Commonwealth conference shines a light on the knowledge economy

Delegates have returned from a week-long conference in Singapore sponsored by the Commonwealth on the ‘knowledge economy’ as a model for sustainable development.

The conference saw senior officials from across the Commonwealth learn about the rise of information as a tool for improving governance and boosting economic well-being, and the challenges some countries face in adapting to this new agenda.

Keynote presentations on the experiences of Singapore, South Korea and other countries were designed to help delegates develop action plans to address knowledge-based issues in their own countries.

Mohammed Jasimuddin, Asia Adviser in Governance and Institutional Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat, said: “The participants were able to learn from each other’s rich and varied experiences, including the case studies presented to them from the Asia region.

“They developed Action Plans that focus on specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound targets in their technical presentations that they hope to implement in their respective organisations.”

Dr Despina Martidou-Forcier, chief education officer at the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, speaking after the conference, acknowledged it was likely to directly influence her own government’s education action plan, which is currently in development.

“We are drawing up a plan to improve the quality of our education and research to entice students from home and abroad,” she said. “At the moment 60 per cent of our youth in higher education study outside Cyprus - we want to reverse this trend.

“In Singapore, for instance, they have appointed a chief of knowledge in the government who has overarching responsibility for investigating areas where there is a lack of knowledge. In such cases the government will offer personal training for employees to help them improve skills in key areas, thereby ironing out any gaps in knowledge.”

Some 18 officials from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Mediterranean heard about how to better manage knowledge and nurture innovation for development at the conference, which was co-sponsored by Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ms Malalu Muchengwa, assistant director of Zambia’s Public Service Management Division, also speaking after the conference, said: “What I took away from this course is just how cost and time effective it is to store information. Some of the analysis and research we produce are not stored for future use, which is extremely worrying as a lot of time and effort is put into this work.

“I compared notes with other countries from Asia, Europe and Africa on the most effective ways documents can be stored in the long run so we ensure that we don’t end up repeating any work already done.”

The conference took place at the Singapore Management University from 25 to29 May 2009.

Secretariat Links:

• Public Sector Development
• Country Profile: Singapore