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USAID Mission to Lithuania
Europe & Eurasia
>> E&E Home >> Lithuania >> Training Program Review
USAID/Lithuania Training Program ReviewBy Steve Landrigan and Shane McCarthy, with inputs from World Learning and USAID/Lithuania
U.S. Agency for International Development
Vilnius, Lithuania
May 31, 2000
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has played a major role in the economic, political and social development of Lithuania since 1992. The primary goals have been to stimulate the growth of a free market economy, promote strong democratic institutions, improve environmental protection, and strengthen the social safety net. USAID assistance has enhanced Lithuania’s capacity to integrate into Western political and security structures, develop a healthy economy, and achieve democratic reforms which rival many Central and Eastern European countries. Expertise has been provided by various U.S. Governmental agencies, the private sector, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Between 1992 and 2000, the United States has provided about $90 million in technical assistance, training, equipment, and investments.
Initially, USAID’s program of activities was broad-based and designed to affect many segments of the transforming society. More than 55 projects were undertaken in ten strategic areas, such us agriculture, environmental protection, energy, fiscal, financial and others. After a broad-based program review in 1995, including extensive consultations with Lithuanian counterparts in the public and private sectors, USAID narrowed its activities to focus on four priority areas: improving fiscal policy and national budgeting, developing a more stable financial environment with better capital markets, strengthening national energy policy and nuclear safety, and increasing democratization via enhanced citizen participation.
The training program was one of the major parts of the USAID/Lithuania portfolio. The initial goal of the USAID-funded Lithuanian participant training program was to cast a wide net of development assistance to help as much of the country as possible during the early years of independence. Since 1996, the training program supported each of the priority areas defined in the USAID Strategy for assistance to Lithuania in 1996-2000.
The training program was implemented by World Learning under a contract with USAID. USAID has provided more than $5 million for training through the various training projects. Since 1993, over 1,500 Lithuanian professionals have had the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes in their particular areas of expertise, and to increase the capacity of their organizations by paving the way for indigenous, sustainable development.
I. Overview - Training for the New Lithuania
At the heart of USAID’s efforts has been a multi-faceted training program. The impacts of this program can be readily seen: open hearings in the Seimas (the Lithuanian parliament); improved legislation for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), strengthened fiscal policy management; improved government budgeting procedures; a strong energy regulatory commission; a better-functioning stock exchange; and more successful small and medium businesses.
Now, as the USAID team prepares to complete its work in Lithuania, this report provides a sense of the achievements and a sampling of the Lithuanians who participated in the USAID programs. This is not a complete account. Rather, it is a cursory description of those programs that were most successful, and some lessons learned that may be helpful in the future.
When USAID first arrived in Lithuania, training programs were made available to professionals from a broad range of disciplines. Lithuania had just emerged as an independent nation. Assistance was necessary in many sectors. These initial training programs were operated under a USAID mechanism known as the Participant Training Project, and managed through a consortium of private, non-profit organizations known as Partners for International Education and Training (PIET). In Central and Eastern Europe, this program was known as the Participant Training Project for Europe (PTPE) and was administered by World Learning, a private, non-profit organization that was a member of the PIET consortium. World Learning, formerly known as the Experiment in International Living, has been involved in international education and training for nearly 70 years.
Starting in 1993, World Learning used funds allocated under PTPE to send 122 mid- and senior-level Lithuanians to training programs in the United States. Professionals were drawn from a wide range of backgrounds including agriculture, energy, environment, democratic institutions, legal and financial sectors, management education, and business development.
The following year, USAID provided funds for a second training program that was specifically aimed at the small and medium enterprise sector. It was called the Entrepreneurial Management and Executive Development (EMED) program. Like PTPE, the EMED program was administered by World Learning. Over the following three years, it arranged for 107 owners and senior level managers of Lithuanian small and medium size manufacturing, processing, and service companies to travel to the United States on individually arranged internships at companies similar to theirs.
While in the United States, the participants met with representatives of trade associations, financiers, and representatives from U.S. government agencies such as the Small Business Administration. After their return to Lithuania, they participated in various follow-on activities such as: meetings and seminars in Vilnius with technical experts from other USAID programs; city and regional EMED reunions which enabled them to establish valuable support networks with one another; and third country training in other Eastern European countries where they met newly forming EMED alumni associations from other parts of Central and Eastern Europe.
In 1996, USAID shifted its emphasis from training individuals to supporting institutions whose development was crucial to the future of Lithuania. Examples include the Bank of Lithuania, the Stock Exchange, the Ministry of Finance, and the Seimas (the Lithuanian parliament). USAID also saw an urgent need to address environmental matters, and strengthen the NGO sector.
This new effort which was called Technical Training for Societies in Transition (TRANSIT-Europe) incorporated many elements of the PTPE and EMED programs. But it looked for ways to offer training to an even larger number of people to affect whole institutions, and to cooperate with USAID’s other assistance in the country. Where possible, groups were trained. Much of the training took place in Lithuania, or nearby countries, although some training did continue in the United States. This allowed training funds to be extended to include more people, especially Lithuanians who did not speak English. Also, it reflected the growing sophistication of training organizations within Lithuania and the region.
With the coming of TRANSIT-Europe and USAID’s new management emphasis, entitled results-orientation, it was possible for USAID to measure more accurately the impact that training programs were having on the development of Lithuania.
Running through all of USAID’s training programs is a common theme of human development. No other foreign assistance program has offered the kind of trainee-specific internships that were an essential element of most World Learning programs. What follows is a description of each of the USAID training programs in Lithuania, highlighting a few institutional success stories, a discussion of lessons learned from these programs, and an accounting of the social and institutional legacies that can be directly attributed to the USAID training efforts in Lithuania.
II. Participant Training Project for Europe (PTPE)
During its first years in Lithuania, USAID undertook more than 55 projects in ten strategic areas. Nearly all of these activities were supported by PTPE training programs designed and implemented by World Learning. Through these programs, USAID worked with Lithuanian partners to initiate legal reforms, to improve the protection of human rights, and strengthen the media. PTPE training also enabled USAID to provide assistance in drafting the Lithuanian Constitution, work with the Government, political parties, and the media to increase professionalism in the political arena, and encouraged public activism in local and national elections. In addition, PTPE training contributed to USAID’s assistance in the energy sector, and in establishing improved environmental regulations and reduced environmental hazards.
In providing oversight management to the PTPE program, USAID would select focus areas and/or institutions. To attract participants, World Learning staff placed notices in the press, spoke at professional and civic meetings, and made appearances on local television programs to explain how Lithuanians could participate. World Leaning would then recruit the individuals who would not only benefit from the training themselves, but also have a measurable impact on Lithuanian development.
During the process, the candidates were required to articulate their training objectives. Then, with the assistance of World Learning’s team of professionals based in Washington, D.C., intensive three-to-four week training programs were designed that linked the participants with American counterparts thus enabling the trainees to bring back new skills, knowledge, and fresh perspectives on their work.
A good example of PTPE’s effort to tailor training activities to specific participant requirements is the program created for Vidmantas Jankauskas, who participated in training in the United States in 1996 to identify systems associated with the generation, distribution and regulation of electricity. The previous systems had been run from Moscow which directed that a major Soviet nuclear generating plant, Ignalina, be built on Lithuanian soil. After independence no one in Lithuania had had experience in dealing with power as a commodity in a free market economy. Equally important, as energy had been totally subsidized, its price not reflecting real costs, Lithuanians were unsure as to how electricity was regulated or priced.
In Washington, Mr. Jankauskas met with members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at a time when the Commission was conducting a major restructuring of its own existing regulations to encourage competition among power companies. Thus, Mr. Jankauskas had an extraordinary opportunity to see first-hand how a national power regulatory agency grapples with fundamental issues, many the same as those being faced by Lithuania.
He then traveled to San Francisco, spending a week with the California Public Utilities Commission, one of the most innovative state-level power regulators. While there, Mr. Jankauskas attended a public hearing called to determine whether a local power generating company had been negligent for taking up to a week’s time to restore power to certain communities after a bad storm. The company was fined a half million dollars because it had kept its customers inadequately informed about the efforts being made to restore the cut-off energy. It was through this experience that Mr. Jankauskas realized the importance of a public utility’s accountability to the people it is serving.
Shortly after his return to Lithuania, Mr. Jankauskas was appointed Chairman of the National Control Commission for Energy Prices and Energy Activities, a five-member board created by presidential decree in February 1997. This appointment no doubt was, at the very least, influenced by Mr. Jankauskas’ PTPE training. As Chairman, Mr. Jankauskas now has direct oversight in the regulation of electricity prices in Lithuania.
Another example of the impact of PTPE training can be found in the economic area. After the banking crisis of 1995, USAID helped the government and Central Bank of Lithuania improve its supervision of the banking system. On-the-job-training, using international measurement techniques, was provided to inspectors of the Credit Institutions Supervision Department. Gitanas Nauseda, Director of Monetary Policy of the Bank of Lithuania returned from US training with a methodology and techniques which were introduced to foresee financial crises through the use of early warning indicators. This PTPE training helped raise the standards of bank operations, and contributed immeasurably to the rebuilding of public confidence in the Lithuanian banking system.
