forestry and Wood Technology Training Centres for Green Employment is being prepared jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The four target countries are Malawi, Zambia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. To facilitate preparation of the 4-5 years Programme document, feasibility and baseline studies, stakeholder sensitization workshops and training needs assessments were carried out in the four participating countries. This training needs assessment covers Zimbabwe’s forestry and forest industry sectors in Manicaland and Matabeleland, including the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in carpentry and joinery. It was undertaken to provide detailed baseline information for improvement of training facilities and the development of appropriate curricula for both forestry and forest industry education and training at the Zimbabwe College of Forestry (ZCF) and Forest Industries Training Centre (FITC) respectively.