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Workshop to modernise human resource management

17 January 2007

Pan-Commonwealth CFTC programme to commence in Singapore on 22 January 2007

Modernising human resource management in public services is the focus of a workshop that will take place in Singapore from 22 January to 2 February 2007.

About 25 participants from across the Commonwealth are scheduled to attend the programme, which aims to create awareness of developments in human resource management practices and their impact on organisational transformation and national development.

“The workforce in developing countries is diverse, talented and highly mobile on the one hand, but on the other, there are large pools of unskilled and untapped human potential,” said Richard Gold, Interim Director of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD), which is managing the workshop.

“These challenges call for a paradigm shift and the development of new responsive strategies to address the critical shortage of human resources.”

The study programme will address the needs of senior officers who design and develop management policies as they can play a role in building capacity for effective performance management.

“The role of a human resource specialist has changed over time from implementing policies to designing and managing strategies,” stated Taboka Nkhwa, Human Resource Management Adviser and Head of the Africa Section in GIDD.

“Developing countries have neither the financial resources nor the capability to attract talent to compete on the global market. Hence the workshop has been designed to assist senior officers in providing advisory and strategic leadership on human resource issues,” she added.

The programme is sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC) and Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.