The Training and Extension Centre (TES) in Osh, founded by the University of Osh and AFC Consultants International GmbH celebrated its 10th anniversary on 9 September 2009
Back in 1996, AFC Consultants International GmbH started to implement the project "Support to private agriculture and their institutions in Osh" on behalf of GTZ.
Just from the beginning the project supported farmers in the introduction of new methods in crop and livestock production. Support in farm organisation and marketing became further important components of the project.
At an early stage of the project, a strategy was developed to multiply the results of the project to a huge number of farmers and other actors in the value chain. Thus, a cooperation with the University of Osh was established in order to combine scientific knowledge with a practical approach to advise farmers.
In 1999, the University of Osh and AFC Consultants International GmbH founded the Training and Extension System (TES) in Osh within the frame of the GTZ-project mentioned before.
In addition to activities in training and extension services, close relationships to micro finance Institutions were established in order to make use of synergies by advising farmers and establishing contacts to micro finance institutions.
Already in 2001, TES bought an own building in order to construct a training centre with training rooms and some guest rooms due to the fact these were quite rare in Osh.
The support of GTZ / AFC terminated at the end of the year 2002.
However, regular contacts took place in the following years and AFC remained official founder and is still presented in the statutes of TES.
Thus we appreciated very much the invitation of TES to celebrate the 10th anniversary on 9 September 2009 in Osh and from AFC-Bonn Johannes Buschmeier and Hartwig Ungethüm appreciated to attended the ceremony.
Nowadays TES has approximately 25 staff members provide regularly extension services to approximately 2.000 farmers in the region following a group approach with 10 farmers per group on average. In addition to this, TES provides training courses on behalf of other projects which is not limited to the Osh region, but has been extended to other regions in the South of Kyrgyzstanand even to the neighbouring country Tajikistan.
Why did TES develop quite well and became a sustainable institution?
We would like to highlight the following key factors in a draft "ex post evaluation":
- Realistic analysis of the situation: creation of trust, discussion of ideas
- Proper strategy development: review of the key elements in a frequent manner, regular adjustments)
- Joint implementation of the strategy: motivation of staff, proper cost calculation and marketing of services,
- Implementation and multiplication: development of proper training materials.
Finally, mainly the management and the key staff involved are the most crucial success factors for the sustainable development. The management has to develop the organisation and to be open for new ideas
Already at an early stage, Ms. Ainagul Nassirova became Director of TES. She strengthened TES by the providing services on demand to clients in line with Human Resource Development of TES-staff.
Advice from foreign consultants was provided demand driven and therefore it was a substantial factor for the success: From AFC, we thank namely the long-term experts for their high valuable contribution.
- Klaus Gerhardt
- Hartwig Ungethüm
- Torsten Swoboda
- Christopher Arndt
Consequently AFC uses the experiences of TES in other countries, like Tajikistan, Russia and Mongolia.
We wish TES all the best and a further fruitful cooperation.
Johannes Buschmeier Hartwig Ungethüm
<< Index page
