Urban Transport Strategy. Management in Developing Countries John A Cracknell, страница 45

5.4.3.      There is reluctance by cities to spend project resources on staff training.  Cities wish to spend resources on physical measures and the view that staff, once trained, “will anyway leave for the private sector” is not uncommon.  It is difficult for cities to appreciate that when trained people leave city employment, society at large still benefits.  The problem can of course be temporarily overcome by contracting staff undertaking sponsored or paid training to stay with the city for a period of time after training or, if they leave, to reimburse the city with the costs of training.  There have been projects in which staff have been required to give a commitment to stay with the employing agency for extended periods^[15].

5.4.4.      Traffic management agencies need trained staff.  In many countries, traffic management is not an established part of universities-colleges-institute curriculae. It is understood that some universities in developed countries have “twinning” arrangements with universities in developing countries.  This is clearly a worthwhile practice but further research is necessary to determine if (i) the practice is widespread, and (ii) what can be done to encourage it.  Development agencies have, or had, long term training-technical assistance in a limited number of countries (e.g. GTZ in San Jose, Costa Rica and DfID in Colombo, Sri Lanka) but there are no known traffic management based long term programs.

5.4.5.      There have examples of city “twinning” in the transport and traffic area – for example, in the past in Nigeria (Ibadan and Gothenburg), Vietnam (Hanoi and Gothenburg), Mexico (Mexico City and Curitiba) and no doubt others.  The practice is clearly worthwhile but further research is necessary to determine (i) if it is effective and (ii) how it can be expanded.

5.4.6.      Despite these possibilities, they are few in number and, in the short term, it is city traffic management agencies which must train their own staff.  Of course, there are cities which have the capability to carry out practical training on “real schemes” but, there are undoubtedly many others which need assistance.  Bank or similar projects can assist but need to take a much more systematic approach than has been taken up to now.  The directions of a comprehensive approach would include:

a)  Promotion by the Bank of the need for training – the Bank should raise the profile of training for traffic management and promote training needs more forcefully during project preparation;

b)  Distribution of training programs in Bank projects – TA for traffic management in Bank projects tends (not always) to be city specific and while this may play a valuable part in training, TA training applies only to the particular city.  The training program including in the Mexican Medium Sized Cities and Venezuela UTP project

(see below) is interesting as the training programs were aimed at all medium sized

urban areas rather than a few project cities; this principle may have application elsewhere;

c)  Need for training assessment guidelines - where training has been included in projects, it has rarely appeared to have been systematic and there is no evidence (other than Mexico and Venezuela) of sustainability.  Most traffic planners engaged in project preparation (whether from the city, the Bank or Bank consultants) are not training specialists and there is a need for the Bank to establish guidelines to assist project preparation of training components.  Such guidelines would cover: