Paktika PRT hosts governance training for provincial officials, sub governors

PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan—The Paktika Provincial Reconstruction Team, led by Paktika PRT’s U.S. Agency for International Development foreign service officer, concluded a provincial line director and sub governor training workshop at the provincial governor’s compound here June 10.

The objective of the two-day event was to build line director and sub governor capacity for the purpose of development in the province.

The event garnered roughly 40 participants from throughout the province, including the provincial governor, several provincial officials and many of the district sub governors.

“The purpose of the conference this week was to increase governance and citizen engagement skills to include dialogue, community mapping and listening to citizens,” said Melinda Witter, senior U.S. Agency for International Development representative for Paktika province. “These types of trainings enable the government to do a better job of listening to their citizens and responding to their needs on a village and district level.”

The conference was the first phase of a tiered approach to capacity building in the province.

Future planned training events will focus on more complex issues of governance such as budgeting and proposal writing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting within specific lines of effort and finally, provincial strategy planning, said Witter.

 “This training is really going to bring up the capacity of local Paktika line directors and sub governors of this province,” said Moheebullah Samim, the governor of Paktika province. “As far as I know, each line director and sub governor is an educated and intelligent person, but they still need this training to build capacity in order for them to do their job correctly.”

Other Paktika provincial leaders also felt the training was necessary and much appreciated.

“I learned here how to develop a good relationship with the people I serve,” said Juma Mohammad, Paktika province deputy governor. “I also felt it was interesting to see how we can talk with people and engage in dialogue effectively. If we use what we learn here, we can communicate better with each other and with our own communities.”