Highlights 2017 NFP and NICHE - Nuffic global Development

Education is the engine for growth Highlights 2017 development programmes NFP and NICHE

We are Nuffic Since 1952, we are the Dutch expertise centre on internationalisation of education, managing various educational global development programmes. Our programmes contribute to economic development and poverty reduction. We aim to strengthen people’s and organisations’ knowledge and skills through education.

In 2017, over 43.219 people received education through our two largest development programmes: ■■ NICHE (Netherlands Initiative for

Capacity development in Higher Education) We provide funding for sustainably strengthening higher education and technical and vocation education and training (TVET) capacity in partner countries. To do so, we offer grants for scholarships and tailor made trainings, and we facilitate partnerships with Dutch education.

■■ NFP (Netherlands Fellowship

Programmes) We grant individual scholarships for PhDs, Master degree and short courses. To build a group’s knowledge and expertise we offer grants for tailor-made training, refresher courses and alumni activities.

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Both are multi-year programmes, funded by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of our country’s development cooperation policy.

The priorty themes the Netherlands’ government focuses on are key in our programmes: Figures from 2010 to 2017 NICHE: over 190.000 people have received education.

■■ 2.103 courses and/or training programmes.

■■ 1.118 new or substantially updated curricula.

■■ 146.976 students attended newly developed courses.

NFP: more than 26.790 people were reached.

■■ 11.586 scholarships were granted for masters’, short courses and PhDs. ■■ 472 Tailor made trainings.

■■ 187 Refresher courses and 65 alumni activities.

Education is the engine for growth It empowers people to take their future in their own hands. Here’s how: ■■ It helps to reduce famine and

malnutrition we offer practical education and vocational training on e.g. best farming practises, husbandry and agricultural management, an example is the story of training Afghan chicken farmers on page 9.

■■ It improves people’s health

we address water and sanitation hygiene and sexual reproductive health and rights. For instance we supported a dance group in Benin that promotes equal rights and contraception for girls through singing and dancing shows in rural villages.

■■ It contributes to stabilise countries

and enforce law and security systems we give access to trainings on security and the rule of law, for instance capacitating Rwandan police officers with trainings by Dutch forensic experts on crime scene investigation.

■■ It boosts economic growth and

private sector development we help to create job opportunities through technical and vocational training (TVET), preparing (young) people for the jobs available.

For instance Kenyan TVET teachers were introduced to the Dutch TVET system to learn to use of problem based training and how to design fitting curricula.

■■ It helps to build inclusive societies

we include marginalised and vulnerable groups, and minorities in our programmes. For instance we awarded a large SRHR project in Bangladesh in which homosexuality – still a big taboo - was included. And, equal amounts of men and women are awarded scholarships through our programmes.

■■ It builds sustainable mutually

beneficial partnerships we create attractive opportunities for organisations, in the Netherlands and in the programme countries, to collaborate and business to join in.

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People of the programme

Partners in problem based learning

The NICHE project “Capacity Development for Quality Improvement of the New Medical Education Initiative” is set up between SHE Collaborates, Maastricht University, and the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health. It aims to strengthen the Adama Hospital Medical College and Axum University College of Health Sciences in implementing PBL and to set-up an educational expertise centre to serve other schools. The project runs from 2015 to 2019.

‘Since 4 years I’ve been engaged in the NICHE project with Maastricht University that addresses (amongst others) Problem Based Learning (PBL) training in ‘Medical Microbiology’ for medical students. Next to the theoretical and academical part, PBL offers students clinical, practical knowledge and skills. I recommend to expand PBL to other disciplines, as it is a very effective and suitable way of teaching’ - Dr Gebretsadkan, Microbiologist and Department Head of Laboratory Sciences of Axum University College of Health Sciences.

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‘The collaboration with Ethiopia inspires us to look critically at our own educational structure and development in Maastricht in two ways: working in a relatively new teaching programme helps to focus on the core elements of educational expertise and not get lost in details as sometimes happens. Also, the Ethiopian teachers bring in new and sometimes very different perspectives on education that really push me to think again about what I took for granted before.’ - Dr Herma Roebertsen, educationalist & principle expert in the project.