III. Entrepreneurial Management and Executive Development Program (EMED)
When USAID began the EMED program in Lithuania in 1994, World Learning staff canvassed the country to find entrepreneurs with small and medium businesses who would benefit from meeting with counterparts in the United States. Through an open and carefully targeted selection process, entrepreneurs were identified for an EMED program that would enable the trainees to improve their business operations, discover new ideas that could lead to expansion, and develop lasting and valuable contacts with American leaders in their fields. Some EMED trainees found buyers for their products; others found partners for their companies.
One EMED participant, a woman who is the marketing director of a linen products manufacturer, returned with an initial $200,000 sales contract. The proprietor of the first private building management company with oversight responsibility for hundreds of buildings in Lithuania, attributes many of his business ideas to his United States internship. A fashion designer returned from the US with the skills and confidence to renegotiate a contract with a retailer who had previously been earning a 300 percent mark-up on her designs.
The proprietors of several popular restaurants and nightclubs, including Naktinis Vilkas in Vilnius, Skandalas in Klaipeda, and the Pizza Jazz chain in Kaunas, all developed the idea of "concept" restaurants while EMED participants. Another participant came back with ideas which grew out of his visits to American supermarkets: preservatives in packaged salads to extend their shelf life and ice-cube making machines. His profits tripled the next two years.
EMED participants were usually owners or senior level managers from a wide range of businesses such as entertainment, food processing, light manufacturing, wood processing, cosmetics, lasers, cement, travel, advertising, marketing, and fashion. They were required to submit detailed strategic plans for their companies before they traveled so that their internship time would directed at addressing specific issues having a direct bearing on their company’s profitability.
The EMED program further required participants to have been in business for at least a year, have five or more employees, and be able to speak English fluently. By design, EMED trainees were selected from all parts of Lithuania, not only Vilnius. Also, some 23 per cent of them were women. This was at a time when the percentage of women in business in Lithuania was half that number. World Learning actively sought and identified women who typically were hesitant about submitting applications.
The most positive and concrete effect of the EMED program was in the profitability of a large cross section of companies. Within two years of the visits to the United States, 45 percent of the effected companies reported that assets had increased, generally in the range of 30 percent to 200 percent. Even more encouraging was the fact that 63 percent of the companies increased their profits from 10 percent to 40 percent through the EMED participants’ newly acquired knowledge of marketing.
Job creation was also reported, with more than 50 percent of the returned participants hiring new employees. On the average, three jobs were created per company, with an overall increase in the workforce of 15 percent within one year of the visits to the United States. One dramatic result of the EMED program was reflected in a participant, who upon his return from the US, hired 200 new employees to begin production of a new product line and improve his company’s packaging.
As with PTPE, EMED training programs in the United States lasted about a month and took participants to several cities. Generally, they would meet with executives with whom they could discuss operations, personnel planning, marketing, or the know-how to produce a new product. Some of the executives whom participants met were Lithuanian-Americans. A number of enduring personal relationships developed during these programs that have led to ongoing business contacts between the training participants and their hosts. A distinct element of the EMED program was the provision of financial support and encouragement that enabled many participants to join American trade organizations, thus increasing the opportunity for on-going contacts.
For nearly all the participants, EMED training represented a first time visit to the United States. Mr. Gintaras Gavenas, for example, a former biochemist, founded the BIOK cosmetics company in 1990. Although he had never been in business before, Mr. Gavenas sensed there was a market for a high-quality, low-cost facial cream that was made entirely from natural substances. He felt this would appeal to Lithuanians who have a long tradition of using herbs as health aids, and who have high standards for purity in health care products.
His instincts were correct. His sales were strong from the start. He quickly introduced other products to compete with a flood of foreign imports. His business was growing so quickly, however, that he found it difficult to manage. EMED was a perfect opportunity to experience a developed cosmetics industry in a highly competitive market.
In the United States, Mr. Gavenas visited several American cosmetic companies in order to learn how to set up a more effective marketing and distribution system in Lithuania. He also attended a cosmetics trade show that gave him new ideas on packaging and products. He came back understanding that he had to take more risks in product development, and that he would benefit from having expert help in designing a new marketing strategy.
Mr. Gavenas formed the Lithuanian Cosmetics Association to promote the collective interests of cosmetics producers and distributors. Through the Association, new ideas to which he was exposed during his EMED program are being passed on to others.
