BTC Uganda and the Ministry of Education and Sports are jointly implementing a 5-year project (2015-2020) to Support the implementation of the Skilling Uganda (SSU) Strategy. SSU tries to advance the existing “Skilling Uganda” strategic plan (2012-2021) through a multilevel focus where it promotes systemic change at the policy level, while stimulating bottom-up partnerships between the private sector and training institutions and ensuring equitable access to training for vulnerable groups such as girls and refugees communities. This is done in the three target areas of Albertine, Karamoja and West-Nile. By improving the quality of skills development and making it more responsive to labor market needs, the project aims to make the SU paradigm shift a reality.  

Shifting the paradigm
In order to successfully enhance this change, the SSU project must formulate the change process and map everything that may influence it. This is why BTC Uganda organized a workshop in Hoima (11th-14th October) with public and private officials of all institutional levels and regions. Over 35 people participated in constructing a “theory of change”, through which the SSU project tries to map the change process in a logical order of events that are expected to lead to the change in the long term, all while taking into account assumptions that may influence the process.  As one of the participants puts it: “A theory of change tells the story behind an intervention and provides clear pathways to monitor change.”  

Mapping the change process
For four days, the workshops’ participants sat together in groups and mapped the foreseen inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact of each specific project objective. Colorful cards were used to visualize these result-chains. The participants discussed assumptions that may influence the change process, through questions such as “Will better educated students consequently lead to higher employment rates”? or “Will parents let their daughters follow these trainings?” The participants then added these assumptions on the colorful card chains and analyzed the risks they pose to a successful project implementation.

By the end of the workshop the change process was broken down into steps, each with its own measurable indicator of change. Through this result-based monitoring, where the focus lies not only on the activities and outputs but also on the outcomes and impact, the SSU project attempts to enhance the paradigm shift towards relevant and equitable skills development in Uganda. As co-manager Thierry Foubert puts it: “During the workshop the targets and necessary change indicators of three area-specific projects were discussed, going from the employment opportunities of the oil and gas sector in Albertine, to the vulnerability of the refugee communities in West-Nile and the specific needs of Karamoja.”