Download Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders

UNITED NATIONS NATIONS UNIES
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)
Division for Public Administration and Development Management
Report on the Capacity Building Roundtable Conference and Workshop
on “Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders:
From Policy to Implementation”
Rabat, Morocco
2- 6 March 2015
By:
Mr. John-Mary Kauzya
Chief, Public Administration Capacity Branch
Division for Public Administration and Development Management
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
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Report on the Capacity Building Roundtable Conference and Workshop on
“Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders: From Policy
to Implementation”. Rabat, Morocco, 2- 6 March 2015
Background:
Most African countries are at varying levels of reforming their public administration and the success
in achieving the vision of a more professional and effective public administration requires strong
leadership at both political and administrative levels. Effective, efficient, responsive, and accountable
leadership is also a pre-requisite for the modernization of public administration as currently
experienced in most African countries. The foundation for the success of these reforms will be strong
leadership in the government to enable citizen satisfaction in service delivery by the public service. It
is recognised that the reform agenda will require a major cultural change to ensure its success, yet
invariably it needs to be emphasised that these efforts will need to be inextricably linked with a more
effective civil service leadership hence the quest for sustained quality leadership capacity
development especially in Public Sector Institutions.
During the Roundtable Conference of the African Association for Public Administration and
Management (AAPAM) held in Kigali, Republic of Rwanda in 2013, where DPADM/UNDESA was
a key facilitator UNDESA was requested to intensify its support to Africa’s Public Sector Institutions
in leadership and human resource management capacity development. Subsequently AAPAM
requested for support to the capacity building roundtable conference and workshops which took place
in Rabat Morocco focused on theme of “Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic
Leaders: From Policy to Implementation”. The workshop targeted the following Officials: Ministers
responsible for public service in African countries, Senior public servants from Ministries of public
service, Human resource managers in the public sector, representatives of management development
institutes and representatives of development partners involved in supporting public administration
capacity development.
The following is a brief report on the workshop. The main report will be published by the AAPAM in
a book form as they always do with their annual roundtable conference.
Capacity building workshop, Venue and Hosting:
The Capacity building workshop was conducted within the 36th Roundtable Conference of
the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM) and co-hosted
by the Ministry of Public Sector and the Modernization of Administration, Kingdom of
Morocco in conjunction with the AAPAM Secretariat at the Islamic Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco.
Countries and Participants:
Three Hundred and Eighty (380) participants from Thirty Eight (38) countries attended the
Conference. Among the participants were Cabinet Ministers; Heads of Public/Civil Services
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and Secretaries to Cabinet; Permanent/Principal Secretaries and other high ranking
Government Officials. Others were Chairpersons and Commissioners for Public Service
Commission; Heads of Management Development Institutes; Development Partners;
representatives of Statutory Institutions; scholars and researchers and AAPAM Young
Professionals. The countries represented at the Roundtable included Azerbaijan, Austria,
Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Burundi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Ethiopia,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali,
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South
Africa, Somali-land, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda,
United Kingdom, United States of America , Zambia and Zimbabwe . The level and variety
of the participants provided the right audience for discussing the subject of: “Effective
Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders: From Policy to Implementation”
Objective:
The main purpose of the DPADM/UNDESA’s intervention was to contribute to the
strengthening of the capacity of political leadership and senior public service leaders in
Africa to carry out integrated and coordinated public policy formulation, decision,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Through increased knowledge and awareness by
political and administrative leaders in public sector institutions in Africa of the importance of
integrated and coordinated policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation in
achieving the Post 2015 Agenda and Sustainable Development as well as through ) enhanced
collaboration and partnership between political leaders and senior public servants
Main activities of DPADM/UNDESA contribution during the conference/workshop
DPADM represented by John-Mary Kauzya (Chief of PACB) and Stefania Senese
(Governance and Public Administration officer) participated in facilitating the Roundtable
Conference and the workshop as by: : making presentations on (i) “Effective Partnership
between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders: From Policy to Implementation” (ii):
Strengthening Professionalism, Ethics, Integrity and Accountability in the Public Service for
Sustainable Development in Africa, and (iii) on the United Nations Public Service Awards
Program. They also facilitated the breakaway workshop on Effective Partnership between
Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders: From Policy to Implementation” and attended the APSHRMnet Executive meeting which reviewed the strategy and collaboration between the APS-HRMnet and DPADM/DESA in developing human resource management capacities in the
Public Service in Africa.