TRANSIT-Europe began in 1997, marking a profound shift in USAID’s programming approach from training individuals to impacting institutions through a focus on specific objectives. More training was held for groups, and much more of it was done in Lithuania. USAID training opportunities became available to many Lithuanians who previously had been unable to participate because they did not speak English or their jobs were too specialized. Approximately 1,200 professionals participated in training programs that took place primarily in Lithuania and neighboring countries while some TRANSIT-Europe participants did travel to the United States.
TRANSIT-Europe took advantage of the rapid developments taking place all across Central and Eastern Europe. It had become possible for Lithuanians to learn from counterparts in countries like Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. By the same token, Lithuania hosted training participants from Bosnia, Montenegro and Croatia.
Such so-called "third country" training (that is, training that is held neither in the United States or Lithuania) had an important secondary effect of helping different country leaders get acquainted with one another and their experiences. As borders in Western Europe are disappearing, those further east are being eased by such citizen diplomacy. Also, in third country training, participants from former command economies can share experiences that experts from other countries can never fully understand.
V. Success Stories from TRANSIT-Europe
USAID’s TRANSIT-Europe training programs were designed to help participants achieve results in primarily one of four areas: strengthening fiscal management, stabilizing the financial sector, improving the safety and the policy of the energy sector, and strengthening the NGO sector. Of the programs that came from TRANSIT-Europe, many already had demonstrable, positive impacts. This report focuses on three such "success stories," each of which is discussed below.
Few members of the Seimas had had much exposure to democratic government prior to Lithuanian independence. Frequently they were asked to vote on laws that demanded a familiarity with complex economic concepts to make good economic decisions for the country.
A team from USAID and World Learning conducted an in-depth needs analysis to determine what kinds of information would be of most use to Seimas members. They met with most of the Vice-Chairpersons of the Seimas, and with the leadership of the committees responsible for economic matters. A plan was developed to hold a series of high-level, informational seminars that would offer Seimas members grounding in economic issues.
Vice Chairman Feliksas Palubinskas proposed that the Seimas should help both to defray the cost of the series and to organize some of the discussions. A former professor of marketing at Purdue University before he returned to his native Lithuania 10 years ago and entered politics, Dr. Palubinskas felt such discussions would prove extremely helpful. Another professor, Kestutis Glaveckas, who is the Vice Chairman of the Seimas Budget and Finance Committee as well as teaching at Vilnius University, agreed to lead the discussions.
As the series of discussions took shape, USAID contributed the services of many American experts then in Lithuania on other USAID projects. In addition, TRANSIT-Europe funds were used to bring in experts from the United States. Other international development organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the governments of Denmark and Canada followed suit. Adding a local perspective, several Lithuanians made presentations, introducing lawmakers to local experts who could be invited to join future fact-finding and law-making working groups and committees.
Participating in addition to Seimas members were staff from the various ministries, especially the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Economy. The discussions lasted three hours each. The first two hours generally were given to the formal presentations, with the third hour left open to questions. The presenters were encouraged to provide background materials, which, translated into Lithuanian and copied, were made available to the attendees. Frequently, these materials provided information which had not been available previously in Lithuania.
The first Discussion attracted about 30 participants. By the last, the number had swelled to 90. Topics covered included taxation, energy sector restructuring and pricing reform, banking, budget reform, institutional investors, economic crises and vulnerability, the limits of indebtedness, and strategic planning.
In the few weeks since the strategic planning Discussion, there have been many calls for its repetition. The idea of strategic planning had previously been tainted with past encounters with Soviet-style five year plans dictated from the top down and with no opportunity for dialogue. The Discussion on strategic planning offered alternative views and methodological ways of implementing this new concept.
Vytautas Landsbergis, the Chairman of the Seimas, noted in a letter to World Learning that "your subject matter is accurately chosen to be of practical and current interest and an effective method for our Seimas to be exposed to high level economic concepts provided by experts from all over the world." He went on to say that programs like the Discussion Series "provided needed information and insights for our decision makers."
As the Economic Restructuring Discussion Series progressed, it became evident that open discussions and more exchange of information were needed, not only within the Seimas, but also between the Seimas, public institutions, and the public. Working with USAID, the Seimas leadership decided to encourage parliamentary committees to conduct open hearings on pending legislation. This presented a problem though, as no formal, established mechanism existed for such hearings. The Seimas then embarked on a pioneering effort first to create the legal framework needed to allow open hearings by amending its operational statutes, and then to actually hold one.
