Beyond training: Building capacity for decent work in Nigeria

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

I have always liked this quotation. This week in Abuja, it has particular meaning for me.

I am spending five days with Nigerian policymakers and representatives of employers and workers discussing evidence-based policymaking for decent work and social justice.

The timing is important. Nigeria has recently adopted a revised National Employment Policy, with ambitions around productive employment, youth, skills, inclusion and stronger employment institutions. The country is also implementing its Decent Work Country Programme, built around job creation, rights at work and social protection.

These are big ambitions. The harder question is how we translate them into better outcomes in people’s working lives.

And that brings me back to something much smaller: a five-day training programme.

By Friday, there will be plenty of things we can count. We can count how many people attended, how many sessions we delivered, how many exercises were completed, how many policy briefs were produced and, of course, how many certificates were handed out.

All these numbers are useful.

But they do not answer the question that increasingly interests me after many years working in capacity development: Did anything actually change?

This question matters particularly in the Nigerian labour market.

Creating more jobs is important. But the International Labour Organisation’s idea of decent work asks us to go further. Are jobs productive? Do they provide adequate incomes? Are fundamental rights at work respected? Do workers have social protection? Do women, young people and persons with disabilities have fair opportunities? Can workers and employers participate in decisions that affect them?

Nigeria’s labour market also presents difficult policy questions around informality, skills mismatches, youth employment, social protection and a rapidly changing world of work.

Addressing these challenges requires good policies. But good policies require institutions capable of understanding problems, finding credible evidence, listening to workers and employers, designing responses and learning from what happens afterwards.

That is why capacity matters. Yet capacity development is often measured by its easiest indicators.

Thirty people were trained. Ninety per cent completed the programme. Participants were satisfied. Five policy briefs were produced.

Mission accomplished. Or was it?

These figures tell us what we did. They tell us much less about what people and institutions are subsequently able to do.

Training is an activity. Learning tells us whether people acquired new knowledge and skills. Application asks whether they actually use those skills. Institutional capacity asks whether their organisations become better at doing something.

And then comes impact: does stronger capacity contribute to better policies and better outcomes for workers and enterprises?

Take our programme in Abuja. Participants are learning how to formulate policy questions, find evidence, assess its credibility, bring different findings together and communicate evidence clearly to decision-makers.

On Friday, we can assess whether they have learned these things.

But I am much more interested in what happens three or six months later.

Before putting a statistic into a briefing, do they check where it came from? Are they using labour-market data more effectively? Are their policy briefs clearer and better supported by evidence? Are they bringing together research and statistics with the experience of workers and employers?

These are things we can measure.

We could examine actual policy products before and after the programme. We could ask supervisors whether the quality of analysis has improved. We could see whether evidence is being used more systematically in policy discussions.

And we could ask participants one very simple question: What are you doing differently because of this training?

That may tell us considerably more than asking on Friday whether they enjoyed it.

But even that is not enough.

Suppose we train an excellent official. She becomes very good at finding and using evidence. Then she is promoted, transferred or leaves.

What happens to the capability?

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If it leaves with her, we developed an individual. We did not necessarily develop an institution.

So perhaps a more important question is:

Are participants sharing their skills with colleagues? Can they train others? Are these methods becoming part of normal institutional practice? Are ministries, statistical institutions, researchers, employers and workers exchanging evidence more effectively? Does the capability survive when people move on?

This matters in Nigeria because employment policy is not the responsibility of one ministry alone. Employment outcomes are shaped by decisions across government and by the actions of employers and workers. Nigeria’s National Employment Policy itself recognises this need for coordination.

For the ILO, there is another essential ingredient: social dialogue.

Evidence does not eliminate differences between governments, workers and employers. Nor should it. But credible evidence can give the social partners a stronger basis for understanding those differences, discussing policy choices and finding workable solutions.

Artificial intelligence makes these capabilities even more important.

We have never had easier access to information. AI can produce an impressive answer in seconds.

But an answer is not necessarily evidence.

Where did the statistic come from? Does the study exist? Who was studied? Is evidence from another country relevant to Nigeria? What evidence points in another direction?

Finding information is becoming easier. Judging it is becoming more important.

In the future, therefore, one measure of institutional capacity may be how well policymakers can question, verify, interpret and use information rather than simply how quickly they can find it.

We want better evidence and stronger institutions because they can contribute to better employment policies and, eventually, more decent work.

But here we must be modest.

If somebody produces a better policy brief three months after our programme, we can reasonably investigate whether the training contributed to it.

If employment improves in Nigeria two years later, we cannot claim that a five-day training programme caused it. Too many other forces shape labour-market outcomes.

The better question is often not “Did we cause this change?” but “What did we contribute to it?”

And there is one final indicator that international organisations like mine should be willing to apply to ourselves.

Five years from now, should Nigeria still need someone like me to fly from Geneva to Abuja to deliver exactly the same programme? I hope not.

There should increasingly be Nigerian trainers able to do it. Participants should become mentors. Institutions should retain the methods. Knowledge should spread beyond the people originally sitting in the training room.

On Friday, we will take photographs, complete evaluations and hand out certificates.

Those are the things we can count immediately.

The things that really count will take longer.

Are people applying what they learned? Are they producing better policy advice? Has knowledge spread to colleagues? Have institutions changed how they work? And eventually, has stronger institutional capacity contributed to more effective employment policies and better outcomes for Nigerian workers and enterprises?

We should be modest about claiming what any one programme can achieve.

But we should certainly be asking these questions.

Because the real measure of capacity development is not how many people we train.

It is what people and institutions are able to do differently after we leave.

Dr Prasad is Head of Education and Training in the Research and Statistics Department of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the ILO.