Highlights of the major issues discussed
The following are the highlights of the major issues discussed:
1: On Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders: From
Policy to Implementation”
Achieving sustainable development in all its pillars is one huge challenge for Africa’s
leadership which will require effectiveness in making and implementing appropriate
integrated public policies
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In a globalised democratic dispensation, public policies are not determined /decided by
individual leaders but a labyrinth of actors at global, regional, national and local level and
in all sectors; sometimes making it laborious to sort out who is or are the most powerful
determinants of public policies in a given country
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The whole process of policy initiation, formulation, debate, decision,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation will have to be not only collaborative
but also, and most importantly, integrated. There is going to be need for
transformative leadership to innovate policy making processes and aim at
outcomes that will achieve sustainable development
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Africa needs a transformative leadership that can formulate and implement a
coordinated and comprehensive strategy that involves governments, the private
sector, civil society, and the international community to transform African
economies into development machines to uplift the people of Africa from the
poverty situation most of them are engulfed in now and achieve sustainable
development.
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Transformative public sector leadership for sustainable development is basically
about four things: transforming individuals, transforming organizations,
transforming institutions, and transforming societies. Even if these four are
different in their scope, context, value and results when they are integrated in the
way they are strategically planned and implemented, they complement each other
to complete the process, quality and nature of socio-politico-economic
development.
•
Transformative leadership emphasizes capacity development because many
countries, especially the developing ones, face various challenges in ensuring
integrated policies and strategies, the biggest challenges being in the area of
inadequate public sector capacity including human, institutional, and financial
capacities.
•
Partnership between political and bureaucratic leadership at central government
level alone is not sufficient to make and implement a public policy.
Transformative policy leadership goes by far beyond executive and legislative
leadership. Collaborative leadership in all sectors and at all levels is critical
because it cannot be only the ruling party to debate, decide and implement the
policy.
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It was strongly recommended that capacity building programs including those
implemented by Management Development Institutes should include training in
transformative leadership and integrated policy and strategy formualation,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation
2: On Strengthening Professionalism, Ethics, Integrity and Accountability in the
Public Service for Sustainable Development in Africa
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The quality of the public service is not only in its structure, or in its behavior, or
even in its institutional set up and qualifications of the public servants and their
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leadership. All these in themselves do not amount to a good public service. The
services delivered define whether the public service is good for the people or not.
Most Public Service Reform programs that do not result in much improvement in
the public service fail precisely because they remain structuralist and do not
extend to the increase and improvements in the services delivered. The quality of
the public service is verified in the quality, equity, quantity, accessibility and
affordability of the service that it delivers.
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Managing the Public service is essentially about two critical things: the services
delivered, and the people who deliver the services. Global, regional and national
policies, strategies and commitments to sustainable development and poverty
reduction need human capacities in the Public Sector to transform them into
tangible and visible results. The knowledge, know-how and skills, networks and
attitudes of personnel in the Public Sector are at the heart of the performance of
countries because it is through them and by them that services are planned and
delivered, critical innovations conceived and realized and needed reforms carried
out.
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The performance of public sector institutions is appreciated by citizens not only in
terms of the quality, quantity and timeliness of the goods and services they
provide but also in the manner in which public servants conduct themselves in
their interaction with the public and in handling the resources that are entrusted to
them.
•
While the behaviour of public servants is human it can greatly be influenced by
the institutional arrangements, laws, rules, regulations and codes of conduct under
which the public servants work.
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Public Sector institutions stand better chances of being effective when they are
operated by public servants working with professionalism, ethics, integrity,
openness, transparency and accountability to prevent all forms of corruption in
public administration and effectively deliver public goods and services.
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The Workshop recalled “Principles” expressed in the African Charter on values
and principles of public service and administration and emphasised that focusing
on them in the development of the capacities of public servants will enhance
professionalism, ethics, and integrity in the public service. The principles are as
presented in the diagram bellow:
Focused on the way
Public servants treat
citizens
Focus thed onexpected
behaviour of public
servants
Focused on the Public
Services as an institution
•Equality
•Non discrimination
•Impartiality,
•Fairness
•Promotion and
protection of rights
•Professionalism
•Ethics.
•Accountability
•Integrity
•Transparency
•Continuity.
•Adaptability
•Effectiveness,
•Efficiency
•Responsibility
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Committed leadership, training, enforcement of laws, rules, regulations, codes of
conduct etc, and readjustments in societal values are some of the requirements that
will improve professionalism, ethics and integrity in the Public service in Africa.
It was strongly recommended that African governments work more closely with UNDESA
and other Development partners to include in public sector reform and capacity development
programs the development of leadership, professionalism, ethics, and integrity in the Public
Service.
Annexes
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Presentation on: “Effective Partnership between Ministers and Bureaucratic Leaders:
From Policy to Implementation”
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Presentation on: “Strengthening Professionalism, Ethics, Integrity and Accountability
in the Public Service for Sustainable Development in Africa”,
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