Highlight

Past and more recent discoveries have identified commercial quantities of oil and gas resources in Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin. The Government of Uganda (GOU) realized that it must help provide the skilled manpower that Uganda’s oil & gas sector required. As a first step in this process, in 2013 international oil companies (IOCs) commissioned an Industrial Baseline Survey (IBS) to identify the types and number of national workers they would need for their upstream, midstream and downstream operations.

In 2014 the GOU also contracted Mott MacDonald, the UK’s largest construction firm, and Cambridge Education to carry out a Capacity Needs Analysis (CNA) for Oil and Gas Sector Skills in Uganda. On February 1, 2021, GIZ Uganda contracted Ultimate Partners (UPi) – Uganda to carry out the CNA Update Project.

The Challenge

Many natural resource-rich developing countries, particularly in Africa, have not benefited satisfactorily from the exploitation of their natural resources. Though they receive significant financial benefits from the export of natural resources, the development linkages to other economic sectors remain marginal in terms of domestic value added and employment creation. Capacity development for skills development is critical for employment and national industrial participation in the oil and gas sector in Uganda.

The Approach

UPi carried out this assignment within the demand assessment framework. The key steps are summarized as follows:

• Identify core petroleum sectors and associated sub-sectors;
• Work from the bottom up and first identify occupations;
• Group job titles that are related to Occupational Areas;
• Group Occupational Areas into broader Disciplines; and
• Establish Qualification/Skills Levels and then categorize/classify each job title accordingly.

The Results

• 2014 Demand Assessment for labor market manpower requirements during the Construction Phase of oil & gas field and pipeline updated;
• Worker Profiles, including job descriptions, certification, and prior experience requirements prepared;
• Workforce Skill Development Strategy Plan (WSDSP) updated; and
• Skills Transferability Index developed.