Capacity building
Other. N/A  N/A

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Capacity Building Strategy for the Electricity Regulatory Agency (ARSEL)

Country : Cameroon .
Client : ARSEL - Agence de Régulation du Secteur de l'Electricité .
Start Date : 2005
Completion Date : 2005
Value of services : 83 190 025 FCFA
Funder : State of Cameroon
Associate/Partner : EED Sarl
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Description :
The study consists in defining a Capacity Building Strategy for ARSEL, articulated around the following main tasks :
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Description of the Actual Services Provided 1. Regulatory framework of ARSEL
The objective of this task is to clearly define the regulatory framework of ARSEL.

2. Situation Analysis (internal and external diagnosis).
The study aims to analyse the Agency and determine its strengths and weaknesses relative to the expansion of the regulatory and consulting activities of the Agency, leading to a capacity building strategy (administration, organisation, regulation, staff training, financing, etc.). The purpose is to highlight all the regulatory functions to be carried out by ARSEL and to indicate the difficulties faced to set them up in the most efficient way.

This analysis also outlines the challenges the Agency faces, and provides a range of possibilities to operate more efficiently.

More precisely, the main activities are:

- Identification of all the existing financial possibilities to enable the autonomous accomplishment of the Agency’s missions;
- identification of all the training programmes the Agency staff needs to efficiently fulfil its missions;
- Evaluation of the ongoing procedures within the Agency, especially the control procedures (administrative, financial, etc.), the regulatory procedures (through operators control instruments as the regulation accounting and a financial model, the conflicts settlement, the tariffs follow-up and control, etc.), communication procedures, etc. ;
- drawing up of a precise diagnosis on the existing working methods and evaluate whether the methods used by the Agency enable an optimisation of its working capacities ;
- identification of the partnership possibilities with other regulatory agencies or universities, for research and capacity building;
- identification of the possibilities to establish a dialogue with the consumers and suggest the kind of information they can have access to (with a special focus on the contract documents and the laws related to the sector) and the means the Agency can use to enable the consumers to participate in the regulation process and in the electricity sector development in respect of the transparency and governance objectives, and considering Cameroon’s legal system ;
- identification of ARSEL’s financial needs to ensure its smooth running and its missions implementation;

3. Strategic positioning and drawing up of the Agency capacity building strategy

This step entails the reaffirmation of the Agency missions through the established diagnosis, and from there, the redefining of the general and specific objectives of the capacity building strategy, considering ARSEL General Management vision.

The evaluation criteria to attain these objectives are also defined, as well as the propositions and the plan impact on the Agency’s operation.

Through this plan, various strategies to reinforce the capacity are identified, considering the local possibilities and the capacity building activities (seminaries, workshops, conferences, funding, etc.) suggested in cooperation with the other regulation agencies, the university or development cooperation institutes and the Agency needs.

4. Definition of the implementation plan for the Agency’s capacity building strategy

The implementation plan will lead to the effective implementation of the capacity building strategy and will include the organisation of the implementation, the setting up of the necessary means and operating mechanisms. It also contains the criteria and the mechanisms to follow up/evaluate the implementation of the programme. Lastly, a realistic budget for the plan implementation is established.