Josh Billings has rightly said that there is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply. Through the training arrangements we genuinely try to open up vistas of experience sharing and help trainees to apply these learning as per their professional requisitions. It is no disguising the fact that short training courses help professionals to equip themselves with the cardinal requirements of the trade and apply it to the best of its utility. It not only facilitates their working mechanism but also galvanize their immaculate performance. Training unit at SDPI was initially meant to extend short training courses of three to five days to Pakistan Environment Program partners. This was to facilitate implementing National Conservation Strategy by means of strengthening capacity of key sectors related to environment. Therefore, a few seats were reserved for the sectors interested in such capacity building programs other than the PEP partners.

All those who attended these training programs, the partners and the donors described the training courses arranged at SDPI as useful. All this encouraged the training unit to embark upon launching courses for in-house capacity building and for the private/public sector organizations. Since its inception (July 1998) SDPI’s training unit has accumulatively arranged 76 training events under PECC, PEP and SDPI classifications and trained 1406 individuals. Gender ratio remained as 1093 men and 313 women.

The Population and Environment Communication Centre (PECC) at SDPI entrusted the unit to design and conduct trainings for the project on Population and Environment. The trainings on seven themes have been accomplished through which 190 individuals have been imparted training opportunity.

Training unit deems the quality component as major contributor to its success. The resource persons hired for such trainings are known for their expertise in the area. The reading material, group discussions, exercises, case studies and field visits/simulated exercises are integral parts of trainings. Moreover, it imparts trainings on an affordable fee package. The competitors having this standard of packages often stand above the limits of affordability in financial terms particularly to those organizations who run limited financial resources for human resource development as CBOs or small scale NGOs and small organizations. Even the packages like Environmental Impact Assessment or Environmental Monitoring that are designed for the corporate sector charge meager amount of fee.

The training unit is equipped with the latest art-of-the-craft accessories and a congenial learning atmosphere. The computer laboratory is spacious enough to accommodate the training groups to accomplish their group tasks. During the intervals trainees may well enjoy reading valuable material in the resource center or may also avail e-mail/internet facilities in the lab.

The training unit is currently working with five members well coordinated team of personals fully dedicated to shoulder all types of challenges in the realm of training. On the request of AKRSP, Chitral the unit designed and delivered a training course at Chitral with a great success. The criteria for the success of trainings is solely dependent on the evaluation carried out by the trainees. Their suggestions and comments are taken seriously and are brought forward to Fellows’ Council and Executive Director for necessary actions. This sort of transparent activities went a long way making this unit one among the best training institutes in the country.