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OSSREA National Chapters’ Activities

The third in a row, the 2004 OSSREA Lesotho workshop was held at Mmelesi Lodge, Maseru, on 23 and 24 November 2004 as planned. The theme, suggested at the end of the previous workshop and subsequently refined at a meeting on 31 August, was “Education and Training in Lesotho: Past, Present and Future.”

Papers presented at the workshop covered a whole spectrum of issues surrounding Education and Training in contemporary Lesotho. Selection of participants was made in such a way as to ensure the widest possible representation of relevant stakeholders in educational matters. These included the Ministry of Education and Training, Lesotho College of Education, as well NGOs with interest in education-related programmes.

One of the main activities of the Chapter has been to organise student essay competition. The tradition has been to align the essay topic with the workshop theme. Thus, the essay topic read: “The Role of Tertiary Education in Mitigating the Impact of HIV/AIDS.”

Seven papers were received; three students – all from the National University of Lesotho, the main campus –won the competition.

Encouraged by the success of last year’s book fair the Committee has planned for a two-day book fair in 2005, one in October and another one in January.

With the foregoing observations as its point of departure, the OSSREA Lesotho Chapter intends to initiate a programme consisting of the following activities:

• Revision of past workshop papers in preparation for publication;

• Introducing members to the use (and value) of SPSS;

• Training w/shops in research/grant proposal writing;

• Data collection and research management;

• Student Essay Winners’ seminar;

• Membership drive; and

• Book day.

The Chapter offered research and consultancy services for the Rwanda Citizens Report Card project. This activity, which started in the year 2004, spilled over into the first half of 2005. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Rwanda and financed by the World Bank. CRC is an innovative approach of promoting participation by citizens in monitoring service delivery that official providers, particularly the government, offers them. In this regard, it is also a method of promoting accountability from the bottom. The quality and efficiency of service delivery is appraised by the beneficiaries themselves using well-prepared and tested cards.

The Chapter carried out a pilot study in two provinces of Rwanda (Ruhengeri and Kibungo) to test how the approach can be applied in Rwanda. A national wide study is expected to be commissioned by the government later in the year. The project involved full time labour of eight senior researchers from the Chapter. This activity has enhanced the Chapter’s capacity in multidisciplinary policy analysis and applied research in Rwanda.

Rwanda is among the members of NEPAD that has accepted the peer review mechanism. By this approach, which is a key programme of NEPAD, a country carries out self-assessment exercise before submitting it to external assessors. This is an important document, which is later handed to the President of the Republic and ultimately to the Heads of State and Government in APRM. So far, it is Rwanda and Ghana that have accepted to be peer reviewed.

Rwanda Chapter released six members for Technical Editing of the document from NEPAD office Rwanda before it was submitted to external assessors. The editing was in the fields of Democracy and political governance, economic governance, corporate governance and socio-economic development. Rwanda Chapter will continue building capacity among its members, so that it can offer better and quality services in research and consultancy in the country.

The Rwanda Chapter held elections to set up a new executive committee. The outgoing and founding committee of the Chapter were Prof Emmanuel Bugingo, Liaison Officer; Mr Bernard Rutikanga, deputy Liaison Officer, and Ms Marie Therese Kampire, Finance Manager. The new Executive Committee consists of Dr Herman Musahara, Liaison Officer; Ms Sharon HABA, Deputy Liaison Officer; Mr Pierre Claver Rutayisire as Finance Manager and Mr Joseph Hahirwa as Secretary. The new committee is currently discussing a new work plan. The plan will lead to drawing up a Chapter Constitution and a Strategic Plan that will revitalize the activities of the Chapter in the country and in the regional network.

OSSREA national chapter of Sudan organized a short training course on qualitative research methodology during the period 19 – 24 March 2005. This is the first activity of OSSREA’s new office at Development Studies and Research Institute, University of Khartoum, and it was fully sponsored by the Chapter. On this occasion, the OSSREA liaison officer expressed his great gratitude to the director of DSRI, University of Khartoum, for his genuine support to OSSREA programmes by providing office and other training fascilities.

The aim of the course was to provide training on qualitative research methodology to a number of young researchers, universities' staff members and persons working with NGOs. The course was given by four fascilitators in forms of lectures, interactive discusions, and experience-sharing. Twenty-seven participants, nominated by their institutions according to a letter sent to them from the office specifying the course objectives and content, took part in the training.

The six-day training course started with the opening session in which the liaison officer, Dr. Idris Salim, introduced the participants to the activities and programmes of OSSREA in the Sudan, focusing on young researchers. This was followed by an introductory session for participants to know each other.

