NASLA Prepares To Host International Colloquium

Created in 2020 to serve as a nursery of local governance staff, the National School For Local Administration (NASLA) is pushing higher to becoming a reference centre nationally and beyond for decentralization and regional development. In that vein, NASLA has consistently strove in retraining Council personnel and has recently received its first batch of trainees who are holders of University Degrees. As such, NASLA is breaking from its predecessor, defunct CEFAM, tradition that only trained Primary, Secondary and High School leavers. Even more, NASLA is organizing a colloquium with participants from other countries to pool ideas to better understand, address and propose plausible recommendations on the role and importance of Regional and Local Administrations (RLAs) in crisis management. NASLA is inviting professionals, teachers, professors, senior researchers, and scientific experts, post-graduate students, public and private enterprises and civil society organizations for a three-day brain storming in the South West Regional capital, Buea from 21 through 23 June, this year. The colloquium of recognised importance is in line with one of its missions to strengthen applied research on the management of RLAs to increase visibility and performance in applied research in the domain of decentralization and local development.
Cameroon Tribune met the Director General of NASLA, Tanyitiku E. Bayee, in his Buea campus office to throw light on the institution he incarnates. He speaks of the learning institution, its mission and what is expected of the colloquium expected to be a veritable hatchery of new ideas to enrich the Head of State’s policy to decentralize Cameroon.

You have been at the helm of NASLA since its inception and in the days ahead you are holding an international colloquium. Can you present your institution to the expected numerous participants and visitors?
The National School of Local Administration was created by a Presidential decree on March 2, 2020. It is a public administrative and professional establishment, with a distinct legal personality and financial autonomy. The headquarters of NASLA is in Buea, and our vision is to make NASLA an institution of higher learning, providing training for jobs in the domain of decentralisation and regional development. The dynamism of our staff is an advantage. We have over one hundred and ninety-six staff members whose performances and skills are an accumulation from diverse domains. For our senior and mid-level staff, we have the following backgrounds: accounting and finance; management; civil engineering; human resource management; health; teaching; administrative officers; researchers and so on.
NASLA has a training policy to ensure the performance of local elected officials throughout their term of office and of staff throughout their professional lives.  It is a training oriented towards the development of local skills, without which no performance can take place in the Regional and Local Administrations (RLA). This is why we see the NASLA, and rightly so, as the bedrock of local development. Indeed, for local elected officials, NASLA offers specific training sessions whose modules aim at the acquisition and development of skills in steering management of local resources. For officers and young people interested in local administration, NASLA has an initial training programme which lasts for a maximum of two years and is geared towards the five universally accepted professional fields for Regional and Local Authorities, namely: "Steering, Management and Resource Management"; ‘‘Local public policies for territorial planning and development"; “Technical interventions"; ''Animation and Services to the Population'' and "Security fields”, which include specialisations related to the municipal police and fire and rescue services. It is therefore only logical that NASLA should offer its trainees an advanced training programme, which is geared towards career paths and lasting for a maximum of six months. NASLA ensures professional training in the areas of local administration in accordanc...