• Commonwealth:
• News:
• News Archive Search:
• Promoting Effective Leadership and Public Sector Reform

Promoting Effective Leadership and Public Sector Reform

21 February 2008

Commonwealth Seminar in NZ to boost knowledge and results by top officials

The Commonwealth Advanced Seminar on Leadership and Change in the Public Sector will be held in Wellington, New Zealand, from 25 February to 7 March 2008. It is designed for ministers and senior officials leading reform in the public sector.

This pan-Commonwealth programme, which is the 13th in the series, will focus on how different countries tackle dilemmas arising from efforts to improve public service delivery. The seminar will also examine ways to develop efficient civil services and decentralize decision-making. It is supported by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation and run by the Commonwealth Secretariat in collaboration with the New Zealand Agency for International Development and the Victoria University of Wellington.

This seminar has attracted 37 participants from 18 countries and territories: Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam , Cook Islands, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Zambia.

They participants are officials from various sectors – agriculture, executive government, finance, foreign affairs, housing, industry, local government, public service, security, transport, and youth.

“The seminar will explore issues involved in engineering significant public sector change in developing countries,” said Mr John Wilkins, Public Sector Management Adviser in the Governance and Institutional Development Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, who is overseeing the seminar programme. 

“Participants will be able to study the public sector reform experience of New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries and also examine good governance, performance management, effective leadership and efficient service delivery,” he added.

At the end of the ten-day seminar, each participant will deliver a presentation on the public sector reform efforts in their organisation or country and the challenges in addressing various issues.

Some of the presentations will address issues in change management, decentralisation, ethics and values, good governance, restructuring, pay and benefits administration, pension reform, performance management, and service delivery.

In line with the 20th anniversary of the inauguration of New Zealand’s reforms, participants will be engaging in a special two-day symposium with their New Zealand counterparts to review the track record and to pinpoint the lessons learnt that have cascaded throughout the Commonwealth.