LIVE project training at ISTVS

28 February 2017 - On February 12, a five-days training started at ISTVS, which is part of the Livestock Investment and Vocational Education (LIVE) Programme funded by DANIDA and implemented by Terra Nuova and ILRI. The participants of the training include ISTVS academic staff, Dr. Mohammed Nuh Jama and Dr. Mohammed Elmi who are ISTVS -Mekelle graduates, as well as Mohammed Abdul a representative of Terra Nuova office in Garowe. The ISTVS Principal officiated the beginning of the training highlighting the importance of the training and highlighting the two objectives of the training that is designing MS-Access databases and data management in Stata. Facilitators of the training are Nicholas N. Ndiwa and Francis Wanyoike from International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi.

Preliminary information on the LIVE programme

LIVE programme will liaise with the Ministry of Livestock to invest in human and physical capacity at IGAD Sheikh Technical Veterinary School and reference center to enable it to undertake livestock research and disseminate results. Live programme will support the Ministry of Livestock to enforce standards for animals in markets, during transport, in quarantine stations and during shipping as outlined in the Animal Welfare by –law No.34/2006.

The live programme will collaborate with the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) to invest in the human capacity development of the Ministry of Livestock and other ministries to enable them to use research results in public policy formulation and implementation. It will also collaborate with the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) to invest in the human and physical capacity of the Somaliland Quality control commission so as to strengthen the application of quality standards in trade and safeguard consumer safety.

LIVE programme will support the Somaliland and Chambers to Commerce, Industries, and Agriculture to operate the Livestock Market Information System and avail up to date information to guide policy formulation as well as become a tool for training and research at ISTVS.

Day 1: data management training

During day 1, the activities focused on the review of the training objectives, the training program, and the manner in which the training would have been conducted; an introduction to MS Access databases and the designing of a data table. In the afternoon session, participants have learned how to design MS access data tables, guided on an exercise on creating MS Access data tables as well as learned about relationships of data.

Day 3: the use of Stata effectively

Becoming intimately familiar with all the three components of Stata was the aim of day three’s training. The morning session began with a brief recap of issues from previous days training followed by an introduction of what is STATA, why STATA, the STATA environment and getting help in STATA. In the afternoon session, participants learned how to get data into STATA as well as saving or exporting data.

Francis Wanyoike and Nicholas Ndiwa, the two facilitators from ILRI have made the sessions so far very interactive and the participants’ active participation in the exercises given shows their zeal to learn.

The Head of department of the DEAM programme, Haileselassie Geberemariam, welcomes this initiate by ILRI and explains that “as a higher education institution, ISTVS has a mandate of research, outreach program and academics and as such, the ongoing five-day training on data management will help the institution fulfill this mandate. In terms of outreach program, ISTVS staff will now be equipped with the knowledge and skills to train other professionals from other organizations or the local community with data management skills and even generate revenue for the school from such trainings. In terms of academics, the training will be beneficial during supervision of students undertaking research. The capacity building programme will also help each participant in career development as there are those who are about to start their PHD programme and hence this comes in handy. Last but not least, ISTVS will now conduct more quality researches which will be ready for publishing.” 

Similarly, one of ISTVS students’ representatives, Farah Yusuf, who is currently in his final year of his diploma course, has expressed his gratitude to the school administration for organizing such a training to build the capacity of his teachers. He continued to say, “I will encourage all ISTVS students especially those in their final year to seek their tutors during the weekly tutorials and request them to teach you how to use MS Access as well as STATA-at least the basics for efficient day to day use.” 

Day 5: end of the training

The last day began with a presentation on “Knowledge of Livestock Grading and Market Participation among Small Ruminant Producers in Northern Somalia”, a research project that was actively conducted by Wanyoike, Mtimet, Ndiwa, Karen Marshall from ILRI, Godiah from Terra Nuova, and Warsame, from ISTVS.

While the grading system presents an opportunity for animal producers to make higher profits not much is known about their knowledge and utilisation of the system as they were not included in these studies. This study sought to fill this dearth of information by focusing on market participation and awareness about the grading and pricing system among the sheep and goats producers. The study was motivated by the realization that producers cannot make deliberate efforts to exploit the grading system to realize higher incomes if they are not aware or have the information.

Thereafter was a recap of all the previous activities which included designing tables, forms, queries and reports and relationships in Ms-Access datasets; getting data into STATA, saving or exporting data, generating and replacing of variables, sorting, reshaping, by processing, bulk processing, missing values, variable types, merging, appending and joining data and finally creating summarized data sets. Participants expressed gratitude and appreciation to the facilitators and partners who were involved in the training.

The ISTVS Principal, Fred Wesonga officially closed the workshop. He thanked ILRI and Terra Nuova for organizing the event and thanked the staff for their active participation. He encouraged them to pass on the acquired skills to the students.

 

​(by Fred Wesonga - ISTVS Principal)