Building Capacity in the Regions of the Commonwealth

We work with Commonwealth member countries in response to their public sector development capacity building needs by providing specialised advisory and consultancy services. Primarily we assist national governments to transform their public services into responsive, citizen focused, results oriented, sustained and effective service delivery systems.

For example, we contributed to strengthening the political-administrative interface through organising joint workshops between Cabinet Ministers and Permanent Secretaries in Belize, Grenada, Mozambique, St Lucia, Swaziland and Lesotho. These aimed towards ensuring collaboration and commitment to achieve good governance in times of political transition and improved public service delivery for the achievement of national development outcomes. In addition to the various capacity building events which we organise, we hold annual forums that bring the Heads of Public Services/Cabinet Ministers together to dialogue, network and share best practices on contemporary public sector issues and to promote comparative research.

In Malaysia, the Secretariat is facilitating regional diplomatic training for foreign service officials at the Malaysian Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in Kuala Lumpur.

In Pakistan, we are funding a meeting of Heads of Staff Colleges of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore at the National Management College, Lahore, aimed at strengthening and fostering institutional linkages.

In collaboration with the Government of India, we are supporting a regional programme in Asia focusing on the Right to Information. Since 1997, more than 50 countries have formally adopted freedom of information legislation, including India with its 2005 Right to Information Act. In an effort to ensure successful application of the Act, the Government organised large numbers of seminars, workshops and training programmes and in the process has developed a vast resource base which can utilised for promoting freedom of information initiatives in other Commonwealth countries.