The UNITAR Afghanistan Fellowship Programme - Inspiring Transformation discusses important themes related to the effective governance of Afghanistan by and for Afghan nationals themselves, a crucial requirement for the future of the nation following the elections in 2014. The 2016 Cycle of the Fellowship underwent a strategic review and restructure. Some elements below may refer to previous cycles of the Fellowship. 

These include:

• Organizational Development
• Organizational Change
• Project Design
• Project Management
• Human Resource Development
• Human Resource Management
• Accounting and Budgeting
• Leading and Mentoring Teams for Development and Change
• Team-building and Teamwork
• Communication Skills
• Strategic Planning

The Fellowship seeks to contribute to sustainable learning in the workplace and to build on the capacity of the Afghan civil service as it works to rely on its own ability and lessen its need to depend on the human resources and expertise provided by the international community.

Since its launch in 2003, the Fellowship is currently in its fourteenth cycle, with a total of over 500 participants having taken part.

The Fellowship’s two long-term objectives are:

a. To support Fellows in the application of their new knowledge and greater confidence to the transformation of their respective ministries and organizations through:

• Achievement of mandates and objectives despite limited resources;
• Facilitating effective team work and coordination within the organization through mentoring and teambuilding;
• Networking and collaborating with stakeholders and other organizations;
• Leadership and management of capacity building;

b. To build a committed and highly capable Fellowship community in Afghanistan which can serve as a resource for planning and implementing capacity-building and training activities at the local and national levels.

PEOPLE

The Fellowship utilizes several layers of reinforcement and continued learning, allowing for the development of a committed, indigenous community, contextualizing the themes of the programme for the changing landscape within Afghanistan. These mutually reinforcing layers include;

FELLOWS

• First time participants in the programme. Fellows are the main beneficiaries of the cycle, and are divided into groups at the beginning of the Fellowship.

COACHES

• Coaches are selected from the stand-out Fellows of previous cycles and are tasked with providing unity and guidance to the group.
• Coaches are also responsible for being the main contact point between Mentors and the groups as a whole.
• Coaches receive additional “Coaching-for-Coaches” training so that they may continue their professional development while being equipped with the skills to coach their group.

AFGHAN RESOURCE PERSONS (ARPS)

• Selected from the stand-out Coaches of previous cycles, ARPs act as apprentice faculty and work to contextualise the training being offered to the changing realities in Afghanistan.
• ARPs are offered further training in a module specifically designed for them, examining social entrepreneurship.

MENTORS

• Mentors are experts, practitioners or academics in various disciplines.
• They are individuals willing to volunteer and share their knowledge, to guide and advise where requested, and are comfortable in a two-way learning relationship.
• The Mentors/Mentor teams, together with the Coaches will be asked to commit to overseeing at least one group of five to six ‘mentees’ for the duration of each Cycle.
• Mentors may also act as Resource Persons.

RESOURCE PERSONS

• Resource Persons provide the main presentations for the programme and attend workshops, either in-person or electronically.

PROCESS

Throughout the Fellowship process, participants utilize the training offered in a number of assignments and projects, which are both peer-, and Mentor-reviewed. This serves to reinforce the themes of the Fellowship programme, and instill a learning-by-doing element in the training architecture.

TEAM PROJECT WORK

• ASSIGNMENT I
  • Each Fellow undertakes an organization/needs assessment in her/his workplace for one of the following purposes:
  • To determine the needs and service requirements of a population or customer group served by the Fellow’s organization;
  • To determine the capacities and priority needs of the Fellow’s organization in order to more effectively support the organization’s mission; or
  • To determine the capacities and priority development needs of a particular group of employees within the organization (e.g., supervisors, engineers, scientists, teachers, secretaries, etc.)

In the weeks in between Workshop I and Workshop II, Fellows are offered guidance by UNITAR’s team of Mentors, Coaches and Afghan Resource Persons. Following individual presentation of the findings of Assignment One at Workshop II, each team uses the results of the organization needs assessments to decide on a team project.

• ASSIGNMENT II
  • Assignment II sees teams tasked with developing a concept paper in the form of a high-level Project Plan. Elements of the Fellowship covered in Workshop II contribute greatly to the development of Assignment II. This process also is focused upon by the Coaches, ARPs and Mentors, and discussed at length during Audio Conferences.

• ASSIGNMENT III
  • Assignment III calls for the development of a team project plan for organizational development or change projects for Afghanistan. Through a formal presentation involving all group members, a report is made upon the development of a detailed project plan for the team’s organizational development or change project as developed through Assignments I and II.

PERFORMANCE

The Fellowship sees three Workshops held throughout the process, two in Kabul, and one in Hiroshima, Japan.

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2018