National Cereals and Produce Board, NCPB staff and Facilitators from NACOSTI
The National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation (NACOSTI) facilitated a three-day training on the Science, Technology, and Innovation performance contracting indicator and reporting to the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) Focal Person and Champion(s). The training was convened by the NCPB.
In accordance with the purposes of the STI Act enactment, the Financial Year 2021/2022 Performance Contracting Guidelines (18th Cycle) released by the Ministry of Public Service and Gender incorporated a performance indicator on STI mainstreaming. The implementation of this indicator is to be coordinated by NACOSTI, and requires Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to mainstream STI into their operations, programmes and projects in line with provisions and aspirations of the STI Act. Accordingly, during the FY 2021/2022, MDAs are required to appoint an STI Focal Person and Champions to coordinate STI mainstreaming, and to document available Research, Technology, and Innovation, as well as human resource capacity as per guidelines provided by NACOSTI.
As part of the implementation of indicator, MDAs are also required to develop and implement an Institutional STI Strategy using the template provided by NACOSTI and submit quarterly and annual reports to NACOSTI.
During the training, NACOSTI Director General Prof. Walter Oyawa emphasized the importance of implementing the PC STI mainstreaming indicator. The NCPB team was given clarity on the origin of the indicator, roles, and requirements of focal person and champion(s), overview and development of the institutional STI strategy, requirements by MDAs implementing the indicator and the quarterly reporting template.
The STI strategy was a key deliverable of the training session since it will aid the implementation of the STI indicator. NCPB staff realized the necessity of including STI in their activities by the end of the three-day exercise, as Mr. Noah Koskei, NCPB’s Corporate Planning Manager and STI Focal Person, underlined in his closing remarks that indeed the training was eye opener and critical for better understanding and realization that NCPB mandate is already anchored and infused in STI and thus the need moving forward is to identify ,structure and segregate the same in the NCPB organisational STI strategy and continuously implement