What happened in 2017?

The year 2017 was a year of reflection and a year of transition; with the INNOCAP projects and the start of the preparations for and execution of the successor of both NICHE and NFP, the Orange Knowledge Programme.

Pilots INNOCAP projects were initiated to pilot new ideas and serve as a testing ground for innovation in capacity building. Good practices were made with for example co financing of fellowships and trainings. Also, a call for joint proposals generated a lot of interest, leading to a significant number of subsidy awards. All experiences, practices and challenges led to a new vision on capacity building, serving as input for the development of the successor of NFP and NICHE. Transition to Orange Knowledge Programme Mid 2017, we agreed with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs upon a new more integrated 5 year programme. In the Orange Knowledge Programme, predecessors NFP and NICHE are merged to reach for a more effective, holistic approach. More flexible, more demand-driven and country customised, and with more focus on inclusion, employability and energy&climate.

Since then, we undertook a variety of activities to kickstart the programme: we completed scans, desk studies and consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and third parties like RVO, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, VSNU, VH, PIE, Profound, and relevant thematic networks. An Advisory Board was set up to advise us on strategic and substantive development and implementation of the programme.

In November we organised a ‘partner day’ to update Dutch education and training providers on the state of affairs concerning the new programme.

The first deadline for short courses was also launched in November, which resulted in 720 grants.

One Team For Nuffic, the launching of the integrated Orange Knowledge Programme also meant an organisational integration of the two departments Capacity Building and Scholarships&Grants into one team Global Development. This was effectuated early 2018.

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Facts & Figures 2017 NICHE in 2017:

NFP in 2017:

Priority Themes NFP/NICHE*

■■ We awarded 13 NICHE projects,

FNS

(of which 6 INNOCAP) in 2017,

Water

8%

involving 98 Dutch institutions

10%

contributed in buiding the capacity

SRHR Security

of educational institutions.

10%

■■ 14.182 trained staff members, of

which 5.075 women.

51,5%

Women

a total of 1430 scholarships and various

Men

training & activities. In total we reached 4.076 people in 2017 with NFP. More than 35% of the budget was spent in 2017 on food security, more than 50%

56,5%

43,5%

to the Sub-Saharan Africa region and

20,5%

■■ 79 newly developed or improved

Other

Gender NFP/NICHE*

In 54 countries we awarded grants for

more than 67% of the budget was

educational programmes.

allocated to priority countries. Exactly

■■ And 24.961 students attended

50% of the budget was allocated to * % of both programmes combined.

newly developed courses.

* Average % of NFP scholarships and NICHE staff trained.

female participants.

In total 24 countries are part of our NICHE (I en II) programme.

Awarded scholarships

Staff training in 2017 600

Total

Female

Sub-Saharan Africa

Master fellowships

385

186

275

Short course fellowships

890

441

581

PhD fellowships

29

16

20

39.030 504

400

Awarded grants

415

Amount

People reached*

Tailor-made Training

66

1.386

Refresher courses

20

420

Alumni activities

40

840

200

0

25 Bachelor

6

14 Diploma

Masters

Phd

Training courses (individual and group training)

* On average, 21 people participated in mentioned instruments.

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People of the programme

Scholarship to make a change

Trained to improve Afghan poultry

Meet Emmanuella Kwamee (27) from Ghana. After finishing her Bachelor’s in Communication and Journalism in Kumasi, she started her career at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

Through a friend, she came into contact with an NGO focused on human rights, and women’s rights in particular. She joined as a volunteer to train adolescent girls on their sexual reproductive health and rights.

Despite her useful background in communication, Emmanuella realised that if she wanted to make a real difference, she needed to learn more on Human Rights and advocacy.