In response to this initiative by the Seimas, USAID set about developing what was to be the most comprehensive training program of its kind in Lithuania to that time. All parties that were to participate in the open hearing Seimas members, their staff, expert witnesses, and eventhe media would be offered training on how the hearing would work and what they were expected to do.
Several pending draft laws were considered as a subject for the hearing. A decision was taken to address the Law on Charity and Sponsorship. As it happened, USAID was just then engaged in another project aimed at strengthening the NGO sector. If NGOs were going to be able to increase their effectiveness in Lithuania, then amendments had to be made to the Law on Charity and Sponsorship. Several amendments had been proposed some months before. They were then at a stage where an open hearing could prove genuinely useful. As these amendments were the responsibility of two separate committees, the open hearing would be jointly held by both. This made the process more complex, but it had the benefit of involving a greater number of Seimas members, and thus possibly moving the idea of open hearings closer to being institutionalized.
One of the factors that contributed both to the Seimas’ undertaking the open hearing, and the decision to discuss the Law on Charity and Sponsorship, was that in the months just previous, a group studying NGO Development had received USAID-sponsored training in the United States. Vilija Blinkeviciute, Vice Minister for Social Security and Labor, whose portfolio includes NGO matters, was also the chairperson of the working group of the draft Law of Charity and Sponsorship, and part of the training group. Ms. Blinkeviciute now admits that before her trip she had very little understanding of what NGOs are or what they can do. During the Communist era, NGOs officially did not exist, as all services were theoretically provided by the state. So, apart from a handful of long-established groups which offered assistance to the handicapped, NGOs had a very low profile in Lithuania.
Ms. Blinkeviciute recently recalled the excitement she felt on that trip when she encountered volunteerism for the first time. She met a woman at a museum in Tucson, Arizona, who was working as a volunteer. The woman said she considered it a privilege to serve her community by contributing time to the museum. Ms. Blinkeviciute said she was stunned by the woman’s sense of commitment to her community. That encounter, she said, opened her eyes to the impact that this type of volunteer spirit could have on non-profit, non-governmental organizations.
As she and her colleagues continued their TRANSIT-Europe-sponsored program, they were amazed at the way United States’ NGOs worked closely with state and municipal governments, often doing things better and more efficiently than the authorities could. They learned about such practices as deducting contributions to non-profit organizations from taxable personal income. Equally important, Ms. Blinkeviciute said, the participants had time to talk with one another at great length about how what they were seeing could benefit Lithuania. At the same time, they also recognized that in order to foster a vibrant NGO sector, amendments needed to be made to the Law on Charity and Sponsorship.
Having returned to Lithuania and in preparing for the open hearing, a number of questions arose. How should the hearing room be set up? Where do the respective parties sit? Should witnesses testify from a podium or a table? What arrangements should be made for staff such as stenographers or simultaneous translators? Where should the media be placed? Each of these questions generated considerable discussion. Interestingly, it was a news photo of an open hearing in Washington D.C. that served as a touchstone. It laid out clearly and visually how the United States House of Representatives conducted its open hearings. The Lithuanian organizers stated their determination to do things in the American way and as a consequence, the guidelines drafted for the conduct of the open hearing process in Lithuania were based on the rules of the United States House of Representatives.
The intention to hold an open hearing was announced in the media and in specialized bulletins and magazine publications serving NGOs. Several dozen individuals active in NGOs indicated an interest in testifying. World Learning retained the Lithuanian NGO Information and Support Centre to conduct a series of sessions to explain how the hearing would be organized.
Meanwhile, similar training was being conducted for members of the two Seimas committees that were holding the hearing, the Budget and Finance Committee and the Social Affairs and Labor Committee. World Learning hired a specialist on legislative procedures from the Congressional Research Service, Paul Rundquist, who came from Washington to guide Seimas members through the process of preparing an agenda and dealing with protocol issues. In addition, USAID Project Manager Mark Segal provided a collection of informative articles and drafted a set of procedures, both critically instrumental to the success of the undertaking.
Since this was, in fact, the first formal open hearing ever to be held in Lithuania, it was decided that a special seminar should be presented to a plenary session of the entire Seimas on the morning of the hearing. In the seminar, Mr. Rundquist and Edward Rekosh, the Director of the Public Interest Law Initiative in Transitional Societies at Columbia University Law School, spoke about the benefits of open legislative processes in general.