The course was organized into two sessions per day. The sessions of the first two days tackled the general issues in research methodology focusing on qualitative methods. On the third day the sessions dealt with theoretical and epistemological assumptions, while on the fourth day gender issues in social science researches were presented. The fifth day sessions focused on sampling, and qualitative research methods. The first session of the final day was a continuation of the previous day, and the second session was devoted to the course evaluation report and participants’ exchange of views about the evaluation results. This was capped by a general discussion of the results in an interactive session with the OSSREA liaison officer.

The four facilitators were drawn from Khartoum University, the Gender Institute of El Ahfad University for woman, and from University of El Nilien.

An evaluation form was distributed to trainees at the beginning of day six to know their views about a number of issues related to the course. A total of twenty-four trainees filled out the form (three were absent), and discussion about the results and their implications was held between participants and the liaison officer.

A one-day seminar was organized in collaboration with graduate students of the higher diploma programme in the Department of Sociology, University of Khartoum. Four papers were presented covering all areas (except the south, which captures all the attention) where armed conflict is mushrooming now. Three of the participants who presented their papers on Nuba Mountains, Eastern Sudan, and South Western Sudan, respectively, are accomplished and practicing academics, as well as experts in their respective areas, whereas the fourth one (whose paper was on Darfur, western Sudan) was a graduate student. The choice and mixture of the presenters was intentional.

This is because on the one hand, the problem of armed conflict in the Sudan was either regarded as the North-South problem, or seen, undimensionally, taking each case individually. The discussion pointed to similar root-causes underpinning all the causes of armed conflicts in the Sudan: regional imbalances in development programme, short vision of politicians, lack of respect for cultural pluralism, abuse of the principle of power-sharing, exploitation of local resources by outsiders, and cultural and racial insensitivities. Politicians, media people, concerned persons from the areas being discussed, in addition to graduates students from the University of Khartoum and other institutions of learning, participated in the lively and engaging discussion. A final report in Arabic was compiled. Seventy persons, half of them women, attended the event.

The OSSREA Sudan-Chapter, in collaboration with the Peace Institute of the University of Khartoum, organized a talk event, which presented, among others, the internationally- famous anthropologist, Fredrik Barth, on “Anthropological Perspectives on Peace”. The event was attended by a total of about fifty people, including the university's Vice Chancellor, the Academic Secretary, Deans of the University and prominent scholars.

In line with the OSSREA's new policy concerning chapters' activities, the Sudan chapter is planning to issue the out come of the two workshops in a booklet form. This includes the outcome of the workshop on “Youth in Sudan: Vision and Dimension,” which was held in March 2003.

Another planned activity focuses on translating the methodology modules prepared by OSSREA into Arabic. This is quite helpful as the majority of graduate students in Sudan lack good knowledge of English.

1. Annual General Meeting

The Chapter held its annual general meeting on 27 October 2004. The theme of the meeting was Strengthening the Interface between Research and Policy-Making in Swaziland. Besides the aim of conducting official business for the Chapter, the annual meeting was held with three objectives. These were:

• To publicise the existence and work of the Swaziland Chapter of OSSREA;

• To highlight two of OSSREA’s strategic objectives i.e., (i) to enhance interface between research and policy- making and, (ii) to promote the development of a distinctive research tradition;

• To brainstorm (informal strategic planning) on ways of strengthening the Swaziland Chapter of OSSREA.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Swaziland opened the general annual meeting. In his speech he emphasised the need for researchers to conduct policy-relevant research and for the resultant outputs to be disseminated and work-shopped with policy makers in government. He posited that the initiative should come from researchers, noting that policy makers were too busy to do so. He advised researchers to package research outputs in simple language and to translate them into the local languages so that they are easily accessible. The DPM accepted honorary membership to OSSREA.

2. Formation of Task Team

At the meeting, a Task Team- incorporating the three members of the national committee was formed. Its terms of reference were:

i. To synthesise ideas raised during the brainstorming session;

ii. To classify the ideas into long, medium and short term activities;

iii. To chart the way forward in strengthening the operations of the Chapter;

iv. To decide on a theme for the 2005 national workshop; and

v. To report back to membership

The Task Team met and drew up a list of activities, and strategies for accomplishing these.

3. Networking

Besides recruiting new membership from the NGO community, the Chapter has entered into a productive working relationship with the Alliance of Mayors’ Initiative for Community Action on AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL). The Liaison Officer has been nominated into the Technical Advisory Committee of AMICAALL. The Chapter will attend the next quarterly meeting of the "Partnership Forum"- a broad-based stakeholders’ forum sponsored by UNAIDS.

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