Swaziland: Putting human resources at the heart of development
Author: Ashoka Chandra
Article Date: 13 Nov 2007
The beautiful Kingdom of Swaziland is bestowed with many blessings, but unemployment and HIV/AIDS are having a powerful impact on the country’s socio-economic performance. Now, a new government initiative known as Vision 2022 is putting human resources development at the heart of efforts to improve the quality of life for its one million people. Ashoka Chandra explains
Swaziland is a small, beautiful landlocked country in Southern Africa, often referred to as the Switzerland of Africa. It is a lower middle-income country with a per capita income over twice the Sub-Saharan African average. However, despite its middle-income status, some 69 per cent of its people, out of a population of just over a million, live at or below the poverty line. National averages conceal multiple inequalities – between men and women, young and old, rich and poor, employed and unemployed.
Roughly two-thirds of the poor are women. The unemployment rate increased from 22 per cent in 1997 to 31 per cent in 2004 and efforts to create employment have not kept pace with job losses resulting from the erosion of Swaziland’s comparative advantages as an investment destination. Socio-economic trends reveal weak macroeconomic performance, sluggish growth, and deteriorating social indicators. GDP growth has slowed down to average 1.75 per cent for 2005-2006.
Swaziland also faces the severe challenge of HIV/AIDS. National prevalence rates increased from 38.6 per cent in 2002 to 42.6 per cent in 2004 among pregnant women – one of the highest in the world – resulting in a decrease in life expectancy from 65 in 1991 to 37.5 years at present. More and more women and girls are being affected, and AIDS is weakening the capacity for government to deliver services. This is having a serious impact on food security, economic growth, and human development.
Vision 2022 is the Government of Swaziland’s response to these emerging, serious, and multiple challenges, by laying down a development agenda outlined in a National Development Strategy. Its focus is on improving quality of life in the country, in terms of poverty eradication, employment creation, gender equity, social integration and protection of the environment.
Importantly, Vision 2022 has formally recognised human resource development as a key macro strategy while acknowledging that this resource can only contribute meaningfully to sustainable development if its capabilities and qualities are enhanced.
Human resource development (HRD) is about increasing the possibility of improving job performance and growth. A national skills survey in 2005 reported that Swaziland lacked all the skills required for achieving its development aspirations and improving its human development indicators. The Kingdom also realised the need to properly align the education programmes of the Ministry of Education and the University of Swaziland to the development priorities of the country.
In response, the Government of Swaziland decided that it needed to develop a national human resource development plan and strategy to guide the education programmes of the Ministry, the University and other training institutions. For purposes of sustainability, it was also decided to build capacity in the Ministry of Public Service and Information to produce and implement human resource development plans and strategies on a regular basis.
In order to facilitate the development of this agenda, the Government of Swaziland sought the support of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) and obtained the services of a human resource development planning expert.
A comprehensive Programme for National HRD Planning has since been formulated comprising of some fifteen major projects. This followed extensive consultations with all stakeholders and a formal national dialogue. The Programme is envisaged as a National Programme where different Ministries will take lead responsibility for specific projects in their respective domain areas and the Ministry of Public Service & Information will coordinate the overall effort besides implementing several projects itself.
The Programme has three main objectives. The first concentrates on identifying and analysing the HRD needs of the entire economy – the public service, the para-statals, the private sector, the large informal economy characterised by low skills and poverty, and the education, training, health and NGO sector.
The second is concerned with reviewing the supply side of HRD, namely the sector of education and training, analysing and recommending modifications in the current policies and strategies in these sectors and developing a specific national policy framework for education, training, and employment, as well as an integrated human resources policy. It also aims to carry out detailed planning of different sub-systems of education and training. Planning of health manpower will be undertaken as a specific project in view of the severe HIV/AIDS challenge.
The third is about establishing institutional mechanisms for supporting and sustaining effective HRD planning. Among these initiatives would be the establishment of a labour market information system to guide education and training institutions, a human resource management information system for the public service, development of a national classification of occupations of Swaziland to assist skill development and employment planning, and building local capacities in HRD planning.
Planning, policy and sustainability are the cornerstones of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work. Effectively managing human resources to improve economic performance in Swaziland needs an integrated approach that accounts for the country’s socio economic challenges and potential.
Swaziland’s cabinet has since approved the setting up of an inter-ministerial committee to oversee and coordinate the implementation of the national HRD programme as well as a technical working group to provide day-to-day professional guidance. The financial requirements for implementation of the plan have also been finalised and await government approval in its next budgetary cycle. The ground is now virtually ready for proceeding ahead with this important national initiative.
Professor Ashoka Chandra is a Secretariat-appointed CFTC Expert in HRD Planning at the Ministry of Public Service & Information in Swaziland.