This seminar set the stage for the plenary session that was chaired by Andrius Kubilius, then the First Vice Chairman of the Seimas, presently the Prime Minister. It was attended by Vytautas Landsbergis, the Chairman of the Seimas, who opened the event, and Don Pressley, USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia, who gave a keynote address. The lead witness was Ms. Blinkeviciute. She was joined by others from government, including the Director of the NGO Information and Support Center, and six other NGOs whose activities ranged from working with the mentally handicapped to promoting the performing arts and small business.
The open hearing went smoothly and a few weeks thereafter, the Seimas voted to implement the proposed changes in its statutes, authorizing the regular use of open hearings at the committee level, and increased public access to all Seimas deliberations. This followed an earlier decision to publish all laws introduced in the Seimas on the Internet, along with information as to their current status. Also, setting an important precedent, all transcripts of the proceedings of the open hearing were published, both in print and on the Internet.
When Lithuania gained its independence, its Ministry of Finance was forced to undertake a dramatic facelift, from merely accounting for funds allocated by Moscow to having to develop sound fiscal policies and careful budget management. Staff veterans had had no experience dealing with such concepts and new staff found themselves caught between those wanting to do things the old way and the lack of clearly developed policies to do things differently.
Consequently staff turnover was high. It reached 80 percent per year in some departments, and more than 100 percent over three years in others. Several Ministers of Finance came and went. Each time a staff member left, they took with them what they had learned. It was clear that some kind of training mechanism was needed to provide the few remaining long-term and the new employees with essential technical and operational knowledge, as well as basic knowledge of the free market system.
The Ministry understood that it had a challenge and was looking for solutions. USAID had been providing training in the United States for Ministry managers since 1993. Together with USAID, World Learning conducted a needs assessment with Ministry officials. A plan was developed that emphasized in-country training. This led to a management seminar for senior managers, and ultimately to courses for other staff members on macroeconomics and public finance. Professionals from many different departments and levels of management participated.
One of the local trainers, Rimantas Vaicenavicius, Director of the Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Department, recommended that the courses be repeated. They were and three other subjects were introduced as well. While this was taking place, USAID sought to institutionalize within the Ministry of Finance a "Capacity Building Component" which would serve as a home base for all of the Ministry’s future training efforts. As a first step, World Learning conducted an institutional assessment which identified the Ministry’s own training center as the organization having the greatest potential for meeting the Ministry’s future training requirements. The Center had been created as a semi-autonomous entity by the Ministry solely for the purpose of training tax inspectors. Happily, the Training Center’s Director, Eugenijus Chlivickas, welcomed the opportunity of expanding its mandate.
Four working groups were assembled to create a curriculum and a set of materials for each course. Led by a local technical expert, each of the working groups were comprised almost entirely of staff from the Ministry. Hence, from the beginning, the element of sustainability was being built in.
USAID, World Learning, the Ministry of Finance, and the Director of the Training Center signed a Memorandum of Understanding that gave impetus to the project. Both the Ministry of Finance and the Training Center appointed staff to coordinate all aspects of the training. Team building sessions were held and the members of the working groups then undertook training that prepared them to serve as trainers for four courses: treasury and debt management, fiscal policy, budget management, and an orientation to the Ministry of Finance for new employees.
The response among participants was immediate and positive. The courses helped them establish a common language which in turn fostered a common culture within the Ministry as participants in the courses got to know their fellow employees better. Not only did this lead to a more positive working environment, but it also gave staff useful insights into the workings of other offices outside their immediate area, as well as a better understanding of the principles of open market economy.
A logical follow-on to the development of these courses was the Capacity Building Component’s efforts to strengthen the ability of the Training Center to maintain this training momentum. Through targeted training efforts, the Center was assisted in team building, and developing a sustainability plan, a strategic plan, and a work plan for the coming year. This emphasis on planning had not occurred in the past. The Training Center’s management embraced it.
Already, the materials for the treasury and debt management courses, in addition to the fiscal policy course, have been posted on the Internet. Further, World Learning helped the Training Center prepare both a brochure and a web site that will assist the Center’s ability to market its services.
The USAID program in Lithuania evolved as the political and economic situation in the country changed. The program was structured with the flexibility to reshape the training programs as needed, and to take risks in areas where no one could be certain of success. This sensitivity to changing needs and a determination to reach the respective goals of each training activity were prime elements in the program’s success.
From this has emerged the realization that several aspects of its work turned out better than might have been expected. At the same time, there were others which, in retrospect, might have been done differently. Several of these are worth mentioning, as they may offer some useful guidance to Lithuania and in other countries of the Eurasia Region where USAID is supporting or contemplating support of training programs.
