About five hundred officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry were trained in capacity building at the College of Natural Resources (CNR) in Lobesa, Punakha. The short-term training conducted in group-wise for two years since 2017 concluded last Thursday.
With this, it is expected to enhance the knowledge and the capacity of working skills for the officials in the ministry.
The participants of the last group are mostly the rangers from various Forestry Divisions in the country. During their weeklong training, they learned mostly about the area landscaping and recreational area development in their respective jurisdictions.
Likewise, some other officials from the various department and agencies under the ministry also attended the training in other various capacities. Trainings were given considering the requirement of the trainees and proposal submitted to the ministry.
“From the training, we expect that our participants who have participated in the training so far can at least take skills, techniques and knowledge back to their field and make their job easier and more efficient,” said Ugyen, the Training Coordinator in CNR, Lobesa, Punakha.
The participants have acquired skills and the disseminating knowledge on Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock, Marketing, Biodiversity and other technical parts. It is also expected to benefit the participants in bringing better conceptualization, planning, implementing and monitoring the activities related to the management of natural resources.
According to some of the trainees, they face challenges to carry out their works effectively and efficiently due to lack of enough working skills and knowledge, but with this training, they expect to bring vast changes in their career.
“We have to always create a recreational area for the people who live in a rural area, also in the town area. Very little has been done regarding the training on capacity building. But nevertheless, now the government is insisting more in the beautification and then creating more recreational area for the people, so, I think, with such kind of training, things would turn out better and will become a beautiful place to live in,” said Tashi Tshering, a Sr. Ranger in Samtse Division.
“I feel like this training is an opportunity for everyone of us to solve our problem and the challenges that we are facing so far in our working fields. We have been facing difficulties in exhibiting our works efficiently due to lack of some skills,” added Phuntsho, a Sr. Ranger of Jigme Khesar Strict Nature Reserve.
The Ministry of Agriculture had given the training package to the CNR as per the availability of capacity and expertise to provide professional training. The training was conducted to enhance the working capacity and professionalism of their officials of both the central and decentralized level under the ministry.
The European Union Technical Cooperation Project of the Agriculture Ministry of Bhutan funded the training with Nu 7.4 M, basically to support the renewable natural resources sector in the country.