In September 2017, Aeres International Training Centre developed a tailor made training for the Eastern Region Poultry Association. ‘To improve knowledge on poultry husbandry among farmers in Afghanistan we designed a Train the Trainer programme. We conducted a practical, application oriented training for a group of Afghan trainers. As Afghanistan is too dangerous to travel to, we set up the training at Seguna Poultry in Hyderabad, India. Our goal was to teach trainers by doing and supply them with essential and practical knowledge on chicken feed, lighting and water hygiene.

Obama foundation In 2016, the Obama Foundation for Young African Leaders offered her training in advocacy and social entrepreneurship. It stimulated her to move on: ’Gaining international academic exposure is one thing I had always hoped for. However, the enormous financial cost meant I could never afford it. In September 2017, I was awarded an NFP scholarship and gained admission into the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam to study a Master’s in Development Studies, with a major in Human Rights, Gender and Conflict (Social Justice Perspective)’.

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People of the programme

‘ It offered me the chance to pursue my master’s degree in a critical learning environment ’

We taught them all about the value chain from broiler to chicken, including farm management and economics. It provided these men and women with the skills needed to properly educate and train - often illiterate- farmers themselves back home.’ – Helmich van Rees, project coordinator at Aeres.

Critical learning environment ‘It offered me the chance to pursue my master’s degree in a critical learning environment in The Hague, Netherlands. After my studies - which will end in December 2018 - I hope to apply the knowledge acquired in the development sector in Ghana. In these past months already, my worldview has expanded and I’ve grown a lot personally. It’s not always easy to be parted from family, but this opportunity is all worth it. When I’m back in Ghana, I’ll be an authority on Human Rights.

I’m determined to make a change.”

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What lessons did we learn from 2017?

Ways to enhance ownership For NICHE II we agreed to stimulate ownership at the requesting organisation in the partner country, by giving them more responsibility in implementing project limits and reporting achievements. However, we did not allocate money to pay staff for their time. Consequence is that a project relies on the staff’s spare time, which in some cases had influence on the progress of the project.

Even though both programmes are running for some years now, each year we come to new insights. Here are some of our findings and learnings of 2017 we have come across: Improve programmes’ impact through integration In many cases, both NFP and NICHE operate in the same countries, using the same tools, but without reciprocal coordination. It needs more cohesion to become more effective and create more leverage and impact.

Larger role in programme development Nuffic, including our Netherlands Education Support Offices (NESOs) in Indonesia and South Africa can play a larger role in programme development and management by mapping local stakeholder needs and opportunities.

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More joint proposals Calls for joint proposals between educational institutions in the Netherlands and the partner countries have proven to be very efficient in creating ownership and reciprocity.

This is one of the learnings from INNOCAP. PhD’s integrated in institutional partnerships are more effective PhD’s grants have proven to be more effective when integrated in capacity building programmes, as part of institutional partnerships. We reduced the amount of granted NFP PhD’s in 2017, and took this lesson learned to the drawing table of the new Orange Knowledge Programme.

Collaboration with private sector benefiting, but needs articulation Collaboration between higher education institutions and the private sector have proven to lead to substantial benefits all parties involved. This resulted for

example in a joint use of practical training facilities, creating places for internships and successfully integrating practical assignments in the education programmes. However, these partnerships should be much stronger articulated in the indicators and outputs of a project – to become more effective.

Showing impact with storytelling We should - more than before share the programme’s impact through storytelling to engage more people. Collaborating closely with institutions in defining what demonstrates the most significant changes our programmes realise.

The future is orange The new Orange Knowledge Programme offers us opportunities to implement many of our lessons learned to further improve our role as programme manager. Currently, the first calls in the Orange Knowledge programme have been showing good results, both in priority theme division, over the countries as well as over gender. The new programme is more demand-driven, reciprocal and

flexibel, leading to new partnershisp and approaches. We look ahead with confidence in contributing to a sustainable development of international education.

The Hague, June 2018, The team of Global Development 11

@nufficglobaldevelopment

NFP and NICHE are funded by:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands

Nuffic Kortenaerkade 11 2518 AX The Hague PO Box 29777 2502 LT The Hague Tel: +31 (0)70 4260 260 okp@nuffic.nl

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