- Information Sharing - Training had the greatest impact when participants from different training programs came together upon their return to discuss what they had learned and how they were using it. Building on this same concept, training groupings should be strategically selected to reflect a multi-disciplinary mix. This enables trainees to feed off each other’s insights, while providing greater opportunities for creating environmental receptivity for change once the trainees return home.
- Goal Setting - The success of individual training programs was nearly always in direct proportion to the participant’s having both specific objectives, and action plans for achieving those objectives. Beyond training itself, this approach has shown itself useful when separate parties develop a memorandum of understanding that clearly outlines what they expect to achieve together, and the steps they will take to do so.
- Ministry-Specific Training Centers – Government training centers should – at least in their inception – be ministry-specific. Too often USAID has supported government-wide training centers which inevitably are undermined by their own lack of demonstrated success due to a lack of focus, both in terms of management and training events offered.
- Rural Outreach – Training programs should make a deliberate effort to reach beyond the capital city to insure that other parts of the country are served. People in small towns and rural areas very often get overlooked when training programs are being developed. Yet they have a point of view that may well enhance what is being undertaken.
- Month-Long Training - Four week targeted training events are not only cost effective, they work. Long term training (under graduate and post graduate training) is appropriate only where there is an absence of suitable host country higher educational facilities.
- Tapping Local/Regional Expertise - Like most countries in the Europe and Eurasia Region, Lithuania possesses highly qualified professionals who are capable of performing many functions which foreign experts have been engaged to do. Also, local experts frequently have answers to questions that are more in tune with host country realities. Further, experts from other Eastern European countries have useful skills and information to share. Engaging them helps develop links between local professionals and their counterparts in nearby countries.
- Training in the United States - While in-country training is obviously more cost effective, short-term, US-based training goes beyond the specific information being presented to the participant. Being exposed to the full range of American life offers participants a context for everything else that is learned and helps them, through seeing different organizational options at work, form a vision of how institutions can be organized in a participant’s home country. In brief, US-based training has certain value-laden overlays that simply cannot be replicated in-country. A proper and strategic mix is best.
- Creating a Volunteer Mindset - Leaders in former Soviet countries look upon voluntarism as something that can be done in leisure time in developed societies. Hence, for starters, they often rejected the concept and value of NGOs in transitional societies. The fact is, in the United States, the most significantly involved volunteers, are among our most busy citizens who use their positions of influence to be change-agents for various causes. The "lady bountiful" volunteerism of days past, while it still exists, is not the spirit that is critical to effective engagement in an open and transparent transitional society. Creating a legal environment conducive to NGO growth is a necessary first-step for formally establishing NGOs, whose institutionalization then can be further assured by appropriate in-country training.
- Cooperation with other USAID Programs - Overall impact of training was also greatly enhanced when the participant selection and scope of training was coordinated with other USAID assistance programs. An early example of this coordination was training of dairy specialists under EMED that was coordinated with the Land O' Lakes Dairy Improvement Project. The Land O' Lakes advisors assisted with in-country training and coordinated with World Learning to arrange U.S. training visits under EMED for key personnel. In another example, Bechtel, who assisted the National Control Commission on Energy Pricing under the Energy Regulatory and Restructuring Project, worked with World Learning to identify Commission staff to be trained under the TRANSIT program. Bechtel staff helped develop a specific U.S. training program for these participants. The results included increased focus of the training and greater impact within the firm or government organization receiving the training.
VII. USAID Training Program Legacies
The full impact of training programs is always difficult to assess. Many times, ideas planted during training do not flourish until years afterwards. Also, skills in leadership and decision making that may have been enhanced by training usually show themselves only on the long term.
Nonetheless, as the USAID presence in Lithuania comes to an end, there are four creations, spawned by the training programs described above, that are not only successful in themselves, but are likely to continue into the future. Three are institutional; one is social. They will serve as a visible, vibrant legacy of the USAID program in Lithuania. The institutional legacies will be described first.
After participants in the EMED program returned to Lithuania, they found that they welcomed being in contact with other participants including those from PTPE. So many of the new ideas to which they had been exposed in the United States were difficult to share with those who had never been there. But among the returned participants there was a common experience that for many had been a transforming one. Also, the participants came home convinced that certain laws needed to be changed if Lithuania was to prosper. They felt that if they joined together, they might be able to impact the political process. Hence, the Lithuanian American Business Initiative (LABI) was created.
