By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has partnered with University of Sierra Leone (USL) to introduce short courses that will focus on training and building the overall capacity of professionals in the country.
The initiative is part of UNIDO’s broader agenda of creating and promoting competitiveness within Sierra Leone’s work force.
UNIDO and USL held a consultative workshop on Thursday to discuss some of the ideas around the courses.
Chief Technical Adviser at UNIDO, Dr. Shaukat Malik, told Politico: “We are here because we want to inculcate a quality culture in the country, because the students are coming from the university and we are basically planning and discussing with the university to start some short courses with quality, food safety and environmental related courses.”
Director of Strategic Planning and Quality Assurance at USL, Dr David Gbao said quality assurance is a critical part of UNIDO’s initiative, in the aspect of competiveness.
“Quality assurance is a critical part of that initiative and UNIDO is working with the university or the tertiary education level to ensure that we build a system or structures to deliver quality and build capacity within Sierra Leone, not only within the academic sector but one that can be developed so that we can start training and build overall capacity of quality assurance within the country,” he said.
Gbao added: “We are now building the framework. We cannot say exactly when we will start the courses, but we are keen to start marketing and delivering these courses within the shortest possible time.”
Gbao noted that the workshop is simply an awareness raising session to trigger responses from participants about the initiative. He said the next phase will be to develop a road map to ensuring quality.
“After today we are going to review the feedback we have, the questions that were raised and try to draw out what we call a roadmap in attaining these goals of ensuring quality assurance.”
UNIDO is a body within the United Nations which seeks to promote and accelerate the industrialization of developing countries. In March this year, the organization launched a project called ‘Increasing Sierra Leone’s Competiveness through Enhanced Productivity and Trade Compliance in Selected Value Chains.’
Malik said a key focus of that project will have to be on improving the value chain within the agriculture sector.
“We have to improve the value chain of Cassava, Coco and Palm Oil, then we have to develop that quality infrastructure institution. That is why we are here to conduct this quality management system,” he said.
As part of their other projects, UNIDO is also supporting Sierra Leone Standards Bureau to develop quality standardization and they are supporting the government in managing the trade policy within the agriculture sector.
© 2019 Politico Online
