Lomé II and III: funds allocated to training-related operations

The European Development Fund’s resources under the Lomonventions are allocated to national or regional programmes designed jointly by the Commission of the European Communities and its ACP partners. Where the ACP States so wish, some of the resources are spent on training in the individual countries or in a regional context, for example in cooperation with organisations such as the SADCC or specialised ACP or EEC training institutes. For the purposes of regional cooperation, the ACP States are divided into eight regions.

Regional breakdown of proportion of national funds under LomI and LomII allocated to training (%)

Regional programmes (%)

Training schemes can be part of other EDF-financed development projects, depending on sectoral priorities, or they can stand alone. Training components are supported by an array of accompanying measures ranging from construction work to technical assistance.

National Indicative Programmes

In none of the eight regions was more than 20 % of national programme resources allocated to training under LomI and LomII. East, West and Southern Africa and the Sahel accounted for 87 % of Africa’s share of training funds. Africa’s share of total training funds rose to 94%.

Though more resources were available under LomII, fewer funds were allocated to training.

Under LomI, 11% of funds went to training. This figure fell to just over 8% under LomII.

Central, Southern and West Africa and the Caribbean accounted for 90% of regional training funds.

There was no training component in the Pacific region.

Sectoral breakdown

Under LomI, all regions channelled at least 40% of their national training funds through comprehensive training programmes.

There was a trend under LomII to increase the amounts allocated to training components within other projects (up from 7 % to 3 1%). Reflecting the policy shift, more funds were directed towards agricultural projects, with a corresponding decrease in industrial investment. However, services still accounted for one fifth of the funds allocated to training.

Cultural projects came on the scene for the first time.

Agriculture

Purely agricultural training projects accounted for 5 % of total national training funds under LomI, with approximately one third of the projects in East Africa, but the percentage doubled when agriculture-related projects were included, rising to 33 % under LomII.

Industry

At least 30% of LomI training funds in East and Southern Africa went on industrial training and 17 of the 19 projects were in these two regions.

The same applied under LomII.

Other sectors

Training operations accounting for approximately one third of national training funds appeared under this “ mixed “ heading, showing a quantity of projects associated with various sectors.

Technical assistance, scholarship and infrastructure content of training operations (%)

Regional funds (%)

Level of training

The tendency, especially in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific regions, has been to concentrate on university or vocational training. However, operations at primary and secondary levels did increase under LomII (17 out of 131). This applied to regional programmes as well. Higher-level training often included a technical component.

It is often difficult to identify the individual components of training operations but the table below gives an idea of the breakdown.

When we consider that funds for national indicative programmes increased under LomII as compared to LomI, it is disappointing to note that expenditure on training in fact decreased, relatively speaking.

Generally, resources have been directed where the need is greatest and the trend has been towards integrating training into projects ab initio.