This paper examined manpower development programmes and academic staff productivity in public universities in Rivers State. The study was guided by three objectives, three research questions and three null hypotheses. The study adopted a correlational survey research design. The population of this study comprised all the 3,842 academic staff of 3 public universities in Rivers State. The sample size for the study was seven 768 academic staff representing 20% of the entire population. Proportionate stratified random sampling was adopted as the sampling technique for the study. Questionnaire were the instruments for the study and they were titled: Manpower Development Programmes Scale (MDPS) and Academic Staff Productivity Scale (ASPS). Cronbach alpha reliability test was conducted to ascertain the reliability of the instruments, of which the reliability coefficients of Manpower Development Programmes Scale and Academic Staff Productivity Scale were 0.87 and 0.85 respectively. Research question one to two were answered using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC), while same correlation statistics was used to test the hypotheses three at 0.05 significance level. Also, research question 3 was answered using multiple regression, while hypotheses 3 was tested using ANOVA associated with multiple regression with the help of statistical package in social science (SPSS). The finding of the study showed that there is a high and positive relationship between in-service training and academic staff productivity in public universities in Rivers State. Also, there is a low and positive relationship between mentoring and academic staff productivity in public universities in Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government and the university authorities should encourage mentoring programme by paring experienced and less experienced teaching staff, and also by provision of allowances for the professors and other senior teaching staff as this will help to improve mentoring for high productivity. In addition, the university management should encourage in-service training as it will help in the improvement of academic staff through professionalism and also help in their job productivity.