Project Examples

In Belize and St. Lucia high level retreats were undertaken in-country for the Cabinet and CEOs/Permanent Secretaries following the change of government in recent elections. These very successful seminars developed a framework for their working relationship between the cabinet and senior civil servants under the facilitation of Commonwealth advisers including a former Prime Minister from the region.
In recognition of the importance of performance management in improving public sector effectiveness and service delivery a series of workshops in Commonwealth Africa have been held to focus on strategic performance management and measurement. These provide opportunities for Countries to share experiences in implementing performance management; learn from each others experiences; identify challenges and solutions to the challenges. As part of the process Countries are developing Action Plans to assist them to align their systems to their national objectives as well as the objectives of individual Ministries. Management Development Institutes from the region have also participated to enable them to develop, design and implement training programmes that are relevant and aligned to the needs of the public service in this area. Preparation work is also under way for the next Commonwealth Heads of African Public Service Forum, in Seychelles in 2009 which will be held on the theme “Managing and Measuring Performance in the Public Service in Commonwealth Africa”and in Trinidad and Tobago in May 2009 on the theme “Transforming Societies”.
Effective procurement management and improved procedures have been developed through the creation of a network of procurement managers. This platform has facilitated networking and exchange of best practice between African and Caribbean countries.
The skills-gap in legislative drafting in Africa and the Caribbean continues to be addressed through the provision of mentoring, on-the-job training and specific training programmes, including for the staff of Attorney Generals’ offices.
Work to strengthen the capacity of the police force of Sierra Leone in the key areas of community policing, human rights, general criminal investigations and policing in a democratic setting has continued through the delivery of the fourth six-week training attachments for police officers to the Botswana Police College. This is an example of the south-south collaboration which we promote.
Concerns about decentralisation were explored through senior level workshops in Swaziland, The Gambia, and Ghana. These exposed central government policy makers and local government officials to myriad challenges and the solutions applied by other countries so that they can adapt the lessons learnt into their own country context. A number of publications were launched on the topic of decentralisation to support this work including the book “Financing Local Governments” which was launched by the Secretary-General in Malaysia, and a series of brief discussion papers on topical issues in local government.
In the field of Public Expenditure Management a project “Building Pyramids in the Valleys” was created with the aim of sustaining the transfer of skills and knowledge in member countries through engaging a group of senior officials drawn from finance, budget and audit officials in member countries. In 2007, Heads of Government and Finance Ministers endorsed and adopted the interactive Commonwealth Public Financial Management Self-Assessment Toolkit (CPFM-SAT), developed under this programme. This web based interactive toolkit is capable of evaluating country public finance reform, and Ministers have made a commitment to use the tool biennially. Under The Commonwealth Public Procurement Network, heads of national procurement agencies and senior procurement officials peer-reviewed the performance of 11 African countries.
Through our Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme, we have advised over 30 governments on various issues in PPPs and corporate governance and assisted in creating PPP units in Fiji, Namibia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Zambia. Training programmes for public sector executives in India and Malawi broadened the understanding of the range of partnership options that exist in emerging markets and enhanced the capacity to manage partnerships. The Secretariat also developed a flagship leadership programme for senior officials involved in structuring and developing PPPs.
Through our volunteer Commonwealth Service Abroad Programme we have supported projects for institutional capacity building through the delivery of technical assistance in all regions across a range of sectors including: health care delivery in the Maldives and Sierra Leone; improving productivity in the hand-craft sector in Swaziland; and ongoing collaboration with the Commonwealth Youth Programme for the development of youth credit initiatives in Botswana, Cameroon and Tanzania.
The Commonwealth-Grameen Poverty Dialogue Programme is a new initiative that facilitates the capacity building of delegations from various Commonwealth member states. It is a practically oriented training programme specifically aimed at facilitating women’s access to finance and alleviating poverty through microcredit, especially in rural areas. The programme will provide skills training to personnel of financial institutions so they can identify viable and sustainable projects and enterprises and are familiar with the processes involved in loan approval and disbursement. It will also promote networking among credit organisations.

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