From the start, LABI was a Lithuanian initiative. Through World Learning, USAID provided support, primarily by helping the participants few of whom knew one another establish contact. But it was from Lithuanians that the idea sprung. The returned EMED participants opened up LABI to returned PTPE and TRANSIT-Europe participants, as well as those from other non-USAID programs. What has been created is a remarkably diverse group of some of the most dynamic executives and decision-makers, most of them young, all of whom are committed to the future of Lithuania. "American experience for the success of Lithuanian business" is LABI’s mission statement.
The two themes guiding LABI in planning its activities is that they should be useful and fun. LABI meets four times a year. Gatherings are usually held at tourist retreats, sometimes at resorts owned by LABI members. The idea is to get away from the pressures of their professions. Members bring their families. Their children have come to know one another.
Further, they purposely meet in a different part of the country each time so that they can get to know the business, social, and cultural environments in various Lithuanian regions. Usually, a formal presentation is made by one of the members or an invited expert on topics related to business. But the seminars and brainstorming sessions are balanced with canoe trips and hikes through the country. There are often field visits to a local business or cultural event.
Perhaps most importantly, during this time of national transition, LABI members have come to view each other as people who can be trusted, whose goals are shared. That, says one member, more than anything else has bound the organization together and will carry them into the future.
At the core of the success of the four courses that were developed for the Ministry of Finance staff were the 30 Lithuanians who actually conducted the training. These trainers are now poised to carry on without outside assistance, having created a curriculum by drawing information from text books and articles given to them by American advisors and adapting this input to Lithuanian requirements. In addition, they drafted a training manual that will serve as an invaluable tool for future generations of trainers. Combined with the institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Finance Training Center, these trainers have the capacity to use the current courses as a cornerstone for a broad range of other courses in the future.
The Ministry of Finance now recognizes that these courses are essential to their employees. They are committed to providing capital to cover the Training Center’s operating expenses through an annual fee drawn from the Ministry.
As part of the attempt to involve host country professionals in its training programs, several local training providers developed institutional strengths in the process. They have also become familiar with USAID procedures. Even though USAID is leaving Lithuania, these organizations stand prepared to assist the ongoing USAID development efforts elsewhere in Europe and Eurasia. These local training providers include: the Ministry of Finance Training Center; the Center for Organizational Development; the Lithuanian Banking, Finance, and Insurance Institute; the NGO Information and Support Center; the Lithuanian Journalism Center; the Lithuanian Judicial Training Center; the International Business Network; and the Management Training Center of the University of Kaunas.
With or without the hand of USAID to guide them, these organizations are prepared to disseminate the knowledge gained during their years of association with the USAID training program.
The social legacy builds on the fact that USAID actively promotes the inclusion of women in its projects around the world. The USAID training team in Lithuania considers the large number of women it has trained to be one of its major achievements. This has unharnessed a tremendous force whose effect will be felt for years.
The percentage of women who participated in the various USAID-sponsored training programs increased significantly over the years. While only 23 percent of the participants in the EMED Program were women, this almost doubled to 43 percent under the TRANSIT-Europe Program. During this period, the opportunities available to women in Lithuania also increased. For instance, banks are now more willing to lend to women. Consequently, there are more women-owned and managed businesses in Lithuania.
Even more dramatically, training with a woman-focus has supported the growth of the NGOs in Lithuania, a sector that is managed predominantly by women. All have benefited from USAID’s technical support work on amending the Law on Charity and Sponsorship. More specifically, many women have participated in training directed at NGO capacity building.
Dramatizing the immediate impact associated with the training of women, USAID brought together women who had participated in the EMED program from all across Eastern Europe at a special conference in Hungary. There they exchanged their experiences, identified common problems, and drew from each other’s energies and vision.
Because a large number of Lithuanians received training through the various training programs described above, a critical mass of professionals has been created. They have been exposed to the essential ideas of open democracy. Due to their numbers and their level of commitment to supporting Lithuania in its transition to a free market society, these participants are able to both implement and sustain the skills and ideals espoused through the eight year collaborative relationship involving development partners, USAID/Lithuania and World Learning.
Year Program Total 1993-1995 Participant Training Project for Europe 65 1996 Participant Training Project for Europe 57 1996 Entrepreneurial Management and Executive Development Program 107
Participants under the TRANSIT Program Year Location Fiscal Financial Energy Democracy Special Initiatives Total 1997 In-country 1 1 Third country 2 2 United States 11 4 15 2 32 1998 In-country 205 37 470 Third country 7 7 United States 7 3 2 2 14 1999-2000 In-country 334 95 429 Third country 10 2 12 United States 4 13 6 4 6 33 Seimas Training (In-country) 309
Total Participants Trained 1536
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Last Updated on: June 25, 2009 |
