新作坊

Sustaining Human Resource Development in Africa: the Influence of Expatriates

摘要：

Not long after arriving in Africa I was fortunate to land a 30 day training contract with a large organisation. Despite having a sizeable training staff, the training manager warned me of their inability. After a few days I developed a much more positive impression of the training centre staff, who were all Africans. Despite my efforts to point out their various merits, the training manager retained his dismissive perspective, recounting various tales of African management disasters. He, like myself, was an expatriate. After meeting more expatriate managers, I realised that this first encounter with an expatriate manager was, unfortunately, notgoing to be an exception. In this article I examine some of the factors which may contribute to the sceptical and pessimistic attitudes which some expatriate managers appear to have concerning the ability and performance of African managers. Such attitudes threaten the sustainability of many of the projects which expatriate managers or consultants have been contracted to set up. At a time of struggling African economies, rising debt and increasing difficulties with sustaining development projects (Bossert, 1990), it is crucial to ensure the effectiveness of Human Resource Development (HRD) programmes. Without investing in and developing ’African’ managers’ ability to manage African problems, the continent will remain dependent on increasingly undependable aid.