The bilateral collaboration project between the Belgian and Mozambican government “Development of Capacity within the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIREME) and the new regulator ARENE”, faces a persistent lack of qualified human resources in MIREME for energy data collection and analysis.

It is in this context that in early 2020, five young national university graduates were recruited through Enabel as temporary ‘Energy Data Management Assistants’ to be based in and supervised by MIREME. They were to support MIREME’s planning staff in areas such as surveys, energy balances, demand projections, and energy supply and trade scenarios.
So far, these assistants have visited state-related institutions, developed and presented a proposal for the National Energy Balance, supported MIREME’s Statistics Department, and collected long-outstanding energy data. The publication of the last official energy data dates a decade back, and the assistants provide key support towards collecting and publishing the information for the period 2010-2020, together with the National Institute for Statistics (INE).

Problems and proposed solutions

After the  resignation of two of the five assistants,  Enabel sought external advice through an interim evaluation of the additional human support programme from Prof.B.Cuamba, an energy expert of the University Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo.  The main findings are that although the assistants have contributed to improve the data collection and analysis potential within MIREME, they do not operate under clear enough professional guidance. Prof.B.Cuamba formulates therefore the following recommendations: 

• Provide a clear role and task description, incentives in terms of title and remuneration, and identify future opportunities within MIREME to give a long-term perspective to the assistants;

• Provide the assistants with further training on the energy sector. This should include certain conditions, such as staying within MIREME for the next 2 years;

• Establish regular meetings (e.g. weekly) between the assistants and relevant MIREME staff, in which the assistants share their continuously evolving knowledge on energy data with the staff and assist them where needed (using pedagogical tools learned during training);

• Assign a mentor/ supervisor  for each assistant, who can follow-up on their work and make sure they are going into the right direction. This can also be used as an opportunity for the assistant to share doubts, insecurities, etc.

A National Junior Expert approach?

These recommendations fit remarkably well what we know as the “Junior Expert-approach” of Enabel. This approach gives the opportunity to young graduates to provide specific quality services, and grow professionally with their counterparts, while still learning themselves. Enabel has been using the Junior Expert-approach for years. Junior Experts are assigned to a specific project and have a clear professional framework, with a detailed job description and supervision. This transparency avoids misunderstandings regarding the expectations of both parties and allows a fruitful collaboration. The philosophy behind this approach is to give the opportunity to young graduates to acquire new knowledge and skills on a particular topic, while putting it in practice in their working environment. This creates a double value for both the junior and the partner organization as they both enter a beneficial learning process:

• The partner organization receives a continuous support, contributing directly to its outputs and  development;
• The Junior Expert has the opportunity to develop personally and grow professionally.

Applying a similar approach to the energy data management assistants of MIREME, will, according to the consultant, enable the assistants to grow professionally in a well-framed environment, while contributing to the updating and elaboration of MIREME’s energy data and statistics.

Conclusion:

Applying the philosophy of the Enabel Junior Expert Programme to the present unclear working conditions of temporary junior staff and assistants within MIREME, may not only give them the opportunity to put in practice acquired knowledge and skills, while MIREME can benefit in the short run from an updated and improved data base on the energy sector, validated by the INE.

It also hints at the potential of developing a larger programme of so-called “National Junior Experts” to provide a readily available intervention modality for donors to support capacity strengthening in the public sector and inclusion of the national youth. Public sector human resource constraints may thus be turned into programmes of dedicated technical support, local expertise development, exchange, and even buddying with International Junior Experts. Like International Junior Experts, these national young graduates can then after a limited period of deployment, eventually seek out their own professional trajectories within the public or private energy sector.
Unfortunately, as of now, such a programme requires a lot more preparation and mobilization of human resources for coaching and follow-up than MIREME or ARENE can presently offer. But the fact that some of these ‘Energy Data Management Assistants’ are writing up articles at their own initiative on their present work and ideas for the development of the energy sector through biomass resources, for example, points out that young university graduates are eager to get a chance to get involved in the development of their country.

By: Esra Nurja and Evert Waeterloos